illustration: king matthias and the beggar boy] king matthias and the beggar boy. [illustration: "come here, gossip jew; there is nothing to fear." page 66.] [illustration: king matthias and the beggar boy. t. nelson & sons] king matthias and the beggar boy adapted from the hungarian of baron nicholas jósika by selina gaye author of "ilka: the captive maiden," "dickie winton," &c. &c. [illustration] t. nelson and sons london, edinburgh, and new york 1902 contents. i. mr. samson's castle, 9 ii. miska the beggar boy, 21 iii. "touch me at your peril!" 32 iv. in the robber's nest, 42 v. caught, 53 vi. i am the king's page! 68 vii. sent to prison, 80 viii. the beggar boy's song, 94 ix. the king's whim, 109 king matthias and the beggar boy. chapter i. mr. samson's castle. towards the close of a gloomy day in autumn, a very dusty traveller was riding quietly up to a castle which stood perched on a height in one of the northern counties of hungary. a very extraordinary-looking castle it was, if it was a castle at all, which one might be inclined to doubt; for it looked more like a square block hewn by giants out of the ribs of the mountain, and left to itself for centuries, until its walls had become mouldy and moss-grown. one thing which gave it an odd appearance was that, as far as could be seen, it had no roof; the fact being that it was built round a quadrangle, and that the roof, or rather half-roof, sloped downwards and inwards from the top of the outer walls. but what was even more remarkable still was that the building had neither door nor window in any one of its four sides; so that how the inhabitants, if there were any, ever went in or out, was quite a mystery. people had had a good deal to say about the owner of this extraordinary stronghold for many a year past, and all sorts of wild stories were told of him. but no one but his own hired servants and men-at-arms had ever set eyes upon him--so far as they knew, that is to say. neither he nor his servants were ever to be seen coming or going, and how they managed was quite unknown; but for all that they made their presence felt, and very unpleasantly felt too. the man on horseback had drawn nearer by this time, and was gazing up at the huge pile, scanning it carefully, but quite unable to discover so much as a chink or cranny in the grey, weather-beaten walls. at last he shook his head and said with a smile, "why, the castle is in such a strong position and so well fortified that it must be almost impregnable! but of course it is inhabited, and the inhabitants are human beings, not demons; and wherever human beings can dwell, human beings must also be able to enter. "well, i am here at last! and little enough mr. samson guesses what manner of visitor has come so close to his hiding-place. i am glad i came, for it is always best to see with one's own eyes. and now that i am here, the next thing is how to get in. let us look and consider. no use," he continued, after a moment or two; "i can't think of any way. if i could only see some one, a living creature of some sort, to make inquiries of! nonsense! i'll wager i know more about the nest than any one hereabouts. "but still, i have been six hours on horseback, and as far as the eye can see there is no wayside inn or public-house or even farm-house in sight, and a man can't help being tired even if he be a vice-count--or more! well, let's be going on," he went on, putting his horse once more in motion. the young man before us was of middle height and strongly built, with fiery dark eyes, and curly chestnut hair; he was very plainly clad, and his horse was no better caparisoned than if it had belonged to some son of the _puszta_, or steppes. quietly, and with eyes and ears both on the alert, he rode round the height on which the fortress stood. "if i don't see anything," he said to himself with a laugh, "they don't see me; let's be off! "eh, and yet i should be glad if i could come across a human being of some sort, if he were no bigger than the rowel of my spur.--hi! hi there, _földi_ [countryman]," cried the horseman all at once, as he caught sight of some one trudging along the road round the shoulder of the hill. the wayfarer thus addressed turned and came up to him, and as soon as he was within speaking distance he said in humble tones, "_uram_ [sir], i am hungry; i have not eaten a morsel to-day. have pity on me, _kegyelmed_[1] [your grace]." [footnote 1: a common form of polite address in hungarian.] then he cast a glance, not altogether devoid of envy, at the dainty horseman, who was so comfortably clad, and who looked, to judge by his countenance, as if his hunger had been well satisfied. "here," said the rider, giving the beggar a small coin; for the boy attracted him, and he thought to himself that he could hardly ever remember to have seen a face with such a peculiarly taking expression. moreover, in spite of the mud and dirt with which his skin was incrusted, it was impossible not to be struck by his fine features, which were of a purely oriental type, and lighted up by a pair of large dark eyes as black as the raven's wing. the man on horseback had given the lad a trifle on the spur of the moment, because he looked so poverty-stricken; but a second glance made him fancy, rightly or wrongly, that he was not a beggar of the common sort, to whom people give careless alms because he stirs their pity for the moment. this beggar excited something more and better than mere pity--at least in the man before us. some people, it is true, might not have noticed the expression of the lad's face; but to those who had eyes it told of something more than poverty and distress. it was not the look of the beggar who is content to be a beggar, who would rather beg than work, rather live upon others than labour for himself. one might almost fancy, indeed, that the lad was ashamed of his present plight, and rather indignant with things in general for not providing him with some better employment. the horseman was one well accustomed to reading character, and rarely mistaken in his judgment; and being touched as well as favourably impressed by the boy, it suddenly occurred to him that he might be turned to account. "just answer me a few questions, my boy, will you?" said he. "can you write?" "no, i can't; i have never had any teaching." and, indeed, writing was a by no means general accomplishment in the reign of the good king matthias, when many of the first nobles in the land could not even sign their own names. but still there seem to have been elementary schools not only in the towns but in other places as well, so that the question was not altogether unreasonable. "then you can't read either?" "of course not; as if it were likely!" "have you ever been in service?" "never, sir, thank heaven; but i have worked as a day-labourer." "why don't you turn soldier?" "because my head is worth more than my arms," said the beggar: "besides, they wouldn't take such a ragged chap as i." "are you to be trusted, i wonder?" the boy looked up at the speaker at this, and then answered with an air of wounded pride, "i have not had a good meal for a fortnight, yet i have not stolen so much as a plum from a tree. you may trust me with a purse full of money." "well, _öcsém_[2] [little brother], it is possible you may be a regular rascal, for anything i know to the contrary at present; but you have a good face, and i should like to see such a head as yours on many a pair of shoulders which are covered with gold and marten-fur. well, i don't care! i am going to trust a good pair of eyes and a clear forehead. listen, boy. i like you. stand here before me, and let me see what you have got in you, gossip! for if you hold good measure, you have been born under a lucky star, i can tell you." [footnote 2: a common way of addressing younger persons.] "you can amuse yourself in return for the money you have given me," said the boy, looking repeatedly at his gift; "you may take my measure as much as you like, and i will be looking at the horse meantime. ah! you are a lucky man to have such a horse as that. how he snorts! and his eyes flash as if he were játos[3] himself." [footnote 3: a magic horse.] "boy!" said the horseman, who looked as if he were at least a vice-count--"boy, you are up to the mark so far; there is room for good measure in you, and a few pints over! but, _koma_ [gossip], i have often seen a good-looking cask full of nothing but bad, sour wine. let us see whether you hold one full measure." "one measure?" said the beggar, offended. "i shouldn't be my father's son if my wretched skin did not cover a man of a hundred measures, especially when i have had a good dinner. it's a couple of weeks now since i have had a stomachful when i lay down at night." "my little brother," said the horseman, "a fellow who is ruled by his stomach is not worth a farthing. you have lost three measures out of your cask by that foolish speech." "ha," said the beggar boldly, "my stomach grumbles badly, and it is no joke when it goes on for long. however, it's no wonder you can't guess what it feels like to be hungry, for i daresay you are a hall-porter, or even maybe a poultry-dealer, and such people as those are always well fed." the horseman laughed. "you have got the cow's udder between its horns now, koma; but whatever and whoever i may be, i am a great man while my purse is full, and so listen to me. do you see that castle there?" "to be sure." "have you ever been inside?" "well, to be sure, i am well off, i am! but may the tatars catch me, if i would take my teeth in there!" "hm!--and why?" "why?" asked the beggar, considering; "i really can't tell you. but what should take me there? besides--well, they say it is inhabited by demons, and that they live on jews' flesh. the jews are constantly going there, just as if they had been invited to dinner; but they get eaten up." "simple stevie of debreczin!"[4] cried the horseman. "do you believe such nonsense?" [footnote 4: "simple stevie" is said to have been a student in the college of debreczin, where he was notorious for his simplicity.] the beggar grinned. "what would you have?" said he. "people say a great many things of all sorts, and a fellow like me just believes and blunders along with the rest! if his grace in there does live on jews' flesh, i wish him good health; but for my own part i had rather have a little bit of chicken than roast jew." "now, boy, listen. just look there," began the horseman again: "if you can get into that castle and bring me word again how the world wags there, you shall have a hundred gold ducats in your hand." "a hundred ducats!" cried the beggar. "why, i could buy a whole county with that, surely!" "not so much as that, little brother," said the rider; "but still it is a great deal of money!" "and who will give it me?" asked the beggar, looking eagerly at the horseman. "i myself," he answered. "but i am slow to believe people, and so i want first to know whether i can trust you." the boy still had his eyes turned towards the castle. "thunder!" said he presently, "the devil himself doesn't get in there by the proper way. but just wait a moment, sir, and let me think a little. so they don't live on jews' flesh in there, eh, sir?" "to be sure not! i fancy they live on something better than that." "but still the jews do go in and out--at least so people say, and what is in everybody's mouth is half true at all events." "right; but what then?" "why, i'll be a jew, and go in, if they don't eat people up." "but how?" "i don't know yet. give me a little time, or i shall not be able to hit upon it." "of course. and now listen. before i trust you blindly, i am going to prove you." he drew a sealed letter from his breast, wrote a few lines on the back with a pencil, and went on: "see this letter? make haste with it to visegrád; ask for admission, and say merely that you have brought the governor a letter from his son. do you quite understand? but i don't know your name; what is it?" "tornay mihály [michael tornay]," answered the boy; and then went on, "i see! what is there difficult about that? i quite understand: you are the son of the governor of visegrád, and you are sending a letter to your father." "right!" said the horseman. "you will come straight on to buda with the answer, and ask at the palace for mr. galeotti, and give it into his hands. you won't forget the name?" "galeotti," repeated the boy. "but will they let me in, in such rags?" "you will get proper clothes and a horse in visegrád." "a horse!" exclaimed the boy, his eyes sparkling. "i have never done anything more than help a coachman to swim his horses now and then, and now i shall have a horse myself!" "for service, gossip; and don't you go off with it!" the beggar's face was all aflame. "am i a horse-stealer," he cried, "just because your elbows don't show through your dolmány, while my clothes are so full of holes that twenty cats together would not be able to catch one mouse in them?" "don't be angry," said the horseman, who was more and more pleased with the boy every moment. "here, as a sign that i put more trust in some people's faces than i do in other people's written word--here is a purse of money. and now hurry off; you have no time to lose. the sooner you bring back the answer, the more faith i shall have in you." the boy stared at the purse, and being very hungry, poor fellow, it seemed to him to be full of ham and sausage. "you must be an estate-manager," he gasped, "or--a bishop, to have so much money." "what does that matter to you?" answered the horseman. "make haste, and i shall see whether you are a man of your word." the lad raised his tattered cap, and the next moment he was out of sight. chapter ii. miska the beggar boy. the beggar boy stopped for a moment to roll the purse up carefully in a rag, and to put it and the letter away in the pocket of his dilapidated old jacket. this done he ran on again quickly. but he was hungry, desperately hungry, famishing--his eyes were starting out of his head; and though he had been much cheered by the liberal present he had received, a good hunch of bread would really have been worth a hundred times as much to him just at this moment. he could think of nothing but the nearest wayside inn. people who have never known what it is to be more than just hungry enough to have a good appetite, have no idea what the pangs of hunger are, nor what keen pain it is to be actually starving. never in his life had he felt such an intense craving as he did now for a plate of hot food and a draught of good wine. he had to summon up all his failing strength, or he would have been quite exhausted before he caught sight of the first roof away in the distance. but when he did catch sight of it, though it was still far off, it put new life into him; and as he hurried on, he could think of nothing but the meal he was going to have. what a sumptuous dinner he gave himself in imagination! it was like a dream without an end, too good to be believed. at last he stood before the little inn. the chimney was smoking away merrily, and his mouth positively watered as he turned towards the signboard. all at once, however, he came to a dead halt, struck by a sudden thought. for a few moments his feet seemed to be rooted to the ground; then he muttered to himself, "didn't that good gentleman, who has made a rich man of me, say that the business he entrusted me with was of importance, and that he was in a hurry about it? this is the first important thing i have ever been trusted with; and the gentleman was so honourable, and put such confidence in me, and i want to sit down to a feast! it is six months since a drop of wine has touched my lips, and the devil never goes to sleep: i might drink myself as drunk as a dog!" his right foot was still turned towards the inn, and his eyes were adoringly fixed on the beautiful blue smoke issuing from the chimney. he felt just as if he were bound hand and foot, and a dozen horses were all tugging at him, dragging him to the wineshop. "i _won't_ go!" said he to himself, sadly but firmly. "it's not the first time i have known what it is to be hungry for twenty-four hours; and he is in a hurry--it's important business." with that he stepped up to the entrance of the low white house, daring himself, as it were, to go any further, asked for some bread, which he paid for and began to devour at once, drank a good draught of water from the well-bucket, and then ran on as if the tatars were at his heels, or as if he were afraid to trust himself any longer in such a dangerous neighbourhood. no royal banquet could have been more delicious than that hunch of dry bread seemed to him, and something in the beggar boy's heart cheered him more than even the best tokay would have done. "miska,[5] you're a man!" he said to himself. "i shall soon be in visegrád, where i shall feast like a lord. i don't know how it is, but i declare i feel better satisfied with this bit of bread than if i had eaten a whole yard of sausage." [footnote 5: short for mihály = michael.] but visegrád was still a long way off--long, that is, when the journey had to be made on foot; for the castle stood on a hill on the danube, just where the river makes a sudden bend to the south. on the hillside, under the wing of the old fortress, stood a palace built by one of the former kings of hungary, which is said to have been equal in splendour to versailles or any other of the most magnificent palaces of europe; for with its three hundred and fifty rooms it could accommodate two kings, several foreign dukes and marquises, with their respective suites, all at the same time. the floor of the great hall was paved with valuable mosaics, the ceiling was adorned with italian frescoes, and the gardens, with their musical fountains, brilliant flower-beds, and marble statues, were declared to be a faithful imitation of the hanging gardens of babylon! but miska's business was with the castle, not the palace; and at last, after a journey which was becoming every hour more and more wearisome, he beheld it rising before him in the distance. it looked, indeed, as if it were but a little way off, so clear was the air; but miska had lived an out-of-door life too long to be easily deceived in such matters, and he took advantage of the next little wayside inn to buy more bread and get another draught of cool water to help him on his way. by the time he reached the hill his strength was failing fast, and it was all that he could do to drag himself up past robert-charles's palace to the high-perched castle. when at last he had been admitted and had given the letter into the governor's own hands, he dropped down in a fainting fit, and was carried off to the stables. he was not long in coming to himself, however, and as soon as he was sufficiently recovered he had a feast "fit for a king," as he said; though he steadily refused to touch a drop of the wine which was brought to him. the whole time he was eating he kept his eyes fixed on the beautiful horses, wondering which one he should have to ride; and more than once he sent an urgent message to the governor, begging him to let him have the answer to the letter which he was to take to buda. "all in good time," said the governor placidly. "he shall be called presently, tell him, when it is time for him to start." so miska had nothing for it but to rest in the stable, which was pleasant enough; for where is the hungarian, old or young, who does not love a horse? moreover, he was very tired after his long tramp, and presently, in spite of his impatience to be off, he fell into a doze. he was still dozing comfortably when the sound of a horn roused him. there was a rush to the castle-gate, and when it was opened, a young man, plainly dressed and alone, rode into the courtyard, where the governor hastened to greet him with affectionate respect. for the newcomer, the horseman whose acquaintance we made outside mr. samson's castle, was no other than king matthias himself. "has my messenger, the beggar boy, arrived?" he asked briskly. "he is yonder in the stable," said the governor; "he has only just come in, very faint, and he is urging me to give him a horse already." "he is here?" said the king in surprise. "impossible! i came at a good pace myself, and set out hardly half an hour after him. call him here." in a few moments the lad was standing in the presence of the great king, though he was far enough from guessing whom he was talking with. "it is you, the horseman?" said miska. "well, it is not my fault that i am still here. i have been urging mr. governor enough, i can tell you. i might have been ever so long on my way by this time, and they haven't yet changed my rags or given me a horse." "have you had a good feed?" "yes, i have; but i did not dare drink any wine." "why not, gossip?" "that's a foolish question," returned the lad calmly, while the governor turned pale at his audacity. "why, sir, because it is six months since i had any, and it would go to my head; and a tipsy messenger is like a clerk without hands--they both pipe the same tune." "good," said the king, amused. "then didn't you stop anywhere on the way? you could hardly lift your feet when you started, and you see i had not much faith in you, and came after you." "well," said the lad, looking boldly up at matthias, "to be sure you are a strong-built chap, and i believe you could swallow mr. governor here if you were angry; but if your eyes had been starting out of your head with hunger as mine were, i believe you would have been sitting in some _csárda_ [wayside inn] till now. stop anywhere? the idea of such a thing! as if any one who had business needing haste entrusted to him would think of stopping to rest!" "listen, miska," said the king. "would you like to be something better than you are now?" "hja!" said the beggar, "i might soon be that certainly, for at present i am not worth even so much as a jew's harp." "let us hear, gossip; what would you like to be?" "like? well, really, sir, i have never given it a thought. hm! what i should like to be? but then, could it be now--at once?" "that depends upon the extent of your wishes; for you might wish to be governor of visegrád, and in that case the answer would be, 'hold in your greyhounds' [don't be in too much hurry]." "i shouldn't care to be governor, to sit here by a good fire keeping myself warm--though, to be sure, it would be well enough sometimes, especially in winter, when one has such fine clothes as mine, which just let the wind in where they should keep it out; but i should like to be something like that stick on the castle clock which is always moving backwards and forwards--something that is always on the move." "always on the move!" laughed the king. "well then, gossip, i'll take you for my courier; and if you like, you need not keep still a moment." "i don't mind!" said miska joyously. "then i will be a courier." "you will get tired of it, boy. but tell me one thing: do you know anything?" miska fixed his large eyes on the king. "anything?" he asked, hurt and flushing. "really, sir, when i come to consider--thunder!--it seems to me as if i knew just nothing at all!" "then do you wish to learn?" "go to school?" asked miska; "i don't wish that at all." "there is no need for that," said the king; "we will find some other way. those who want to learn, can learn without going to school. you will learn to write and read, which is only play after all to any one who does not wish to remain a dunce. do you understand?" "i don't mind," said miska. "well, then," said the king, turning to the governor, "let him be clothed, and then you can present him." thereupon the king withdrew to his own apartments, where some of the great nobles were already waiting for him in one of the saloons, and were not a little surprised to see him appear travel-stained and dusty, but in the most lively spirits. an hour later miska had had a bath, and had donned a clean shirt and the becoming livery worn by the royal pages of the second rank. the change in his attire had completely metamorphosed him, and now, as he stood before the king, the latter was more than ever struck by his face. "listen," said he, fixing his keen eyes attentively on the beggar. "you have been well fed, and you have been fresh clothed from top to toe. now, i don't want you to go to buda; for you see i am here, and have seen the governor myself. but you remember what i said to you outside mr. samson's castle? well, that shall be the first piece of work you do. i will give you six months, and if you can get inside and bring me word what goes on there, i'll make a man of you. you shall have money to buy anything you may want, and a leather knapsack with linen and all you will want for the journey--for you will have to go on foot. you shall have a horse some day, never fear, if you turn out as i expect; but it would only be in your way now. well, what do you say?" the lad knew now that he was in the presence of the king, and matthias thought all the more highly of him for the way in which he received his dangerous commission. he made no hasty promises, but evidently weighed his words before he spoke. "mr. king," said he (for 'mr.' is used in hungary in speaking to any one of whatever degree, and people say 'mr. duke' or 'mr. bishop,' as they do in french)--"mr. king, god preserve your highness, and give you a thousand times as much as you have given to a poor boy like me. i vow"--and here the beggar raised his right hand--"i vow that i will do all i can; and if god keeps me in health and strength, and preserves my senses, i hope to bring your highness news of mr. samson six months hence, in buda." "that's enough," said the king. "meantime i too shall see what i can do. i shall give mr. samson the chance of mending his ways if he will. god be with you on your journey, miska." then putting his hand on the boy's shoulder, he said kindly, "good-bye, then, till we meet in buda." chapter iii. "touch me at your peril!" king matthias had been elected to the throne of hungary in 1457, when he was at most but eighteen years old. but if any of the great nobles fancied that they were going to do just as they liked with him because he was so young, they soon found themselves very much mistaken. he speedily dismissed the governor who had been appointed to look after him and the kingdom for the first five years; and having once taken the reins into his own hands, held them firmly as long as he lived. and he had no easy, idle life of it: for what with the turks and other enemies, he was very frequently, almost constantly, at war with external foes; and there was also very much to be done to bring things into order within the kingdom. he was by no means satisfied to let things go on as they had been doing. he wanted his people to be educated and cultivated; for he was highly educated himself, and delighted to surround himself with learned men and distinguished artists. he wanted to have a grand library, a large university, and a learned society of scholars in buda, that hungary might take her place among the other nations of europe in the matter of learning. but he wanted also to improve the condition of trade, arts, and manufactures; and, regardless of expense, he sent to foreign lands, especially italy, for master-craftsmen to come and train the apprentices, whenever he saw that they needed better teaching than was to be had just then from their fellow-countrymen. clocks were by no means common articles at this time in other lands, and the first clock that kept good time in england is said to have been that set up at hampton court many years later--that is, in 1530. but in the reign of matthias, clocks made their appearance on many of the castle towers in hungary; and, thanks to the king's encouragement and the energetic measures he took, it was not long before hungarian craftsmen became so famous that the grand duke of moscow asked to have goldsmiths, gun-founders, land-surveyors, miners, architects, and others sent to him from hungary. but where is the use of arts, crafts, and manufactures--how indeed can they flourish--where there is a dearth of food? what with enemies without and enemies within, there were extensive districts in some parts of hungary, and among them some of the royal domains, which were little better than wildernesses when the king came to the throne. villages had been burned down, the inhabitants driven away, and the land left desolate in many parts; and in order to tempt the people back, and induce others to come and settle in these deserted spots, the king caused it to be proclaimed at the fairs that land might be had rent-free by those who would undertake to cultivate it, and that for a certain number of years they should be exempt from taxes of all sorts. the king did all he could to induce the great landed nobles to follow his example in these matters, and to pay more heed to the cultivation of their property, and to the peasants who laboured for them, than they had been in the habit of doing. one day, so the story goes, he invited a number of distinguished nobles to dine with him in one of the northerly counties, and when the meal was ended he distributed among them a number of pick-axes and spades, and taking one himself, called on them to join him in clearing away the underwood and digging up the ground. the active young king, who was well accustomed to exert himself, worked away energetically; but the well-fed, self-indulgent lords almost melted away, the labour made them so hot, and very soon they were completely exhausted. "that's enough, my friends," said the king, observing the state they were in. "now we know a little of what it costs the peasants to produce that which we waste in idleness while they live in poverty. they are human beings like ourselves, yet we often treat them worse than we do our horses and dogs." the spot where matthias read his nobles this wholesome lesson is still pointed out in gömör. but indeed some of them needed sharper teaching than this, and matthias did not scruple to give it them. where was the use of the peasant's ploughing and sowing his fields or planting and tending his orchards and vineyards, where was the use of trying to encourage trade and manufactures, when at any moment the farmer, merchant, peddler, might be set upon and robbed of all his hardly-earned goods? yet so it was; for in some parts of the country, especially in the north, there were robber-knights and freebooting nobles, chiefly bohemians, who had been invited into the country during the civil wars, and now, finding their occupation gone, had built themselves strongholds among the mountains, from which they issued forth to plunder and rob and often to murder travellers, traders, farmers, and any one they could lay hands on. yet these same robbers were many of them men of noble birth, and there were some who were not ashamed to make their appearance in the courts of law, and to help in bringing smaller thieves and robbers to justice. now king matthias was so true a lover of justice that his name has become a proverb, and when he died there was a general sigh and exclamation, "matthias is dead! justice is fled!" it was not likely, therefore, that he was going to tolerate robbers merely because they were nobles; and after giving them fair warning--for he would be just even to them--he destroyed their castles, and hung a few of them on their own towers by way of example to the rest, who did not fail to profit by it and amend their ways: so that by the end of his reign travellers could pass from one end of the kingdom to the other in perfect safety, and the peasants could gather in their crops without fear of having them taken from them by violence. at the time when our story begins, the war against the robbers was being carried on with great energy, and the king's generals were busily engaged in storming their strongholds. but like many another monarch who has had the welfare of his people at heart, matthias was very fond of going about among them and seeing for himself, with his own eyes, what was the real state of affairs and what were their needs and wrongs. more than once on these secret expeditions it had happened to him to come across men of humble birth, whom, like miska the beggar boy, he fancied capable of being turned to valuable account, and took accordingly into his service. and his shrewd eye seldom deceived him. did not paul kinizsi the giant, for instance, turn out to be one of his most famous generals? and yet he was only a miller's boy to begin with--a miller's boy, but an uncommonly strong one; for when the king first saw him, he was holding a millstone in one hand and cutting it with the other--a proof of strength which made the king think he was wasted on the mill, and would be a valuable acquisition to the army, as he certainly proved to be. something more and better than mere brute strength had attracted him in miska, and had induced him to send the boy on his hazardous mission to mr. jason samson. nothing, of course, had been heard of him since he started, and now, sundry other robbers having been disposed of or reduced to order, it was mr. samson's turn. but being an uncommon character himself, matthias was attracted by anything uncommon and out of the way in other people. he was fond, too, of unravelling mysteries, and therefore, much as he hated lawlessness and robbery, and greatly as he was exasperated by some of mr. samson's secret doings, nevertheless the man appeared by all accounts to be such a very strange, remarkable being that the king's curiosity was whetted, and after himself paying a secret visit to the eccentric "cube," as he called the odd-looking castle, he resolved to try what mild measures would do, before proceeding to extremities. whether miska had succeeded in getting into the robber's nest or not the king had no means of finding out, but his first step was to have a summons nailed up in the middle of all the four sides of the grim castle. it ran as follows:- "all good to you from god, mr. jason samson! "present yourself in buda on the third day of the coming year, and give an account of your stewardship. "matthias, the king." the men charged with affixing this to the castle walls withdrew when their work was done without having seen any one. but some one or other had seen and read the summons; for when they returned the next morning, it had been torn down, and in its place, also affixed to the four sides, appeared these words:- "_some other time._" a week after this bold answer another summons was put up. this time it was:- "_surrender._" the day following the answer appeared:- "_not yet._" about a week after this last reply, a company of soldiers, under the command of general zokoli, surrounded the ill-omened castle, which stood out grey and silent against the rose-coloured mists which ushered in the sunrise. the general had given orders for the scaling-ladders to be put up, when all at once a huge raven-black banner rose up from the centre of the building with a shining death's-head displayed upon it, and beneath this the words:- "_touch me at your peril!_" zokoli ordered the assault to be sounded, and soon the brave soldiers, always accustomed to be victorious wherever they went, might have been seen climbing the ladders on one side of the "cube." as soon as they reached the top of the wall, which was also the ridge of the roof, it turned on a hinge, or rather sprang open like a trap-door, as if it had been touched by a conjuring rod, and disclosed to their astonished eyes the gaping mouths of three rows of guns ranged close together. now came a blast, loud and deep, like the sound of some giant trumpet or organ-pipe, and then what appeared like a long fiery serpent darted from one corner of the building to the other, and was followed the next moment by the thundering roar of a couple of thousand guns. there was one loud, terrible cry, and when the cloud of smoke cleared away, a couple of hundred men were to be seen lying dead and maimed round about the castle. the king had given zokoli strict orders to spare his men as much as possible. he ordered one more assault on the same side therefore, thinking that the defenders would not have had time to reload their guns. but again a couple of hundred of the besiegers fell a useless sacrifice to the experiment; and unwilling to waste any more lives, general zokoli retired, completely baffled and much mortified, to report what had happened. and then the king's anger blazed forth, and he exclaimed,-"wait, and i'll teach you, samson!" chapter iv. in the robber's nest. great men--especially the very few who are great even in their night-shirts, as the saying is, which was the case with king matthias, if it ever was with any one--great men are, by their very natures, strongly attached to their own ideas and opinions. it is not easy to shake them when once they have made up their minds about a matter; for truly great men are not given to hasty judgments. they are firm in their convictions, but they have some reason to be so. now the king had a sort of instinct or power of reading character, and he felt convinced that the beggar boy whom he had come across so strangely would either succeed in getting into the castle, or would never be heard of again. he had firm faith in him. there were a good many matters, as we have seen, requiring his attention in hungary just then, and therefore, though he was extremely angry with samson for his contemptuous behaviour, he decided to put off punishing him for a time. he felt that, after general zokoli's discomfiture, it would be wisest not to take any further steps against the clever robber until he could be certain of success; and he resolved on all accounts therefore to wait until miska made his appearance, or at least until the six months had expired. of course there were some who believed that miska would never be seen again. the king had taken a fancy to him, that was all; but he was only a beggar boy, when all was said and done, and most likely he had sold his new clothes to the first jew he came across, and was in rags again by this time! when three months, four months, five months, passed away without bringing any news, those who knew anything about the matter shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads more than ever. but one fine morning, just six months after miska had left visegrád, and when every one but the king had given him up, it was announced that a stranger had arrived in buda, giving no name, but saying that he had been entrusted with special business by the king, and could not give account of it to any one else. the king's whims were so well known at the court that the stranger was admitted without difficulty, and was ushered into the king's presence forthwith. matthias was alone, and at once recognized his man, who stepped into the room, looking very spruce, and as sound as an acorn. "it's you, miska! you have brought good news; i can see it in your eye. you're a man--speak!" miska bowed, and when he had a little recovered himself--for there was something about the king which was rather awe-inspiring in spite of his good nature--he drew a deep breath and said,-"i have been there, mr. king--in the castle with mr. samson--and i know all about it!" "let us hear," said the king, with delighted and eager curiosity. "but, little brother, try and tell your tale in an orderly way. first say how you got into the castle, and then tell me what you saw and heard. be bold, my friend, and speak without reserve." "mr. king," began the ex-beggar, "i knew i should never get in by asking, and it might be the worse for me into the bargain; besides, there was neither door nor window, nor any one to speak to. 'well,' i thought to myself, 'i shall never get in this way; i must keep watch and find out about those jews. they get in somehow, though they never get out again--so people say.'" "right!" said the king; "go on." "well, mr. king, i waited about there for ten weeks. i spied about all round the castle, and often went hungry; for i had no time to get food, though, thanks to you, i had the means. but it was all to no purpose. at last i began to think that perhaps mr. samson was dead, and that your highness would soon be thinking that i had eaten and drunk up my money and gone off. i was sitting on the trunk of a tree just outside the wood, but not very far from the castle, one evening, and i was feeling rather downcast about it all, when i fancied i saw two people coming. they were not coming _from_ the castle, it is true, but were creeping through the thicket. 'ho, ho!' i thought to myself. 'now, miska, have your wits about you! suppose these night-birds should be on their way to the castle.' but being one alone against two, i took out my two pistols and waited to see what might happen." miska now opened his dolmány, and showed a steel coat of mail which he wore beneath it. "i had got myself this," he said, tapping it with his finger, "for i thought it might save me from being mortally wounded if i should happen to get caught anywhere by samson's men, and i bought two pistols besides." "you were wise," said the king. "well, it was not long before the men came quite close to me; but instead of going on towards the castle, they turned off in the direction of a little hollow. i had stood still till then, so that they should not notice me suddenly; and perhaps they would have gone on, if an abominable great long-eared owl which was just above my head had not begun its dismal evening song at that moment. they were just within about four steps of me when she gave a long, melancholy hoot, and one of the two men looked up and caught sight of me at once. the next moment he lifted his cap to me as humbly 'as if he could not count up to three.' his companion, too, turned and looked about carefully, and i fancied i caught a glimpse of the glitter of a knife. so i just drew out one of my pistols and said coolly, 'see what i have got for you.'" "eh! what?" exclaimed matthias in surprise. "why, of course, your highness; for i thought it would be much better to be beforehand with them." the king laughed. "well, and i think, mr. king, that i did not reckon amiss: for by doing as i did, i made them suppose that i was a highwayman, and just as bad as themselves--supposing they belonged to the castle; and besides that, it gave me an opportunity of finding out whom i had to do with." "go on," said the king; "this is very interesting. let us hear more." "well, things might have gone very crooked," proceeded miska; "for i had no sooner given the alarm than they were both down on me at once as quick as lightning, and i felt two daggers strike my mail coat. "fortunately for me i was quite prepared, and i did not lose my presence of mind. i fired one pistol just as they fell upon me, but of course i did not hit either of them. but my armour had done me good service; for the two fellows were disconcerted when they found that their daggers had touched metal, and i had time to jump on one side and point my second pistol at them. "there was a little pause; my men had not given up their designs upon me, as it seemed, but were consulting, i suppose, how to escape the second charge of peas, and they seemed to mean to separate and come on me from both sides at once. 'but,' thought i, 'if you have, so have i--wits, i mean--and as from all i had heard of samson's rascally associates i was quite sure that i had found my gentlemen, i took advantage of the short pause, and cried out,-"'may seventy-seven thousand thunderbolts strike you! hear what i have to say, and don't rush upon a fellow like mad dogs! "'i am wanting to come across mr. samson; i am tired of living on my own bread, and i should like to enter his service. if you belong to the castle, it would be better for you to take me to him, instead of attacking me; for i am not in the least afraid of you--and, what's more, a couple of chaps like you won't outwit me.' "as soon as i had said my say with all possible speed, but in a firm rough voice, one of the scamps looked me all over from top to toe, as if he were going to buy me of a broker. the man was a sturdy, stout-limbed fellow, and as black as the darkest gipsy; and standing only a span from the muzzle of my pistol, without winking an eyelid, he said,-"'who are you, and what do you want with mr. samson? if you have come to spy, you may say your last prayer, for you won't see the sun again.' "the man said this in such a soft, drawling voice, and so deliberately, that it suddenly struck me he was imbecile; for i had my finger on the trigger all the time, and one touch would have stretched him on the ground. however, i won't deny that his cool composure made me shudder a little. "i answered as coolly as i could, 'i want to enter his service, sir, for i fancy he is a fine brave man; and a fellow like me, who cares nothing for his life, might be useful to him.' "my man kept his eye upon my every movement. at last he said,-"'i don't know who you are yet.' "i hesitated half a moment, for i did not want to tell him my real name, and then i said they called me alpár jános, that i was an orphan, and that until now i had made a poor living by doing just anything that came to hand--which was true enough. "as far as i could see in the twilight, the man's face began to clear; he whispered a few words to his companion in a language i did not know, slovack or latin, then looked me over again from top to toe, and said,-"'good! then you can come with us. we will show you the way in; it will be your own affair how you get out again, if you grow tired of scanty dinners.' "here our conversation ended," said the lad; while the king, who had listened to his preface with lively interest, said, "very good. so you got in. and now tell me what the castle is like inside." and here perhaps it will be better to take the words out of miska's mouth and describe in our own way what he saw. the castle, as has been said, was built round the four sides of a square, and, as was often the case with old strongholds, a wide covered gallery, or corridor, ran along each side, surrounding the courtyard. there was not a sign of stables anywhere, for there was no way of getting horses in except by lowering them over the walls by a windlass. the ground-floor consisted of store-rooms and living-rooms; the keys of the former being always kept by the master, who allowed none but the most trusty persons to go into them, for they contained valuable goods of every sort and kind. mr. samson regularly visited these vaults, on the fifteenth of every month at midnight, when he was accompanied by twelve jews. but how these latter got in, where they came from, and where they went to, was known to no one but mr. samson himself. the men looked like merchants, and he gave stuffs and ornaments, in certain quantities and of certain values, to each. then he took them into a large empty room lighted by a four-cornered lamp which hung from the ceiling, and here for a couple of hours they were all busy counting money at a stone table. this was packed into various bags, and when mr. samson had given a purse to each of his agents, the jews took their departure amid a shower of compliments, and in what appeared to be a very well satisfied frame of mind, mr. samson escorting them and showing them the way. but whither they went, and why, and how, and by what way--that heaven alone could tell. in the upper story of the castle there were some fine, cheerful, and well-lighted rooms; which is not a little surprising, for their windows all looked into the covered gallery, and from that into the courtyard. however, this may be explained to some extent by the fact that the windows of these upper rooms were wide and lofty, the walls were painted snow-white, and were covered with some sort of varnish which doubled the light. the furniture was in accordance with the taste of the day, and chosen rather for its good wearing qualities than for comfort; but the bright colours produced a pleasing and cheerful effect on the whole. mr. samson kept an entire half of this story for the use of himself and his only relation, a young girl of fifteen named esther, and an old woman who lived with her. of the two other sides of the square, one was occupied by servants, the other was furnished but unused. chapter v. caught. one is apt to fancy that strange, out-of-the-way characters must needs be striking and uncommon in their persons, and it is really quite startling to find them after all mere ordinary-looking, every-day people. jason samson, in spite of his remarkably eccentric conduct, was just one of these commonplace individuals to look at. it was himself, in fact, who had taken miska into the castle; a man of middle size, neither stout nor thin, neither young nor old, but just middling in all respects. his features were such as we see over and over again, without having either our sympathies or interest in the least aroused. one can't call such persons either ill-looking or handsome, and their every-day characters inspire no feeling but that of utter indifference. mr. samson was said, naturally enough, to be a man-hater. the walls of the cube castle were twelve feet thick, and its inmates could see nothing either of their fellow-creatures or of god's beautiful world; for there was neither door to go in by nor window to look out of, and nothing whatever to be seen but the courtyard. it was not a cheerful home certainly for the young girl whom mr. samson had some years previously brought to live there. he called her a relation of his, and she called him "uncle," but it did not at all follow that she was his niece; for it is the custom in hungary, and considered only common politeness, for young people to address their elders as "uncles" and "aunts," whether related or not. if mr. samson was commonplace in appearance, little esther was very much the reverse. without being regularly beautiful, there was a great charm about her, and she had a look of distinction which was entirely wanting in her guardian or jailer. her clear, deep-blue eyes were full of life and animation, and the whole expression of her face told of a good heart. add to this that she had a remarkably sweet and beautiful voice, and that, though untaught, she had a good ear for music, and was very fond of singing, and it will be understood that esther was altogether not uninteresting. if she was not striking at first sight, yet the more one saw of her the more impressed and attracted one felt. she was very much in awe of her "uncle," though she could not have said why, and though she had now lived with him some seven years, ever since the death of her parents indeed, when he had brought her away to the castle, with her attendant euphrosyne, she being then a child of eight. esther was now fifteen, but she had as yet no idea that mr. samson was planning in his own mind to unite her more closely to himself by making her his wife, or she would have shrunk from him even more than she did now, though she knew nothing against him, and he could never be said to have ill-treated her in any way except that he kept her a close prisoner. perhaps he thought that, considering her age, she had liberty enough; for she was free to go from one room to another, and she could walk up and down the gallery and in the courtyard. but though she had grown accustomed to the life now, there were times, especially when the sun shone down for a short hour or two into the dull courtyard, in spring and summer, when the girl would look up with longing eyes to the blue sky and wonder what the world looked like outside the four grey walls. sometimes she would see a bird fly past overhead, or watch a lark soaring up into the air, singing as it went. then the past would come back to her, and she would remember a time when she had run about the green fields, and had spent long days in the garden; when she had gathered wild flowers and wood-strawberries, and had heard the birds sing. it made her a little sad to think of it all, and for a time she felt as if she were in a cage, and wondered whether she was to spend all her life in it; but she was blessed with a cheerful disposition, and on the whole she was not unhappy. she made occupation for herself in one way and another: she sewed, she embroidered, she netted; she read the two or three books she had over and over again, and she even wrote a little. when one day mr. samson brought her a harp from his hoard of treasures, she was delighted indeed: and having soon managed to teach herself how to play on it, she spent many a happy evening singing such songs as she had picked up or invented for herself. mr. samson liked to hear the full, clear young voice singing in the gallery, though he seldom took any apparent notice of the singer. in his way perhaps he would have missed esther a little if she had been taken from him; but he was not a kindly or affectionate personage, and the girl had no one to care for but euphrosyne, a rather tiresome, foolish old woman, who often tried her patience a good deal with her whims and fidgets. esther, however, was very patient with her, and clung to her simply because there was no one else to cling to. mr. samson had given them three rooms in a distant corner of the gloomy building, where they were quite out of the way of everybody; and esther's rooms being the two inner ones, she could never leave them without the knowledge and permission of the old woman, through whose room she had to pass. there was no doubt that mr. samson carried on an extensive business of a peculiar kind. he was very secret about it, and what with his armed garrison, and the odd way in which the castle was built, as if to stand a siege, there seemed good reason to suspect that his valuable goods and rich merchandise were collected from the whole length and breadth of hungary, and were, in fact, gathered from every country-house and peddler's pack and bundle which he could find means to plunder. not that samson ever resorted to violence if he could possibly help it--quite the contrary; and though he was reckoned among the most powerful robber-knights of the time, he was really more thief than robber, and did also a great deal in a quiet way by lending money at very high interest. he would steal out of the castle on foot, disguised now as a beggar and now as a jew; and his followers were never to be seen anywhere together in any number. they lounged along singly, at a considerable distance one from the other, and they took care not to excite suspicion in any way. they had nothing in the way of weapons but a couple of short, sharp daggers, which they kept carefully concealed, and never used except in cases of extreme necessity, and in secret places, such as deep ravines or woods; but when they did have recourse to them, they used them with bold determination and deadly certainty. no one ever escaped from the clutches of these accursed robbers, and no one therefore could ever betray them. they managed, too, to conceal all traces of their deeds of blood, so that though there were rumours and suspicions, the guilt was not brought home to them. people who met them saw but one, or at most two, at a time, looking as meek and mild "as if they could not count up to three," as the saying is. mr. samson himself rarely went out quite alone. there were always one or two men in whom he placed especial confidence, and one or other of these always accompanied him. and now miska shall take up his narrative again. "i was not badly off in the castle," said he. "i was bent on winning mr. samson's confidence above everything, and i succeeded, because i strove to enter into all his thoughts. i was not too humble and deferential, but i put myself in his place, and showed great interest in all the work that went on inside, which was chiefly keeping guard and cleaning arms. "mr. samson went away once every fortnight; and i fancy the jews came twice while i was there, for mr. samson twice shut all the doors carefully, which he did not do at other times. i must say i should have liked to join him in his secret adventures; but much as he seemed to trust me, i had no chance of doing so. "i had been in the castle about a fortnight, i suppose, when one night the bell rang in my little room. there was a bell to every hole in the castle, and the bell-pulls all hung in a long row along two sides of one of mr. samson's rooms. "i got up at once and went to him, and found him lying in an arm-chair, wearing a flowing indoor robe. "'alpár jános,' said he, 'i have to leave the castle to-morrow; you will stay here. keep an eye on the people, and when i come back tell me minutely all that has happened during my absence. i believe you are faithful to me; and if you continue to please me, i will double your wages.' "i received his orders respectfully, as usual; but after a short pause i said, 'i would much rather you should take me with you, for i think you would find me more useful outside than here, where there is nothing i can do.' "'i want a faithful man more here than outside,' said mr. samson. 'your turn will come presently; meantime obey all the governor's orders as if i were here myself. and now you can go. everybody will notice my absence to-morrow, but for all that don't you say a word about it to any one--that is one of my laws.' "'i will obey you, sir,' i said, and then i went back to my quarters. "the governor, a gloomy-looking, stout fellow, who could hardly be more than four-and-twenty, and was called simply kálmán, had taken a great liking to me, for i always showed him more respect, if possible, than i did to mr. samson himself." "you were wise there," interposed the king. "the smaller the man, the more respect he claims." "and," continued miska, "this stood me in good stead; for while mr. samson was away we lived better, and now and then the governor sent me a draught of good wine." "ah, i see," said the king; "nothing much out of the ordinary way--rumour has said more than was true. but did you become acquainted with little esther?" "the young lady came out into the gallery more often while mr. samson was away. sometimes she would walk up and down there till late in the evening, and she would bring out her harp and sing to it. she was so gentle and kind that i spoke to her one day and asked her to listen to a song of mine; i had made the verses and invented the tune myself." "oh!" laughed the king; "then you are a poet too, are you, miska?" "only a sort of 'willow-tree verse-maker,'[6] mr. king. but pretty miss esther listened to it very kindly--and what is more, she wrote it down--and after that she spoke to me every evening, and asked me many questions about buda and your highness; and i told her long stories of all that i had seen in the woods and fields. she wanted to hear about the trees and flowers and birds, which she remembered; and one evening, when no one was within hearing, i told her how i had met your highness, and how you had sent me to visegrád, and all i had seen there, and how you promised me a horse. i had to tell her that story so often that i think she knows every step of the way. i did not tell her that your highness had sent me to get into the castle, for walls have ears. but one evening she stopped singing suddenly and asked me what i had come there for. so first i said, 'to be one of mr. samson's servants;' and then i said in a whisper, 'to set you free.' [footnote 6: hedge-poet.] "'ah, jancsi, if you only could!' she said. 'how lovely it would be! but you can't; nobody can.' "so then i told her not to be afraid, for i would somehow; and if i couldn't, some one else would, i knew--meaning your highness, of course." "and pray what did the old lady say to your talking to her charge in this way?" "o mr. king, she was my very good mistress; i managed to get into her good graces. and there's no denying it, your highness, when mr. samson went away for the third time, miss esther herself told me to be very attentive to the old woman. and it answered perfectly, for she asked me all sorts of things and put all confidence in me; and the governor often chaffed me about it, and said that mrs. euphrosyne and i would be making a match of it. miss esther often said how happy we might be if we could escape from mr. samson and the gloomy castle, and i promised, your highness, when mrs. euphrosyne was not listening." "well, miska, and i promise too. miss esther shall be let out when i get in," said the king. "but now listen. have you told me all that i want to know about the interior of the castle?" "ah," said miska, "who could find out all its secrets? mr. samson said more than once: 'woe to him who tries to take it, for it will cost the lives of thousands, and he will never get in after all.' and it was as he said: when they assaulted the castle, mr. samson did not so much as leave his room, but sat there as quiet as you please. what went on up above in the roof i don't know, for others were sent up and i was not. i only heard the firing, and saw them bringing the gunpowder out in small casks through a trap-door. more than once, too, i heard him say that he had only to pull a string and the castle and everything in it would be blown up. and i saw the red string, too, which would have done it: it could not be reached except by means of a ladder, and it was in mr. samson's own sleeping-room." "then you saw them raise the black standard?" "to be sure; and they did it as easily as if they were lifting a stick." "but tell me, how did you get out?" asked the king, cutting him short. "i did that only five days ago," said miska. "mr. samson called me at last one evening and said,-"'miska, i am satisfied with you; you will go with me to-night, at midnight. there will be only the two of us; have you the courage?' "'i have,' i answered. "'see,' mr. samson went on, taking a couple of daggers out of a table-drawer, 'i will make you a present of these; they are the only arms you will have. be ready, and when i ring at midnight make haste and come to me.' "i haven't much more to tell you, mr. king. he led me through several vaults till we came to a door which led into an underground passage, and this ended in a cave, which i took good note of, so that i could find it again; and when we had passed through it and reached the open air, my spirits rose. we went on through a thick wood, mr. samson taking the lead. the night was dark and stormy. i kept him talking all the while, and tried to enliven him with all sorts of jokes; and he actually called me a very sly dog, and laughed himself as if he enjoyed them. "we had been going on about a couple of hours, when mr. samson said we had reached our destination, and that before long a rich jew would be passing by, and that he had a well-filled money-bag which we were to take away from him. he warned me to be careful, and not to use my dagger unless he called out. "i suppose mr. samson had heard of the rich jew's coming from his jew friends, who frequently came to the castle without any one's knowing anything about it--so i heard from kálmán--and by secret ways which he had told them of. "the moon shone out through the thick trees for a moment, and i saw that mr. samson was standing near a footpath, and facing a narrow opening in the wood, about three steps away from me. "presently i fancied that i heard footsteps, and mr. samson whispered, 'come here behind me, quietly, that they may not hear you.' "in a short time i saw a dark shadow moving towards us. mr. samson stood like a lynx, stiff and motionless, with his eyes fixed on the approaching jew. "'now,' thought i, 'now or never!' and i drew out a rope-noose which i had kept carefully hidden under my dolmány. the next moment i had thrown it over mr. samson's shoulders, and so successfully that his two arms were pinioned to his body, and he was helpless in a moment. "'traitor!' roared mr. samson, and in a moment he gave a stab backwards with his dagger in spite of his pinioned arm, and he did it so cleverly too that it went about three inches deep into me. fortunately it struck my thigh-bone, or there would have been an end of me. "the pain was sharp, but in spite of that i pulled the noose tighter, and then i suddenly tripped him up with my foot, and threw him down. "'here! here!' i cried hurriedly, holding the robber fast. 'come here, gossip jew; there is nothing to fear.' for when mr. samson roared out, his victim, the jew, had stopped still, with his feet glued to the ground. but when i cried out that i was the king's man and had caught a thief, he came forward--in a frightened, reluctant way though; and he would not have come at all but that i called to him not to turn back, for if he did, probably before he had got away mr. samson's robbers would have come up, as they were lying in wait for him as well as we, and knew that he had a bag full of money." "but what do you mean?" cried the king. "you took mr. samson prisoner?" "to be sure i did," said miska, "and i have given him up to mr. general rozgonyi;[7] and the jew came along with me." [footnote 7: the king had made sebastian rozgonyi captain of upper hungary.] chapter vi. i am the king's page! soon after the conversation recorded in the last chapter, miska was sent back again to visegrád to take his place, and learn his duties as king's page; and the king had bidden him be diligent and learn all that he could, promising to do something more for him as soon as he could read and write. as to what had been done with mr. samson, and whether his little friend miss esther had been released from captivity, he heard nothing, though he often thought and wondered and wished; and if he had dared, he would have asked to be allowed to go back to the castle and show her that he had not forgotten his promise. before setting out for buda, he had shown his friend the jew the secret way in and out of the castle; and as mr. samson had the keys of the various gates upon him, the king's soldiers would of course have no difficulty in getting in and surprising the garrison at any time. if only he had been a soldier, he might have gone with them; and even without being a soldier, he might have gone with them to act as guide, if only the king had thought of it. he had not dared to venture back after his capture of mr. samson, for fear he should not be allowed to get out again and give his report to the king; and now no doubt the jew, who did not care anything at all about it, would be sent in his place. well, it did not much matter after all, so long as miss esther were set free, and that the king had promised she should be. so now miska was in visegrád again, not a little proud of his smart livery, and greatly enjoying his comfortable quarters after the rough, hard life which he had led. but these, after all, were very secondary matters; the great thing was that he was in the king's service, and must do all that lay in his power to please him. "i am page to king matthias," said he to himself over and over again. "the king called me his 'little brother' and 'gossip,' and the king will be ashamed if his gossip is a donkey and does not know the a b c. ah, you just wait, gossip-king! for i will distinguish myself. i will make you open your eyes and your mouth too!" miska was a gay-tempered fellow, as lively as gunpowder, and it was vain to expect from him the sober, plodding diligence which belongs to calmer and tamer natures. if the truth must be told, miska did not care very greatly about his reading and writing for their own sakes. he did his best with them to please the king, but he was glad enough when his time for study was over for the day, and enjoyed the few hours he was able to spend in the riding-school much more than he did the daily appearance of his wearisome teacher, who came as true to his time as the most obstinate of fevers. when the king's riding-master clapped him on the shoulder and said, "michael, you are a man! 'raven' or 'swan' carried you well to-day, and couldn't manage to throw you," he was pleased indeed; but he was much more glad when his teacher said, "come, mr. michael, i declare you are getting on like pepper! if you go on like this, i shall come to you for a lesson in a couple of months' time." miska could read, and write a very fair hand, before he knew where he was; but though writing rather amused him, he took no pleasure or interest in the books in which he learned to read. it always cost him a struggle to keep his temper during lesson-time, and occasionally he felt such an irresistible inclination to go to sleep, that his teacher was obliged to rouse him by a friendly twitch or two. there were some italian servants in the stable-yard here, very lively fellows, whose sprightliness miska found so attractive that he was quite vexed at being shut out from their society. they were constantly laughing and in good spirits; but when miska wanted to join in the laugh, they would say in broken hungarian, "how could they tell all over again what it was they were laughing at so much?" "you learn italian, _mio caro_, and then you can laugh with us." "good!" thought miska. "if these whipper-snappers, whose mouths are always pinched up like funnels, can learn a few words of hungarian, i'll soon learn their language. why," reasoned miska, "i was only a year old when i began to learn hungarian, and they say i could talk like a magpie by the time i was two; and now--when i am eighteen, and have got a little down shading my upper lip--can't i learn italian, when these whipper-snappers could talk it when they were three years old?" miska's reasoning was somewhat peculiar, but it was not altogether amiss after all. he began by asking his friends what to call the objects about him; and his good memory served him so well that in a short time he knew the names of most of the implements and different sorts of work which he had to do with. six months passed away; but matthias had a good many other and more important matters to think of than the beggar lad, and he had not once been in visegrád since miska had been there. "so much the better," thought miska; "he will come some time, and then i shall know all the more. if only there were not this learning! but it is no good; it has got to be. and yet why? a little page like me is as wise as an owl if he can read and write, and what does he want with more? i can read and write too.--hm," he thought to himself, "the man who invented writing--what the thunderbolt did he invent it for? what good could it do him? well, it made him able to read books." and then presently he muttered, "donkey! if the king were to hear that now! well, to be sure, as if there _were_ any books when nobody could write! then they invented it that they might write--that is more reasonable; but what is the use of writing when a man does not know how to write books?" miska battered his brains in vain to try to make out why it was necessary for him to learn to read, and what good his wisdom would do him. one day the governor put a book in his hands. "here," said he, "little brother michael, you know how to read now, and the king's reader is ill. suppose you were to try and get his place; it would be a fine thing for you." "reader!" said miska. "do i want his place? what should i gain by it? it would be a great deal better if i could go out hunting sometimes; my eyes see green when the horns are sounded, and here i have to be 'selling acorns.'"[8] [footnote 8: sticking at home.] "that will come, too, in time, michael," said the governor; "but now give your attention to this book. there are some very fine stories in it, and i should like, when his highness the king comes, to have some one who can read well and intelligently to him; for his highness says that i read like a slovack clerk, and yet none of my family were ever slovacks, or ever lived on _kása_."[9] [footnote 9: _kása_, the chief food of the slovack peasants, is made of millet or potatoes boiled in milk.] what was to be done? at first michael read the book with reluctance, and merely because he was obliged to do so; but later on he became more and more interested. presently he felt as if at last he knew what was the good of writing and reading. when he had read the book to the end, he actually asked for another; and at last, whenever he had any spare time, he crept away and seated himself in one of the pretty arbours of the castle garden, and read as hard as if he were to be paid for it. if miska had been like many another lad, he would have seen pretty well the whole of his career by this time. there was nothing more to be done; for a page who can read and write, and swallows books as eagerly as a pelican does fish, already knows more than enough for his position. for these things are often rather a hindrance to his riding and other duties, and it is not his business to give an account of the books he reads, but of the work entrusted to him to do. the governor trusted all sorts of things to miska, however. "eh," miska began to think to himself, "i am not cut out for a page now. these second-rank pages are really not much better than grooms, and the governor still expects me to clean the king's two favourite horses. why, i'm sure i know as much as galeotti himself by this time, and i can speak italian too." but still the king did not come, and miska went on learning; for ever since he had taken to reading books, his mind had begun to grow and had gone on growing, and he saw a good many things in a very different light now from what he had done formerly. now, indeed, if the king asked him again, he could say that he should like to be something better than he was. for a long time he went on racking his brains trying to make up his mind what he should do; and at last one day, when he had faithfully done all his duties, he sat down and wrote a letter to the king as follows:- "mr. king, your highness,--i can read and write, and i can jabber italian too, when necessary. "please, your highness, to have the horses in my charge brought to buda; for i'm sure you never rode such--they have improved so in my hands. "may god bless you! come some time to visegrád, and let me kiss your hands and feet.--your poor, humble servant, tornay michael. "_p.s._--brave mr. king, if your highness could find a place for me in the black legion, i would thank you indeed, and you would not regret it either." when king matthias read this letter, he laughed aloud, well pleased. "see," said he, showing the letter to those who were standing near him. "this was a ragged beggar lad--perhaps by this time i should have had to have him hanged. as it is, i have gained a man in him.--zokoly," said he to the young knight who was just then with him, "fetch the boy here; and if he is up to the mark, put him into a coat of mail and then bring him to me. but i will answer his letter first, for he might abuse my father and mother for my bad manners if i were to leave it unnoticed." the king wrote as follows:- "all good to you from god, miska. as you can read and write, i meant to make a precentor of you, good boy; but if you wish to join the black legion instead, no matter. mount one of the horses you have had charge of, and lead the other hither. mind what you are about, and don't get drunk.--your well-wisher, "king matthias." no first fiddle, no palatine even, in all this wide world could think himself a greater man than michael did when the king's letter, written with his own hand, was given to him. he threw himself into the governor's arms in a transport of joy, and then, when he had made himself clean and tidy and put on his best clothes--well, then, there was no keeping him. he would neither eat nor drink, and in a little while he was off, riding one of the horses and leading the other; and as he went he said, "god keep king matthias!" repeating the words over and over again. "let him only get into some great trouble one day, just to let me show that there is a grateful heart under this smart dolmány." when zokoly presented the lad to the king clad in the stern, manly garb of the black legion--wearing, that is to say, a network coat of black mail, with a heavy sword by his side, and a round helmet on his head--matthias was quite surprised. the king, as has been said, possessed the rare gift of being able to read men, and seldom made a mistake in his choice of those whom he took into his service. and now as he cast a searching glance at the boy's noble countenance, and noticed the open, honourable expression of his piercing eyes, and above all the broad forehead which was so full of promise, the great king--for great he was, though not yet at the pinnacle of his greatness--the great king felt almost ashamed to see the lad standing before him in the garb of a common soldier, as if he were merely one of the ordinary rank and file. the jest with which he had been about to receive him died away unuttered on his lips. but he welcomed his man good-naturedly, and said,-"michael tornay, from this day forth you are ennobled. i will give you the parchment to-morrow, and i will make a landed proprietor of you." the lad believed in king matthias as if he had been some altogether superior being; he was ardently, passionately attached to him, but he said nothing. to tell the truth, he felt more confused than grateful; for the new-made noble, the private of the black legion, had just so much delicacy of feeling that he was much more flattered by the king's treating him seriously than he would have been by jests and teasing. for the moment he could not get out a word. there was a mist before his eyes; and after a long pause--for the king himself was touched by the effect of his words--the young man came to himself, and dropping upon one knee said, "your highness has made a man of me, and i trust in god that you will never, never repent it!" few and simple words, but the king was so well pleased with them, and so confirmed in his previous opinion, that at that moment he would have dared to trust the boy with the command of the castle of visegrád. a week later, after a battle in which michael had taken part, matthias made the boy an officer in the famous black or death legion--so called from the colour of its armour and the skull-like shape of its helmets--which was under the command of the king himself. chapter vii. sent to prison. it would be interesting, no doubt, if we could follow michael's career step by step; but the next two years of his life must be passed over very briefly. it was true that the king had made a man of him, and already tornay was a marked personage--a man whose name was often in people's mouths, and well known in the army as a rising young general. there was plenty of work for the black legion in those days; for the turks were perpetually invading the southern provinces, and the hungarians were left to fight them almost single-handed--though, as the king reminded louis the eleventh of france, "hungary was fighting for all christendom," as she had been doing for many a long year past. michael had distinguished himself more than once for his courage, and for a daring which amounted at times to actual foolhardiness, and now he had outdone his previous exploits by the gallant rescue from extreme peril of general rozgonyi. the general was cut off from his men, and absolutely alone in the midst of a band of turks, when michael made a bold dash into their midst, scattering them right and left, and succeeded in extricating himself and rozgonyi from their clutches. it was a bold exploit and a rash one--madly rash, indeed--but it was successful; and as michael rode back to his men, wounded, but not seriously so, he was received with loud applause; and perhaps, if the truth must be told, he felt himself something of a hero. but the king, who had watched him with much anxiety, was considerably provoked; and when the battle was over, he summoned him to his tent, where michael found him sitting alone and looking very much more grave than was his wont. he raised his eyes when michael entered, but his voice sounded stern, and instead of saying "thou" to him as he usually did, he addressed him quite formally. "mr. tornay," said he, "you have been behaving like a madman, like a common soldier whose horse has such a hard mouth that he can't control it; or--you must have been pouring more wine down your throat than you ought to have done." king matthias had a great horror of drunkards, and did his best to stop all excessive drinking in the army and elsewhere. but michael was utterly taken aback. he had been a good deal flattered and complimented, and had quite expected that the king was going to thank him for saving the general's life, or at least would show that he was well pleased with him, and give him a few of those words of approval which he valued above everything. to be received in this way was rather crushing. "sir--your highness," he stammered, in great surprise, "i was only doing my duty." "that is precisely the very thing you were not doing," said the king with some warmth, his large dark eyes flashing as he spoke. "you are a general; you were in command, and you left your troops in the lurch, as st. paul left the wallachians.[10] you rushed among the turkish spahis entirely alone, and to what, as far as you could tell, was certain death, like a man who was weary of his life, his king, and his duty. you ought to be ashamed of yourself; and understand that what may be meritorious in a private is worse than cowardice in the officers." [footnote 10: a common saying. st. paul is supposed to have lost patience with them.] tornay was so thunderstruck that he could not find words to defend himself. "speak!" said matthias, in a tone of displeasure. "we wish to hear what you have to say in your defence; it is not our custom to punish any one without hearing him." "sir--your highness," said tornay, with gentle deference, but with the manner of one who has an easy conscience, "i did not think i was guilty of cowardice in going to the rescue of one of your best generals!" "god be thanked that you were successful!" said the king, "but it is more than you had any right to expect. the fact is that it was vanity which led you to risk your head in an experiment which was not merely hazardous, but so desperate that there was hardly the remotest reasonable hope of success; and vanity under such circumstances is cowardice. i honour courage; as for insane foolhardiness, it belongs not to the knight but to the highwayman." tornay listened abashed, and though much hurt he felt that matthias was right. "i should have a great mind to punish you," the king went on, "but that one of my best generals owes his life to your folly, so for his sake i pardon you." "what can i do?" said the young man in a low voice--"what can i do to regain your highness's favour? i can't live if i know that your highness is angry with me--me who owe everything, all that i am, to you." "always be on your guard, my little brother," said the king; and now, seeing how distressed he was, and wishing to comfort him, he spoke in the kind, pleasant voice which won all hearts. "do only what you can give a right and satisfactory reason for, and then you will never miss the mark." so michael went back to his quarters comforted, and promising himself to lay the king's simple advice well to heart. there was a grand banquet at the court that night, and many of the great nobles were present; but miska did not venture to show himself, though when once the king had given a reprimand and made the delinquent understand what he thought of his conduct, his anger was over and done with, and he spoke in his usual kindly way again. miska thought, however, that by thus punishing himself he should soften him. after all, as he reflected, the king was right: it was the thought of making a soldier's name for himself which had led him to run into such obvious danger. and yet he had a reason to give for what he had done--a good reason too, he had thought; for he had considered that his life belonged to the king, who had given him his career and all that made his life of any importance. and so he had resolved with himself never to trouble his head about risk and danger, when he had an opportunity of proving his fidelity to the king. but now, as he turned over in his mind the advice which the king had given him, he began to see things a little differently. "my life belongs to the king, it is true," thought he, "and i must be ready to sacrifice it whenever there is any reason to do so; but just _because_ my life is the king's, i have no right to throw it away." from that time tornay tried to make himself more and more useful to the king, by learning all that he could of his profession. the courage of a private was not enough--it was not what was wanted of him, now that he was an officer in command; and he felt that the courage which made a man strive to acquire the knowledge necessary to those in his own position--generals and commanders, that is to say--was courage of a higher, nobler sort than that which led to deeds of mere daring. of course the courage of the private was also needful--quite indispensable, indeed, in every soldier, officer or not, who must always be ready to sacrifice his life if need be; but he strove to acquire besides the cool courage which does not let itself be carried away by excitement, which can listen to the sound of the trumpets and the din of battle without being intoxicated, which remains calm and collected, retains its presence of mind, and is capable of seeing and hearing, and, above all, of thinking for others, even when the issue looks most doubtful. for a general has to remember that he is not merely an individual; he is that, of course, but he is a great deal more--he is the head of a body which depends upon him for guidance. he must not play only his own game, or be thinking only or chiefly of the bold, brave deeds he can do on his own account; he must practise the most stern self-restraint. and he must not think of gratifying his own vanity or desire of distinguishing himself; he must think of those under his command--he must be unselfish. hitherto, michael's one thought when he went into battle had been the enemy, and how much damage he could do him. he had eyes for nothing else, and he was eager to give proof of his own personal valour; but now he began to accustom himself to resist this consuming thirst for action, and to restrain his longing to rush madly into the fight, for he was learning that he must not think only of himself. when the army was drawn up in battle array, fronting the enemy and all ready for action, the young soldier would begin to ask himself what he should do if the king were presently to give orders, as he might some day, that he, michael, was to take the chief command and lead the army to battle. and then his blood would boil, his eyes would flash, and he felt an almost irresistible longing to dash forward and do some valiant deed. but now he controlled and recovered himself, and repeating to himself the king's words, would say, "now, mihály, how could you do such a thing? what reason could you give for it?" he began to scrutinize the ranks of the enemy in a much more scientific way, reminding himself that he was not now a private, or even a subaltern officer, in the black legion, but a general, whose duty it was to think, not of bold ventures, but of sober plans. this gave quite another turn to his mind, and he felt how much higher and fairer a thing it was to think of others and direct others, and to keep one's presence of mind intact and one's blood cool, when youthful zeal made others lose their heads. so thinking to himself one day, as he and the men under his command stood facing the enemy, waiting for the signal to advance, he was keeping his eyes upon the opposite ranks, when all at once he observed something that till now had escaped his notice. "the enemy is remarkably weak in the left wing yonder," he reflected, "and there is a long marsh just in front; i don't think i should be afraid of being attacked from that quarter. if i were in command," he went on, "i would order one division to advance in that direction and outflank the enemy. this would throw him into confusion. then i would send part of the cavalry forward, and while the enemy's attention was engaged by the sudden attack on his wing, i would fall upon his centre with my whole force." "really," the young officer said to himself, "i should like to tell his highness what i think." michael scribbled something in pencil upon a scrap of paper, and sent one of the black knights off with it to the king, who was inspecting the ranks, and was now riding down the left wing of the army, surrounded by a brilliant staff, himself more simply attired than any of those about him. the king read over the crooked lines with not a little astonishment, and for a moment his face flamed. then he cried out in lively tones, "upon my word, advice is becoming from a twenty-years-old general! this man will be somebody one of these days." then on the margin of the paper he wrote just these two words--"_do it!_" * * * * * the battle was over and won, and a fortnight later tornay mihály was one of the king's lieutenant-generals. matthias had by this time grown extremely fond of the young man. michael was always so vigilantly on the alert, so blindly devoted to him, and so quick in his ways, that the king had no misgivings about any commission which he entrusted to him. it was certain to be done, and done well. but this was not all. he was pleased, too, with the young man's evident gratitude and nobility of character--though not as much surprised as some others, who fancied that such things were not to be looked for in a beggar lad; for the king could read faces, and he had long since made up his mind about michael. in those days there were two bastions on the walls of the castle of buda, towards zugliget. they were used as magazines, but in case of a siege--which at that time buda had little cause to dread--they would be garrisoned with soldiers, and were therefore already provided with guns. these two bastions, one of which remains, though in an altered form, to the present day, were about a couple of fathoms apart; and now the king gave orders that both were to be set in order and made fit for dwelling-houses. there was no opening on three of the sides, with the exception of some small windows high up, which let in the light, but would give the intended inmates no outlook; but on the fourth side, where the bastions faced each other, there were four long, narrow windows in each, guarded by strong iron bars. * * * * * the king was just now staying in buda, and had given michael command of part of the castle garrison; and he was so well satisfied with the way in which he discharged his duties, that hardly a week passed without his giving him some fresh mark of his favour. as for michael's passionate attachment to the king, it increased daily; every hint from him was a command, and he was always on the watch to try to interpret his wishes before they were put into words. one morning he was summoned to the king's presence. "michael," said the king, in a good-humoured tone, "i am angry with you, and i am going to punish you." "how have i been so unfortunate as to deserve the anger of the best of kings and masters?" asked the young man. "well, what do you think?" matthias went on, laughing. "am i very angry, and am i going to pass a severe sentence?" "mr. king," answered tornay, who saw at once that matthias was in high good-humour, "i think your highness has got hold of your anger by the small end this time, and perhaps you won't go quite so far as to have my head cut off." "your head may possibly be allowed to remain in its accustomed place," said the king jestingly. "however, it is not necessary that you should know which part of your person i have sentenced to punishment; it is enough, gossip, that you are to expiate your offence, and that to begin with i am going to send you to prison." "perhaps your highness is going to entrust me with the command of some abandoned wooden castle?"[11] said michael. [footnote 11: many small castles of wood and stone had been built in the north by the bohemian freebooters already mentioned.] "no," said the king; "you have not found it out this time. i have got other quarters for you." "very well, as your highness wills; but you won't get much good out of me if i am in prison." "listen. you can see the two bastions yonder on the mount st. gellert side of the castle. i have had them put in order, and you are to live in one of them." tornay listened, but he could not make it out at all. he saw the two bastions sure enough, and as they did not now look at all gloomy or prison-like, he was not alarmed at the idea of living in one of them; but he could not by any means conceive what the king's object could be. "you are surprised," said the king, "aren't you? but the prison is tolerable enough. you will have four small rooms; and as for the look-out, well, i think you will be content with it; and then you will be your own jailer, so you need have no fear as to the strictness of the discipline. in a word, you are to move into your new quarters this very day." tornay retired; but on his way he racked his brains to discover why the king could want him to move into the bastion. what reason could he have? if he was his own jailer, and could go in and out as he pleased, it was not a prison, simply different quarters, and better, at all events, than those he had had before; for he had been living in a very poor apartment of the castle, looking into a by-street. "well," thought he, "what do i know as to the king's motives? who can ever tell what he has in his head? he wishes me to live there--good! then that's enough, and there i will live." so tornay took possession of one of the bastions facing pesth, and was very well satisfied indeed with his new quarters, which the king had had plainly but comfortably enough furnished. perhaps the king had placed him there only as an excuse for making him more presents. chapter viii. the beggar boy's song. michael found himself very well off in his new quarters; and as nothing happened to explain the king's whim, he was confirmed in his belief that its only object was to make him more comfortable. he was very punctual in attending to all his duties, and inspected the garrison very frequently, but he spent a good many of his spare hours in reading and study. for the king liked men of learning and cultivation, and michael was bent upon pleasing him in these matters if he could. being in buda, with a little time on his hands, gave him a capital opportunity of improving himself; for he had become acquainted with the king's great friend the librarian galeotti, and through him he now made acquaintance with the famous library which matthias was then forming under the direction of galeotti and his fellow-worker ugoletti. the library was in the castle, and consisted of two great halls, in which, by the end of his life, the king had collected above fifty thousand volumes. he was constantly buying up valuable manuscripts in italy, constantinople, and asia; and he kept a number of men constantly employed in copying--four in florence and thirty in buda. the manuscripts were many of them beautifully illuminated and adorned with tasteful initials and pictures, and frequently with likenesses of the king and his wife, so that they were valuable as works of art. the art of printing, too, had been lately introduced, and the printing-press was kept constantly at work adding to the contents of the polished cedar-wood book-shelves, which were protected by silken, gold-embroidered curtains: for matthias treated his books royally and as if he loved them. besides books, the two halls contained three hundred statues, some ancient and some modern; and in the vestibule were astronomical and mathematical instruments, with a large celestial globe in the centre supported by two genii. michael had abundant opportunities of study, and knew that he could not please the king better than by availing himself of them. the italian which he had learned from the grooms at visegrád he now found most useful, as it enabled him to talk to the various artists, sculptors, musicians, and other distinguished men from italy, whom the king loved to have about him. the two librarians of course he knew well; then there was the great painter filippo lippi, and the florentine architect averulino, by whom the royal palaces both in buda and visegrád were beautified and enlarged. carbo of ferrara was writing a dialogue, in which he sang the praises of king matthias; galeotti was busy with a book of entertaining stories, full of anecdotes and sayings of the king, to which michael certainly might have contributed much that was interesting; bonfinius of ascoli, reader to the queen, was engaged upon his history of hungary; and various hungarian authors were composing their chronicles and writing legends and poetry in latin--that being still the language of the learned throughout europe. from the windows of his "prison" michael had no view, as has been said, except of the other bastion, which was not particularly interesting, as it was uninhabited, so that he was not tempted to waste any time in looking out of the window. but he had only to go into the palace gardens when he wanted to get away from his books and rest his eyes and brain; and these covered a great deal of ground, extending indeed as far as to the neighbouring hills, then still covered with forests, where the king, who was an ardent sportsman, often went hunting. michael was sitting in the window one morning to eat his breakfast, when he chanced to look across to the opposite window, and saw, to his great surprise, that there was some one there, or at least he fancied that he saw some one, but the glimpse was so momentary that he could not be sure. when one has nothing at all to look at, very small trifles become quite important; and the idea that he might have, or be going to have, neighbours was quite exciting. certainly the king had said something about it, but hitherto he had seen no one. in a fit of curiosity, michael opened the window and looked out from time to time while he went on with his meal. once he thought he saw some one flit past it again; but he had to hurry off to his military duties before he could make out whether the rooms were really occupied or not. when he came back, the very first thing he did was to go up to the window again; and at last his curiosity was gratified, at least to some extent, for two persons were there--two women, one seated at a little embroidery-frame, and the other standing over her, looking at her work. their faces were hidden from him at first, but from their dress and figures he could see that one was elderly and the other quite young. presently the younger one raised her head from her work and looked up, and from the momentary glance which he had of her features, michael fancied that he had seen her before somewhere or other. he could not for the moment think where it could have been, for it was the merest glimpse he had of her face before she looked down again. he must not be so rude as to watch; but he could not resist an occasional glance as long as they were there. in another quarter of an hour, however, both figures had disappeared, and michael saw no more of them. but the discovery that he had neighbours was quite exciting, and he was so much interested that he shook his head with some impatience when he found the window deserted in the afternoon. till this event occurred, michael had been in the habit of spending as short a time as possible within doors, and was most eager to mount his horse as soon as ever he had finished the work which he had set himself for the day. but now he was so consumed with curiosity that he actually kept his steed waiting a whole quarter of an hour later than usual, while he watched for the reappearance of the ladies. but it was all to no purpose. for a moment he caught sight of a white hand raised, either to fasten the window or to point to something, but the next instant this too had disappeared. he was on the watch again when he returned home, taking care, however, to stand or sit where he could not be seen; and the next day and the next it was the same. he spent so much time in watching, indeed, that he got quite angry with himself at last; and then he would go out riding, and come back quite vexed and out of sorts. "bother it all!" he thought to himself; "of course i shall see her again sooner or later if she is there." he was standing in his usual place again one evening, when he saw two shadows move away from the opposite window in the most tantalizing manner, and he felt so hopeful that he sat down to watch at his ease. if tobacco had been known in those days, no doubt he would have lighted his pipe or a cigar; but as it was not, he had nothing to console himself with, and could only sit and "look for king david and his harp" in the moon, as the saying is. all at once he fancied that he really did hear him playing his harp in his silver palace. there were sounds of some sort--soft, sweet sounds, which came floating towards him on the air; and he thought to himself that he had surely heard the plaintive melody with its vibrating chords somewhere before. "to be sure! i have got it!" he said to himself. "i know now _where_! but, of course, others might know the air.--eh! what's that, though?" he exclaimed, as a sweet, young, bell-like voice now began to accompany the instrument, and he heard one of the very songs which he had himself composed in the days which now seemed so long ago. that miska the beggar boy should be a popular poet will astonish no one who knows how many of the popular songs of hungary have had their origin in the humble cottages of the peasantry, in the course of past centuries. every village has its poet, who is also frequently a musical composer as well. he sings his songs at the village merry-makings to airs of his own invention, and the gipsies, who are always present on such occasions to play for the dancers, accompany him on their fiddles. if they take a fancy to the air, they will remember it, and invent variations to it, and in this way it will be preserved and become part of their stock. "one life, one god, one home, one love," sang michael's opposite neighbour, in a voice of great beauty and sweetness. "it's esther! it must be esther!" cried the young man, starting to his feet in great excitement. "esther!" he said, and a flush mounted to his face; "but here, _here_, actually here, opposite me? impossible! i must see her and make sure. no one could know that song, though, but herself; i made it for her, and no one else ever had it, at least from me." often and often michael had wondered what had become of his little friend and the other inhabitants of the castle; but whenever he had ventured to hint an inquiry as to mr. samson's fate, or had tried to find out anything about the rest, the king had turned the subject, and avoided giving him any direct answer. of course it was out of the question to press the matter, so that he had known positively nothing of what had happened ever since the eventful night when he had left the castle. but though his life had been a very busy one, and many fresh new interests had come into it, he had never forgotten the one pleasant acquaintance whom he had made in mr. samson's grim castle. he walked across towards the window now full of eagerness; but the singer, whose voice he thought he recognized, was sitting in such a provoking way that he could not see her face, and he had been careful to manage so that she should not see him either. presently he stopped, with his foot on the window-sill, and then took another step forward, which apparently startled the singer, for the song ceased abruptly, and a rather frightened face looked up at him. "it is you!" cried the young officer, in impetuous delight; and "is it you?" said the girl, more quietly, but with a flush of pleasure. "well, did ever one see!" exclaimed a sharp voice behind esther. "jancsi! [johnnie!] how ever did you get here?" "it is i indeed, my little demoiselle," said michael, in the utmost surprise. "but i am quite bewildered. how did you come here?" "did not you know that the king had sent for me here to buda?" "the king!" said the young man, and a shadow crossed his face; "when? what for?--and have you seen the king?" "three questions at once," said esther, laughing. "well, really i don't know anything more than that we came here under the escort of an old gentleman whom i don't know; and the king quartered us here, where we have been now three days, but i have not yet seen his highness. god bless him! for i am as free here, and as happy," she went on, blushing still more, "as if i had been born again. but come in; why do you stand there in the window? we are neighbours, you know, as we used to be, and neighbours ought to be on good terms with one another." michael felt as if he were dreaming, but naturally he did not wait to be asked twice; and the old woman, who had shown a marked liking for him before while he was in samson's castle, welcomed him now with the greatest cordiality. "why, jancsi, stay a bit," said she, "and let me look at you! why, what a smart lad you have turned into, to be sure! what fine buttons you have on your dolmány! and--well, i declare, you have a watch too! 'your lentils must have sold' uncommonly well in the time; and just tell us now how you came to 'climb the cucumber-tree' so quickly, will you?"[12] [footnote 12: to "sell one's lentils well" and to "climb the cucumber-tree" mean to get on in the world and make one's fortune quickly.] "ah, auntie, that would take a long time to tell; but we'll have it another time. all i can tell you now is that i owe everything to the good king, and i would go through the fire for him; for my whole life, every moment of it, belongs to him." then in a few words he told them his history since the time when he had left the castle with samson, and had so given esther some hope of release. "it is strange," said esther thoughtfully, "that the king should have put us here opposite one another, and should have had these gloomy bastions put in order and made so habitable just for us." "very," said michael. "i am surprised myself, and i don't understand it, especially as the king asked me yesterday, laughing, whether i had yet made acquaintance with my neighbour? but what is the good of troubling one's head about it? i am heartily glad, anyway; and you, esther, are you pleased too? tell me." the girl blushed a little, and giving michael her hand, said: "why shouldn't i be glad? i am sure i could not have come across a better neighbour, and it is to you most certainly that i owe my freedom." the young officer sighed. "indirectly, yes," he said; and then in a lower tone he added, "and the king might have entrusted you to my charge; i might have had the pleasure of bringing you here. however, when i had captured mr. samson, before i came back to the king, i showed the way in and out of the castle to the jew whom mr. samson had intended to relieve of his pack, so it was easy enough then to get in and take possession." "of course," said esther, "it did not need any very great valour to steal in at midnight and seize the place." "and what has become of mr. samson? the king has never told me a word more about him." "what has become of him? i should think he was safe in one of the king's prisons." "dear esther, do tell me what happened; i am burning to know how it all came about." "well, when a few weeks had passed and mr. samson did not come home, we all began to think that something had happened to him, and that he had perished for good and all. and then one midnight we heard a great noise of shouting and the clash of arms, and then mr. rozgonyi came and mentioned your name, and i let him into my room. for i was so frightened, not knowing what was going on, that i had treble-bolted the door and put the bar up; but when i heard your name, of course i knew it was all right, and i opened it at once." "and what of the castle?" "mr. rozgonyi did not allow much time for questions. he just said that he had brought some stone-masons with him; and apparently they had come to pull down and not to build, at least in the first place, for he wound up by saying that the king was going to have the stones used to build a church and monastery in the nearest village. there would be enough for three, i should think!" "and did miss esther ever think of the poor beggar boy?" "to be sure! but i thought more of the valiant alpári jános [john], who was so brave as to come into mr. samson's hiding-place, and then so clever as to get the wicked tyrant into his hands. but, sir knight, i felt afraid of you too, and i must confess that i am rather afraid of you still. for--you are certainly very clever at pretending and making believe to be what you are not; and when one finds it all out, how is one to believe anything you may say?" "good esther!" said michael, looking a little shamefaced, "but didn't i keep my promise to you? i said you should be released, and you were." "true," admitted esther. "and if i acted the part of a dissembler with mr. samson, i was not my own master, you know; i belonged to the king, and was obeying his orders, not following my own fancies and wishes. but as regards yourself, i have never dissembled at all, from the time when first i began to make your acquaintance, and it rests with you to put my sincerity to the test." "how do you mean? but i see we have been chattering away a long time.--euphrosyne, light the candles.--and you, sir, must go, if you please; we have talked enough for to-day." but though esther dismissed him now, no day passed after this without his coming to see her; and both she and euphrosyne seemed to be always glad to see him and to listen to all he had to tell them, first about his own life and adventures, and the king whom he was never tired of extolling, and then about the day's incidents, his work and his studies, and what was going on in buda; for they lived very quietly, and saw and heard but little of the outside world. often, too, esther would bring out her harp and play and sing. her voice had gained in power and richness during the past two or three years, and she had had some teaching from one of the king's musicians; but nothing pleased michael so well as to hear her sing the favourite old songs which he remembered of old, except--to hear her sing his own. chapter ix. the king's whim. things had been going on very pleasantly for some weeks, and michael and his attractive little neighbour had been growing more and more intimate with each other, when one evening, on entering the room as usual, he saw at once that something was amiss; for esther's bright face was quite overclouded, and her blue eyes looked troubled. but euphrosyne was mounting guard over her young mistress as she always did, and michael's anxious but cautious inquiries met with evasive answers, or passed unnoticed. how he wished the old woman would find something to look after in the kitchen or elsewhere--anything to get rid of her, if but for a few minutes! the conversation was less animated than usual this evening: esther seemed to find a difficulty in talking and she said positively that she could not sing; and michael was becoming quite uneasy and almost inclined to take his departure, when--whether she felt that she was not wanted or not--something or other made euphrosyne discover, or perhaps pretend to discover, that she had something to attend to in another room. such a thing had never happened before, and michael seized his opportunity, blessing her in his heart for leaving them to themselves, but fearing she would be back before he had said what he wanted to say. "now, esther," he said persuasively, seating himself on the divan by her side--"now, esther, tell me what has happened. what is troubling you? you look so sad and out of spirits. what is the matter? i am sure there is something." "my friend," answered esther, "i _am_ sad, for i am to leave buda." "why? where are you going?" cried michael. "i don't know," said the girl--"i don't know! there! read what he says." and she handed michael a letter. "the king's writing!" he exclaimed; and then he read with a beating heart:- "my little sister[13] esther,--your parents came of distinguished ancestry. you are an orphan; mr. samson got possession of all that belonged to you, and since he has paid the penalty of his crimes, his property has come into our treasury. we have lately heard from munkács that he has died a natural death, and we are willing to restore a portion of his possessions to you, if you on your part are willing to give your hand to one of our 'supreme counts,'[14] a man of very ancient family. if you cannot make up your mind to this, my little sister, then you must go away from here; for your frequent meetings with mr. tornay--whose head i will wash for him!--have attracted attention, and will make you talked about. "matthias." [footnote 13: "little sister" and "little brother" are usual forms of addressing the young.] [footnote 14: _fö-ispán_, the head and administrator of a county, not a hereditary count.] michael let the letter drop from his hand in dismay, and then exclaimed passionately, "why, the king placed me here; and, besides, he asked me himself whether i had made acquaintance with my neighbour." "true," said esther sadly, "and i told his highness so myself; but he gave me quite a scolding for letting you come and see me so often." "what!" cried michael, surprised and even startled; "the king has been here?" "he has indeed," said esther, the tears springing to her eyes. "yesterday, while you were out riding the beautiful cream-coloured horse with the green silk trappings, the king came. i had never seen him before, but as he closed the door behind him, i knew in a moment that it was the king and no one else. i felt it somehow, i don't know how." "and what did he say? was he in a good humour?" "good? not by any means. he looked at me as fiercely as if i were going to do him i don't know what injury, and yet i pray for him every day, and have never sinned against him so much as in thought." "strange!" said michael. "and this count! the whirlwind take him and all his ancient family pedigree away together! do you know this count? and is there any count in all the wide world who loves you as well as i do?" "you?" said esther, lifting her tearful eyes; "but you see you never told me you did." "i _have_ told you!" said michael, impetuously seizing esther's hand and covering it with kisses; "every word i have uttered has told you so, ever since i first saw you. ah! you might have understood me, because--i was once a beggar boy, how could i speak more plainly? _i_ have no family pedigree, and i shall never be a supreme count," he finished gloomily. "is it true?" said esther, blushing very prettily, but looking several shades less melancholy than before. "why shouldn't it be true, my star? of course it is true! don't you believe me?" said michael, drawing her to himself. "but i am the son of poor parents, only a beggar boy, and that abominable count, hang him! may--what was i going to say?--well, anyhow, may the grasshoppers fall upon him!" "michael," said esther, a little shyly, "if you do love me--but understand well, i mean _really_ love me, really and truly--well then, i will just confess that i love you too, with all my heart, truly, as my life. you are more to me than all the counts in the world, for you are my supreme count; and even if you can't point to a line of ancestors, what does it signify? somebody has to make a beginning, and you are making your own name; surely that is a great deal more than merely inheriting it! besides, your family pedigree is as long as any one's in the world after all; for it reaches back to old father adam, and no one can go further." at that moment euphrosyne reappeared with the lights; but michael cared little for her, now that he had found out what he wanted to know. esther cared for him; what else could possibly matter? "i must go to the king," said michael. "he has always been most gracious to me, and why should he want to crush me now, after being the making of me? why should he make my heart bitter, when it beats true to him and to my love? don't be sad, my star. i will see him to-morrow, and tell him everything. he is so good, so kind, and so just! and it wouldn't be just to take you away from me, after bringing you here and letting us learn to know one another. if i only knew which count it was! but there are more than fifty. there is not one of them, though, that found you out in mr. samson's castle, and you never sang any of their songs, did you now? _did_ any one ever make songs for you but me?" "no one! i don't know any count, unless the old gentleman who escorted us was one, and i hardly spoke to him." but just then they were interrupted, for the door opened, and one of the royal pages stepped in. "i have been looking for you in your quarters, lieutenant-general," said he; "and as i did not find you at home, it is a good thing you are here. see, this is from the king; please to read it." and he handed a note to michael, who turned deadly pale as he took it and read as follows:- "i wish you all good. "so you have become very well acquainted indeed with your neighbours! and we suspect that you have spent more time tied to their apron-strings than in exercising the garrison. we shall therefore give you something to do. "we shall expect you to be at visegrád by eleven o'clock to-morrow morning, and we will there give you our orders. be prepared for three months' absence from buda. "you will not see your neighbour again; she is to be the bride of aggtelky mihály, one of our best-beloved and most trusty counts. god be with us.[15] "matthias." [footnote 15: equivalent to our "adieu."] the note was written in the most formally polite style. there was no "gossip" or "little brother," there was not even a "thou" in it--nothing from beginning to end but "your grace," answering indeed to our "you," but a good deal more chilling to those accustomed to the friendly "thee" and "thou." michael smothered his wrath as best he could, feeling how much he owed to the king, and that it would be the blackest ingratitude to show passion and resentment because he now crossed his will. "i will obey his highness's commands," said he to the page, who at once withdrew. then he embraced esther, and said with a heavy sigh, "all is not lost yet. the king is good, and--god is better. keep up your heart." * * * * * the next morning the young lieutenant-general was at visegrád by the appointed time, and went at once to the governor, who told him that the king had arrived a couple of hours previously, very irritable and out of humour, as it seemed. "what can have happened to his highness?" asked michael, grieved to hear of the king's ill-humour, and fearing not only that his petition would come at a most unfortunate time, but that the king would not perhaps let him have speech of him at all. "eh!" said the governor, "who knows what our good king has to worry him? there's trouble enough in the country just now, that's certain, and he has both his hands full. but i am sure i am not afraid of him; and as for those who vex him, may they suffer for it as they deserve!" a long hour passed, and still the king did not send for michael, though the governor had lost no time in announcing his arrival. but at last, after he had waited what to him seemed a very long time, the summons came. the page who brought it looked grave, but beyond that his face betrayed nothing, and michael hastened with a beating heart into the presence of the master whom he adored, but now, perhaps for the first time in his life, feared to meet. when he entered the beautiful, well-lighted room, whose painted windows looked out upon the danube, he found king matthias seated near an open window, in an arm-chair covered with yellow velvet, and looking more gloomy than he had ever seen him before. he was very plainly, almost carelessly, attired, and near him was his favourite scholar, the librarian galeotti, who also looked melancholy and stood gazing at vacancy, as if he were trying to peer into the future. "is it you?" said matthias coldly; "you have kept me waiting a long time." "mr. king," answered michael, "i have been here for the past two hours, as you commanded." "ah! true, i was forgetting; of course they announced you. are you prepared for a long journey?" "a soldier is ready to march without much preparation," said michael, with a great want of his usual alacrity. "i am ready to receive your highness's orders." "good," said the king. "you will start for vienna in an hour's time then, with mr. galeotti here. he is going on a mission for me to the emperor friedrich; and until my friend has completed his business, which may perhaps take six months, you are not to leave him." michael said nothing. "well?" the king went on, in a tone of impatient annoyance. "perhaps you don't fancy such an errand; you would prefer, no doubt, to be sent against axamith,[16] who has effected a lodgment again in the north, as we hear, and is thieving and plundering like a swarm of grasshoppers." [footnote 16: one of the bohemian freebooters.] "why should i deny it?" said michael humbly, well knowing that the king liked the truth even when he was angry. "if your highness were disposed to send me on active service somewhere, i _should_ prefer it. but wherever you please to order me, i shall go with a good will; for my life belongs to my king." "hm!" said matthias, fixing his searching eyes upon the speaker; "may be so, but just at present your tongue does not speak the thoughts of your heart." "sir! your highness!" "'highness' i may be, but 'gracious' i am not to-day, am i, mr. michael tornay? you have yourself to thank for it, for you have been putting bad wood on the fire,[17] and you have been going very near what is forbidden fruit." [footnote 17: that is, you have been up to mischief.] "forbidden fruit?" said michael, exceedingly cast down by the king's cold treatment of him. "it is true i did not distinctly forbid it you, but i could not suppose you would take fire so quickly." michael said nothing, and the king went on,-"don't deny it, for i know everything. you have fallen in love with esther. it is just fortunate that the girl has more sense than you, and does not trust your fine words." "i humbly beg your pardon," said michael, unwilling to let the opportunity slip, "i believe, on the contrary, your highness, that esther--" "esther is going to marry aggtelky mihály, the supreme count," said the king decidedly; "and now that you know this, it will be as well for you to give up thinking of her. to make it easier for you, and to impress it upon your mind, it will not be amiss for you to spend a few months away from buda." "your highness," michael began again in an imploring tone. "enough!" said the king in a stern voice. "now both follow me to the castle chapel. you will receive your instructions after service, and then--to vienna!" michael was in the utmost consternation, but he did not venture another word. it was so strange to see the gay, good-natured king thus unlike himself, that he thought he must either be ill, or must have had very bad news from somewhere, or--was it possible?--that some one had been trying to set him against himself, by telling malicious tales. his rapid advancement, and the favour which the king showed him, had, he knew, excited some envy and jealousy. had some secret enemy then been at work? but then king matthias was not given to listening to tales, and if he had heard anything to michael's discredit, he would have told him of it plainly, and given him the opportunity of clearing himself. he glanced interrogatively at galeotti; but the italian merely shrugged his shoulders to express his entire bewilderment. they were walking behind the king now, towards the chapel, which they found dressed with lovely flowers as if for a festival; but michael was so engrossed in his own thoughts, so sore at heart, and so hurt by what he felt to be the just king's injustice, that he had no attention to spare for anything else. they took their places; the shrill tones of a bell were heard, and the service began and proceeded quietly to its close. the king rose up, and was about to leave the chapel, when he stopped short, saying, "so--i was forgetting! another little ceremony takes place here to-day, of course. follow me." with that he turned towards the vestry, michael following him with listless steps. the door was opened by some one within; but michael's eyes were bent upon the ground, and he saw nothing but the marble floor, until galeotti twitched him by the sleeve and made him look up. then he saw what filled him first with amazement and next with passionate indignation. for there before him, like a beautiful dream, stood esther--_his_ esther as he felt her to be, in spite of kings and counts--_his_ esther, robed in white, with a bridal wreath on her head, and looking as fair and pure as a dove! michael turned almost as white as the bride's dress. he had been brought to visegrád to see her married to the count! that was his first collected thought. could the king, the master whom he had so loved--_could_ he be so cruel, so heartlessly cruel? for a moment or two michael was so torn in pieces between his love for esther and his love and reverence for the king, that he felt as if he were losing his senses, and might say or do something outrageous. the king stopped and turned towards him, as if he were about to speak; but michael did not notice it, for his eyes were fixed upon the bride, and he was trying to master himself. "mr. michael tornay!" michael started at the sound of the king's voice, and looked at him mechanically. matthias held in his hand a heavy gold case, with a piece of parchment from which hung a large seal. the clouds had vanished from his face as if by magic, and he was apparently quite himself again, for he looked as bright and pleasant as possible. "mr. michael tornay," he said in a gay tone, which completed michael's bewilderment, "you have answered all our expectations. if we have been the making of you, you have given us complete satisfaction in return. you have won our heart by your faithful affection, your valour, and your love and devotion to your country. and now, see, we herewith endow you with an estate for which we have chosen the name of aggtelky, from one of the properties included in it. we also entrust you with the administration of the county of szathmár; and that you may not be lonely, and find the time hang heavy on your hands, we propose to give you this naughty little daughter of eve to torment you. "what have you to say to this? will it suit you better than going to vienna, little brother--eh? ah! i thought so," as michael and his bride fell upon their knees, unable for the moment to utter a word. "then, if the bride is pleased to accept you after all, mr. supreme count michael aggtelky, the wedding shall take place at once." the end the boys' new library. _crown 8vo, cloth extra. price 3s. 6d. each._ =the british legion.= a tale of the carlist war. by herbert hayens, author of "an emperor's doom," etc., etc. crown 8vo. with six illustrations by w. h. margetson. =the island of gold.= a sea story. by gordon stables, m.d., r.n., author of "every inch a sailor," "how jack mackenzie won his epaulettes," etc., etc. crown 8vo. with six illustrations. =how jack mackenzie won his epaulettes.= by gordon stables, m.d., r.n., author of "as we sweep through the deep," etc. with six illustrations by a. pearce. crown 8vo, cloth extra. "_a story of the crimean war, and one of the best that dr. stables has written for some time._"--standard. "_one of the most rattling books for boys published this season.... delightful as is the first part, the stirring battle scenes of the second will more particularly interest young england._"--whitehall review. =boris the bear-hunter.= a story of peter the great and his times. by fred. whishaw, author of "a lost army," etc. illustrated by w. s. stacey. crown 8vo, cloth extra. "_mr. whishaw may be congratulated on having written the boys' book of the season._"--christian leader. =my strange rescue.= and other stories of sport and adventure in canada. by j. macdonald oxley, author of "up among the ice-floes," "diamond rock," etc. crown 8vo, cloth extra. 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"_the whole story is extremely well told, and, packed with adventure as it is, is calculated to hold the ordinary boy spell-bound. it is a striking work of exceptional and varied interest._"--schoolmaster. =baffling the blockade.= by j. macdonald oxley, author of "in the wilds of the west coast," "diamond rock," "my strange rescue," etc. post 8vo, cloth extra. "_it is really one of the most 'convincing' of books, in the sense that the incidents, which are thick and thrilling, read as if they had really happened._"--christian world. "_holds us in breathless interest from board to board, so that we are loth to skip a line._"--times. =chris willoughby=; or, against the current. by florence e. burch, author of "dick and harry and tom," etc. post 8vo, cloth extra. 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"_an entrancing story dealing with norse life in the eleventh century, a period unsurpassed for the opportunities it presents to the romancer._"--dundee advertiser. "_a stirring story of a stirring period, which, though we regard it at the distance of eight centuries, is full of unfailing fascination to all lovers of the romance of history._"--court journal. our boys' select library. stories of adventure, travel, and discovery. _post 8vo, cloth extra. price 2s. 6d. each._ =the forest, the jungle, and the prairie=; or, tales of adventure and enterprise in pursuit of wild animals. with numerous engravings. =scenes with the hunter and the trapper.= stories of adventures with wild animals. with engravings. =beyond the himalayas.= by john geddie, f.r.g.s., author of "the lake regions of central africa," etc. with nine engravings. "_a tale of adventure and travel over regions on the borders of china and thibet. the author has taken great pains to make his descriptions of the scenery, natural history, and botany, and of the manners and habits of the frontier people accurate and instructive. there are plenty of exciting adventures and encounters with wild beasts and no less wild men._"--standard. =the castaways.= a story of adventure in the wilds of borneo. by captain mayne reid. =the meadows family=; or, fireside stories of adventure and enterprise. by m. a. paull, author of "tim's troubles," etc. with illustrations. =the story of the niger.= a record of travel and adventure from the days of mungo park to the present time. by robert richardson, author of "adventurous boat voyages," "ralph's year in russia," etc. with thirty-one illustrations. the norseland library. _post 8vo, cloth extra. price 2s. 6d. each._ =the hermit princes.= a tale of adventure in japan. by eleanor stredder, author of "doing and daring," etc. "_conspicuous for novelty of subject and treatment. it is a japanese story perfectly conceived and realized. the landscape-painting throughout is terse and full of interest._"--manchester guardian. =norseland tales.= by h. h. boyesen, author of "the battle of the rafts, and other stories of boyhood in norway." with seven illustrations. "_they are tales of modern life, not of the vikings, but of and about the sea, and of norwegian boys who crossed the atlantic. all are well written and interesting._"--glasgow herald. =leaves from a middy's log.= by arthur lee knight, author of "adventures of a midshipmite," "the rajah of monkey island," etc. illustrated by a. pearce. "_a decidedly fresh and stirring story. there is plenty of incident and plenty of spirit in the story; the dialogue is amusing and natural, and the descriptions are vigorous and vivid._"--spectator. =sons of the vikings.= an orkney story. by john gunn, m.a., d.sc. with illustrations by john williamson. =sons of freedom;= or, the fugitives from siberia. by fred. whishaw, author of "harold the norseman," "a lost army," "boris the bear-hunter," etc. with numerous illustrations. books for the home circle. _post 8vo, cloth extra. price 2s. each._ =the pilgrim's progress from this world to that which is to come.= delivered under the similitude of a dream. by john bunyan. with mason's notes, and eight full-page illustrations. =the children's champion, and the victories he won.= pictures from the life of "the good earl," lord shaftesbury. by lucy taylor. _a simple and touching account of the life and work of one who nobly strove to fulfil the law of christ, "bear ye one another's burdens." it is admirably fitted to arouse the interest and enlist the sympathy of the young, and to fire them with a holy ambition to follow the example of one who was a real and not simply an ideal hero._ =favourite narratives for the christian household.= containing--the shepherd of salisbury plain--dairyman's daughter--young cottager, etc. _this is a suitable book to put into the hands of sunday-school scholars._ =going on pilgrimage.= a companion to the "pilgrim's progress," for young pilgrims. by lucy taylor, author of "the children's champion, and the victories he won." _an outline, with running comments and moral reflections, of the "pilgrim's progress," designed to imbue the minds of the young with the lofty aims of john bunyan in writing his unique allegory._ =home for the holidays.= by mrs. c. c. campbell, author of "natural history for young folks," etc. twenty illustrations. _an attractive book for children, which, along with a simple narrative, includes some interesting facts of natural science, historical legends, etc._ =the king's highway=; or, illustrations of the commandments. by rev. richard newton, d.d. with numerous engravings. _addresses for the young on each commandment, with illustrative anecdotes and hymns._ =the life of john knox.= with biographical notices of the principal reformers, and sketches of the progress of literature in scotland during a great part of the sixteenth century. by rev. thomas m'crie, d.d., author of "life of andrew melville." =philip.= a story of the first century. by mary c. cutler. "_the authoress writes in a charmingly simple style, so that the book will be read with delight by the children; yet it has a force and suggestiveness that will make it edifying to the adult reader._"--n. b. daily mail. =seed-time and harvest=; or, sow well and reap well. a book for the young. by the late rev. w. k. tweedie, d.d. _this book is eminently a practical one. it shows the reader, by illustration and example, the necessary results of good and bad conduct, and invites him to choose the right course._ =seeking a country=; or, the home of the pilgrims. by the rev. e. n. hoare, m.a., rector of acrise, kent; author of "heroism in humble life," "roe carson's enemy," etc. _a historical tale, founded on the first voyage of the "mayflower," and the early experiences of the pilgrim fathers. with a portrait of captain miles standish, and many other interesting illustrations._ t. nelson and sons, london, edinburgh, and new york. transcriber's note: the following typographical errors present in the original text have been corrected. in chapter i, a period was added after "to be sure". in chapter iv, a period was added after "better to be beforehand with them". the name zokoli/zokoly is spelled inconsistently in the original text. available by the internet archive, cornell university, harvard university and google. liliom a legend in seven scenes and a prologue by franz molnar english text and introduction by benjamin f. glazer horace liveright publisher new york liliom copyrighted, 1921, by united plays inc. _all rights reserved_ first printing, may, 1921 second printing, june, 1921 third printing, august, 1921 fourth printing, november, 1921 fifth printing, september, 1922 sixth printing, december, 1922 seventh printing, january, 1926 eighth printing, december, 1927 ninth printing, november, 1928 _caution_--all persons are hereby warned that the plays published in this volume are fully protected under the copyright laws of the united states and all foreign countries, and are subject to royalty, and any one presenting any of said plays without the consent of the author or his recognized agents, will be liable to the penalties by law provided. applications for the acting rights must be made to the united plays, inc., 1428 broadway, new york city. _printed in the united states of america_ as originally produced by the theatre guild, on the night of april 20, 1921, at the garrick theatre, new york city. cast of characters (in the order of their appearance) _marie_ hortense alden _julie_ eva le gallienne _mrs. muskat_ helen westley _"liliom"_ joseph schildkraut "liliom" is the hungarian for lily, and the slang term for "a tough" { frances diamond _four servant girls_ { margaret mosier { anne de chantal { elizabeth parker { howard claney _policemen_ { lawrence b. chrow _captain_ erskine sanford _plainclothes man_ gerald stopp _mother hollunder_ lilian kingsbury _"the sparrow"_ dudley digges _wolf berkowitz_ henry travers _young hollunder_ william franklin _linzman_ willard bowman _first mounted policeman_ edgar stehli _second mounted policeman_ george frenger _the doctor_ robert babcock _the carpenter_ george frenger _first policeman of the beyond_ erskine sanford _second policeman of the beyond_ gerald stopp _the richly dressed man_ edgar stehli _the poorly dressed man_ philip wood _the old guard_ walton butterfield _the magistrate_ albert perry _louise_ evelyn chard _peasants, townspeople, etc._ lela m. aultman, janet scott, marion m. winsten, katherine fahnestock, lillian tuchman, ruth l. cumming, jacob weiser, maurice somers, john crump. _prologue_ an amusement park on the outskirts of budapest _first scene_ a lonely place in the park _second scene_ the tin type shop of the hollunders _third scene_ the same _fourth scene_ a railroad embankment outside the city _intermission_ _fifth scene_ same as scene two _sixth scene_ a courtroom in the beyond _seventh scene_ before julie's door _produced under the direction of_ frank reicher _costumes and scenery designed by_ lee simonson _technical director_ sheldon k. viele _scenery painted by_ robert bergman _costumes executed by_ nettie duff reade _stage manager_ walter geer _assistant stage manager_ jacob weiser _music arranged_ by deems taylor _executive director_ theresa helburn introduction the première of "liliom" at budapest in december, 1909, left both playgoer and critic a bit bewildered. it was not the sort of play the hungarian capital had been accustomed to expect of its favorite dramatist, whose the devil, after two years of unprecedented success, was still crowding the theatres of two continents. one must, it was true, count on a touch of fantasy in every molnar work. never had he been wholly content with everyday reality, not in his stories, or in his sketches or in his earlier plays; and least of all in the devil wherein the natural and supernatural were most whimsically blended. but in liliom, it seemed, he had carried fantasy to quite unintelligible lengths. budapest was frankly puzzled. what did he mean by killing his hero in the fifth scene, taking him into heaven in the sixth and bringing him back to earth in the seventh? was this prosaic heaven of his seriously or satirically intended? was liliom a saint or a common tough? and was his abortive redemption a symbol or merely a jibe? these were some of the questions budapest debated while the play languished through thirty or forty performances and was withdrawn. almost ten years passed before it was revived. this time it was an immediate and overwhelming triumph. perhaps the wide circulation of the play in printed form had made its beauty and significance clearer. perhaps the tragedy of the war had made molnar's public more sensitive to spiritual values. whatever the reason, budapest now accepted ecstatically what it had previously rejected, and molnar was more of a popular hero than ever. from which it may be gleaned that hungary takes its drama and dramatists more seriously, disapproves them more passionately and praises them more affectionately than we americans can conceive. in paris i once saw an audience rise en masse, because the sculptor rodin had entered the auditorium, and remain on its feet cheering until he had taken his seat. something of the kind greets molnar whenever he appears in public, and nothing is more certain than that he is the hero, the oracle, the spoiled darling of club, salon and coffee house in which artistic hungary foregathers. but the years immediately following the first production of liliom were for him a period of eclipse. it was the first time that even the threat of failure had cast its shadow across his career. he became timid, wary of failure, too anxious to please his public. his subsequent plays were less original, less daring, more faithful to routine. never again did he touch the heights of liliom; and some of his best friends aver that he never will again until he has banished the dread of failure that obsesses him. an odd situation, truly, and in some aspects a tragic one. genius lacking the courage to spread its wings and soar. a potential immortal bidding fearfully for the praise of a coffee-house clique. is it vanity? is it abnormal sensitiveness? biographical data cast little light on the enigma. franz molnar was born in budapest on january 12, 1878, the son of a wealthy jewish merchant. he graduated from the universities of geneva and budapest. his literary career was begun as a journalist at the age of eighteen. he wrote short sketches and humorous dialogues of such beauty and charm that he became a national figure almost at once, and the circulation of his newspaper increased until it was foremost in budapest. then he married margaret vaszi, the daughter of his editor, herself a journalist of note. two years later he was divorced from her, and subsequently he married an actress who had played rôles in his own plays. for a portrait of him as he is today you have to think of oscar wilde at the height of his glory. a big pudgy face, immobile, pink, smooth-shaven, its child-like expressionlessness accentuated by the monocle he always wears, though rather belied by the gleam of humor in his dark alert eyes. his hair is iron-gray, his figure stocky and of about medium height. a mordant wit, an inimitable raconteur, he loves life and gayety and all the luxuries of life. nothing can persuade him out of his complacent and comfortable routine. he will not leave budapest, even to attend the première of one of his plays in nearby vienna. the post-war political upheaval which has rent all hungary into two voluble and bitter factions left him quite unperturbed and neutral. his pen is not for politics. yet it is a singularly prolific pen. his novels and short stories are among the finest in hungarian literature. he has written nine long plays and numerous short ones. a chronology of his more important dramatic works is as follows: 1902 a doktor ur (the doctor). 1904 jozsi. 1907 az ördög (the devil). 1909 liliom. 1911 testör (played in this country as "where ignorance is bliss"). 1913 a farkas (played in this country as "the phantom rival"). 1914 uridivat (attorney for defence). 1919 a hattyu (the swan). 1920 szinhaz (theatre: three one-act plays). undoubtedly the greatest of these is liliom. indeed, i know of no play written in our own time which matches the amazing virtuosity of liliom, its imaginative daring, its uncanny blending of naturalism and fantasy, humor and pathos, tenderness and tragedy into a solid dramatic structure. at first reading it may seem a mere improvization in many moods, but closer study must reveal how the moods are as inevitably related to each other as pearls on a string. and where in modern dramatic literature can such pearls be matched--julie incoherently confessing to her dead lover the love she had always been ashamed to tell; liliom crying out to the distant carousel the glad news that he is to be a father; the two thieves gambling for the spoils of their prospective robbery; marie and wolf posing for their portrait while the broken-hearted julie stands looking after the vanishing liliom, the thieves' song ringing in her ears; the two policemen grousing about pay and pensions while liliom lies bleeding to death; liliom furtively proffering his daughter the star he has stolen for her in heaven. . . . the temptation to count the whole scintillating string is difficult to resist. what is the moral of liliom? nothing you can reduce to a creed. molnar is not a preacher or a propagandist for any theory of life. you will look in vain in his plays for moral or dogma. his philosophy--if philosophy you can call it--is always implicit. and nothing is plainer than that his picture of a courtroom in the beyond is neither devoutly nor satirically intended. liliom's heaven is the heaven of his own imagining. and what is more natural than that it should be an irrational jumble of priest's purgatory, police magistrate's justice and his own limited conception of good deeds and evil? for those who hold that every fine dramatic architecture must have its spire of meaning, that by the very selection of character and incident the dramatist writes his commentary on life, there is still an explanation possible. perhaps molnar was at the old, old task of revaluing our ideas of good and evil. perhaps he has only shown how the difference between a bully, a wife-beater and a criminal on the one hand and a saint on the other can be very slight. if one must tag liliom with a moral, i prefer to read mine in liliom's dying speech to julie wherein he says: "nobody's right . . . but they all think they are right. . . . a lot they know." benjamin f. glazer. _new york, april, 1921._ liliom synopsis of scenes prologue--_an amusement park on the outskirts of budapest._ first scene--_a lonely place in the park._ second scene--_the photographic studio of the hollunders._ third scene--_same as scene two._ fourth scene--_a railroad embankment outside the city._ fifth scene--_same as scene two._ sixth scene--_a courtroom in the beyond._ seventh scene--_julie's garden._ there are intermissions only after the second and fifth scenes. cast of characters liliom julie marie mrs. muskat louise mrs. hollunder ficsur young hollunder wolf beifeld the carpenter linzman the doctor the magistrate two mounted policemen two plainclothes policemen two heavenly policemen the richly dressed man the poorly dressed man the guard a suburban policeman the prologue an amusement park on the outskirts of budapest on a late afternoon in spring. barkers stand before the booths of the sideshows haranguing the passing crowd. the strident music of a calliope is heard; laughter, shouts, the scuffle of feet, the signal bells of merry-go-round. the merry-go-round is at center. liliom stands at the entrance, a cigarette in his mouth, coaxing the people in. the girls regard him with idolizing glances and screech with pleasure as he playfully pushes them through entrance. now and then some girl's escort resents the familiarity, whereupon liliom's demeanor becomes ugly and menacing, and the cowed escort slinks through the entrance behind his girl or contents himself with a muttered resentful comment. one girl hands liliom a red carnation; he rewards her with a bow and a smile. when the soldier who accompanies her protests, liliom cows him with a fierce glance and a threatening gesture. marie and julie come out of the crowd and liliom favors them with particular notice as they pass into the merry-go-round. mrs. muskat comes out of the merry-go-round, bringing liliom coffee and rolls. liliom mounts the barker's stand at the entrance, where he is elevated over everyone on the stage. here he begins his harangue. everybody turns toward him. the other booths are gradually deserted. the tumult makes it impossible for the audience to hear what he is saying, but every now and then some witticism of his provokes a storm of laughter which is audible above the din. many people enter the merry-go-round. here and there one catches a phrase "room for one more on the zebra's back," "which of you ladies?" "ten heller for adults, five for children," "step right up"---it is growing darker. a lamplighter crosses the stage, and begins unperturbedly lighting the colored gas-lamps. the whistle of a distant locomotive is heard. suddenly the tumult ceases, the lights go out, and the curtain falls in darkness. end of prologue liliom scene one scene--_a lonely place in the park, half hidden by trees and shrubbery. under a flowering acacia tree stands a painted wooden bench. from the distance, faintly, comes the tumult of the amusement park. it is the sunset of the same day._ _when the curtain rises the stage is empty._ _marie enters quickly, pauses at center, and looks back._ marie julie, julie! [_there is no answer._] do you hear me, julie? let her be! come on. let her be. [_starts to go back._] [_julie enters, looks back angrily._] julie did you ever hear of such a thing? what's the matter with the woman anyway? marie [_looking back again._] here she comes again. julie let her come. i didn't do anything to her. all of a sudden she comes up to me and begins to raise a row. marie here she is. come on, let's run. [_tries to urge her off._] julie run? i should say not. what would i want to run for? i'm not afraid of her. marie oh, come on. she'll only start a fight. julie i'm going to stay right here. let her _start_ a fight. mrs. muskat [_entering._] what do you want to run away for? [_to julie._] don't worry. i won't eat you. but there's one thing i want to tell you, my dear. don't let me catch you in my carousel again. i stand for a whole lot, i have to in my business. it makes no difference to me whether my customers are ladies or the likes of you--as long as they pay their money. but when a girl misbehaves herself on my carousel--out she goes. do you understand? julie are you talking to me? mrs. muskat yes, you! you--chamber-maid, you! in my carousel---julie who did anything in your old carousel? i paid my fare and took my seat and never said a word, except to my friend here. marie no, she never opened her mouth. liliom came over to her of his own accord. mrs. muskat it's all the same. i'm not going to get in trouble with the police, and lose my license on account of you--you shabby kitchen maid! julie shabby yourself. mrs. muskat you stay out of my carousel! letting my barker fool with you! aren't you ashamed of yourself? julie what? what did you say? mrs. muskat i suppose you think i have no eyes in my head. i see everything that goes on in my carousel. during the whole ride she let liliom fool with her--the shameless hussy! julie he did not fool with me! i don't let any man fool with me! mrs. muskat he leaned against you all through the ride! julie he leaned against the panther. he always leans against something, doesn't he? everybody leans where he wants. i couldn't tell him not to lean, if he always leans, could i? but he didn't lay a hand on me. mrs. muskat oh, didn't he? and i suppose he didn't put his hand around your waist, either? marie and if he did? what of it? mrs. muskat you hold your tongue! no one's asking you--just you keep out of it. julie he put his arm around my waist--just the same as he does to all the girls. he always does that. mrs. muskat i'll teach him not to do it any more, my dear. no carryings on in my carousel! if you are looking for that sort of thing, you'd better go to the circus! you'll find lots of soldiers there to carry on with! julie you keep your soldiers for yourself! marie soldiers! as if we wanted soldiers! mrs. muskat well, i only want to tell you this, my dear, so that we understand each other perfectly. if you ever stick your nose in my carousel again, you'll wish you hadn't! i'm not going to lose my license on account of the likes of you! people who don't know how to behave, have got to stay out! julie you're wasting your breath. if i feel like riding on your carousel i'll pay my ten heller and i'll ride. i'd like to see anyone try to stop me! mrs. muskat just come and try it, my dear--just come and try it. marie we'll see what'll happen. mrs. muskat yes, you will see something happen that never happened before in this park. julie perhaps you think you could throw me out! mrs. muskat i'm sure of it, my dear. julie and suppose i'm stronger than you? mrs. muskat i'd think twice before i'd dirty my hands on a common servant girl. i'll have liliom throw you out. he knows how to handle your kind. julie you think liliom would throw me out. mrs. muskat yes, my dear, so fast that you won't know what happened to you! julie he'd throw me---[_stops suddenly, for mrs. muskat has turned away. both look off stage until liliom enters, surrounded by four giggling servant girls._] liliom go away! stop following me, or i'll smack your face! a little servant girl well, give me back my handkerchief. liliom go on now---the four servant girls [_simultaneously._] what do you think of him?--my handkerchief!--give it back to her!--that's a nice thing to do! the little servant girl [_to mrs. muskat._] please, lady, make him---mrs. muskat oh, shut up! liliom will you get out of here? [_makes a threatening gesture--the four servant girls exit in voluble but fearful haste._] mrs. muskat what have you been doing now? liliom none of your business. [_glances at julie._] have you been starting with her again? julie mister liliom, please---liliom [_steps threateningly toward her._] don't yell! julie [_timidly._] i didn't yell. liliom well, don't. [_to mrs. muskat._] what's the matter? what has she done to you? mrs. muskat what has she done? she's been impudent to me. just as impudent as she could be! i put her out of the carousel. take a good look at this innocent thing, liliom. she's never to be allowed in my carousel again! liliom [_to julie._] you heard that. run home, now. marie come on. don't waste your time with such people. [_tries to lead julie away._] julie no, i won't---mrs. muskat if she ever comes again, you're not to let her in. and if she gets in before you see her, throw her out. understand? liliom what has she done, anyhow? julie [_agitated and very earnest._] mister liliom--tell me please--honest and truly--if i come into the carousel, will you throw me out? mrs. muskat of course he'll throw you out. marie she wasn't talking to you. julie tell me straight to my face, mister liliom, would you throw me out? [_they face each other. there is a brief pause._] liliom yes, little girl, if there was a reason--but if there was no reason, why should i throw you out? marie [_to mrs. muskat._] there, you see! julie thank you, mister liliom. mrs. muskat and i tell you again, if this little slut dares to set her foot in my carousel, she's to be thrown out! i'll stand for no indecency in my establishment. liliom what do you mean--indecency? mrs. muskat i saw it all. there's no use denying it. julie she says you put your arm around my waist. liliom me? mrs. muskat yes, you! i saw you. don't play the innocent. liliom here's something new! i'm not to put my arm around a girl's waist any more! i suppose i'm to ask your permission before i touch another girl! mrs. muskat you can touch as many girls as you want and as often as you want--for my part you can go as far as you like with any of them--but not this one--i permit no indecency in my carousel. [_there is a long pause._] liliom [_to mrs. muskat._] and now i'll ask you please to shut your mouth. mrs. muskat what? liliom shut your mouth quick, and go back to your carousel. mrs. muskat what? liliom what did she do to you, anyhow? tryin' to start a fight with a little pigeon like that . . . just because i touched her?--you come to the carousel as often as you want to, little girl. come every afternoon, and sit on the panther's back, and if you haven't got the price, liliom will pay for you. and if anyone dares to bother you, you come and tell _me._ mrs. muskat you reprobate! liliom old witch! julie thank you, mister liliom. mrs. muskat you seem to think that i can't throw you out, too. what's the reason i can't? because you are the best barker in the park? well, you are very much mistaken. in fact, you can consider yourself thrown out already. you're discharged! liliom very good. mrs. muskat [_weakening a little._] i can discharge you any time i feel like it. liliom very good, you feel like discharging me. i'm discharged. that settles it. mrs. muskat playing the high and mighty, are you? conceited pig! good-for-nothing! liliom you said you'd throw me out, didn't you? well, that suits me; i'm thrown out. mrs. muskat [_softening._] do you have to take up every word i say? liliom it's all right; it's all settled. i'm a good-for-nothing. and a conceited pig. and i'm discharged. mrs. muskat do you want to ruin my business? liliom a good-for-nothing? now i know! and i'm discharged! very good. mrs. muskat you're a devil, you are . . . and that woman---liliom keep away from her! mrs. muskat i'll get hollinger to give you such a beating that you'll hear all the angels sing . . . and it won't be the first time, either. liliom get out of here. i'm discharged. and you get out of here. julie [_timidly._] mister liliom, if she's willing to say that she hasn't discharged you---liliom you keep out of this. julie [_timidly._] i don't want this to happen on account of me. liliom [_to mrs. muskat, pointing to julie._] apologize to her! marie a-ha! mrs. muskat apologize? to who? liliom to this little pigeon. well--are you going to do it? mrs. muskat if you give me this whole park on a silver plate, and all the gold of the rothschilds on top of it--i'd--i'd---let her dare to come into my carousel again and she'll get thrown out so hard that she'll see stars in daylight! liliom in that case, dear lady [_takes off his cap with a flourish_], you are respectfully requested to get out o' here as fast as your legs will carry you--i never beat up a woman yet--except that holzer woman who i sent to the hospital for three weeks--but--if you don't get out o' here this minute, and let this little squab be, i'll give you the prettiest slap in the jaw you ever had in your life. mrs. muskat very good, my son. now you _can_ go to the devil. good-bye. you're discharged, and you needn't try to come back, either. [_she exits. it is beginning to grow dark._] marie [_with grave concern._] mister liliom---liliom don't you pity me or i'll give _you_ a slap in the jaw. [_to julie._] and don't you pity me, either. julie [_in alarm._] i don't pity you, mister liliom. liliom you're a liar, you _are_ pitying me. i can see it in your face. you're thinking, now that madame muskat has thrown him out, liliom will have to go begging. huh! look at me. i'm big enough to get along without a madame muskat. i have been thrown out of better jobs than hers. julie what will you do now, mister liliom? liliom now? first of all, i'll go and get myself--a glass of beer. you see, when something happens to annoy me, i always drink a glass of beer. julie then you _are_ annoyed about losing your job. liliom no, only about where i'm going to get the beer. marie well--eh---liliom well--eh--what? marie well--eh--are you going to stay with us, mister liliom? liliom will you pay for the beer? [_marie looks doubtful; he turns to julie._] will you? [_she does not answer._] how much money have you got? julie [_bashfully._] eight heller. liliom and you? [_marie casts down her eyes and does not reply. liliom continues sternly._] i asked you how much you've got? [_marie begins to weep softly._] i understand. well, you needn't cry about it. you girls stay here, while i go back to the carousel and get my clothes and things. and when i come back, we'll go to the hungarian beer-garden. it's all right, i'll pay. keep your money. [_he exits. marie and julie stand silent, watching him until he has gone._] marie are you sorry for him? julie are you? marie yes, a little. why are you looking after him in that funny way? julie [_sits down._] nothing--except i'm sorry he lost his job. marie [_with a touch of pride._] it was on our account he lost his job. because he's fallen in love with you. julie he hasn't at all. marie [_confidently._] oh, yes! he is in love with you. [_hesitantly, romantically._] there is someone in love with me, too. julie there is? who? marie i--i never mentioned it before, because you hadn't a lover of your own--but now you have--and i'm free to speak. [_very grandiloquently._] my heart has found its mate. julie you're only making it up. marie no, it's true--my heart's true love---julie who? who is he? marie a soldier. julie what kind of a soldier? marie i don't know. just a soldier. are there different kinds? julie many different kinds. there are hussars, artillerymen, engineers, infantry--that's the kind that walks--and---marie how can you tell which is which? julie by their uniforms. marie [_after trying to puzzle it out._] the conductors on the street cars--are they soldiers? julie certainly not. they're conductors. marie well, they have uniforms. julie but they don't carry swords or guns. marie oh! [_thinks it over again; then._] well, policemen--are they? julie [_with a touch of exasperation._] are they what? marie soldiers. julie certainly not. they're just policemen. marie [_triumphantly._] but they have uniforms--and they carry weapons, too. julie you're just as dumb as you can be. you don't go by their uniforms. marie but you said---julie no, i didn't. a letter-carrier wears a uniform, too, but that doesn't make him a soldier. marie but if he carried a gun or a sword, would he be---julie no, he'd still be a letter-carrier. you can't go by guns or swords, either. marie well, if you don't go by the uniforms or the weapons, what _do_ you go by? julie by---[_tries to put it into words; fails; then breaks off suddenly._] oh, you'll get to know when you've lived in the city long enough. you're nothing but a country girl. when you've lived in the city a year, like i have, you'll know all about it. marie [_half angrily._] well, how _do_ you know when _you_ see a real soldier? julie by one thing. marie what? julie one thing---[_she pauses. marie starts to cry._] oh, what are you crying about? marie because you're making fun of me. . . . you're a city girl, and i'm just fresh from the country . . . and how am i expected to know a soldier when i see one? . . . you, you ought to tell me, instead of making fun of me---julie all right. listen then, cry-baby. there's only one way to tell a soldier: by his salute! that's the only way. marie [_joyfully; with a sigh of relief._] ah--that's good. julie what? marie i say--it's all right then--because wolf--wolf---[_julie laughs derisively._] wolf--that's his name. [_she weeps again._] julie crying again? what now? marie you're making fun of me again. julie i'm not. but when you say, "wolf--wolf--" like that, i have to laugh, don't i? [_archly._] what's his name again? marie i won't tell you. julie all right. if you won't say it, then he's no soldier. marie i'll say it. julie go on. marie no, i won't. [_she weeps again._] julie then he's not a soldier. i guess he's a letter-carrier---marie no--no--i'd rather say it. julie well, then. marie [_giggling._] but you mustn't look at me. you look the other way, and i'll say it. [_julie looks away, marie can hardly restrain her own laughter._] wolf! [_she laughs._] that's his real name. wolf, wolf, soldier--wolf! julie what kind of a uniform does he wear? marie red. julie red trousers? marie no. julie red coat? marie no. julie what then? marie [_triumphantly._] his cap! julie [_after a long pause._] he's just a porter, you dunce. red cap . . . that's a porter--and he doesn't carry a gun or a sword, either. marie [_triumphantly._] but he salutes. you said yourself that was the only way to tell a soldier---julie he doesn't salute at all. he only greets people---marie he salutes me. . . . and if his name _is_ wolf, that doesn't prove he ain't a soldier--he salutes, and he wears a red cap and he stands on guard all day long outside a big building---julie what does he do there? marie [_seriously._] he spits. julie [_with contempt._] he's nothing--nothing but a common porter. marie what's liliom? julie [_indignantly._] why speak of him? what has he to do with me? marie the same as wolf has to do with me. if you can talk to me like that about wolf, i can talk to you about liliom. julie he's nothing to me. he put his arm around me in the carousel. i couldn't tell him not to put his arm around me after he had done it, could i? marie i suppose you didn't like him to do it? julie no. marie then why are you waiting for him? why don't you go home? julie why--eh--he _said_ we were to wait for him. [_liliom enters. there is a long silence._] liliom are you still here? what are you waiting for? marie you told us to wait. liliom must you always interfere? no one is talking to you. marie you asked us--why we---liliom will you keep your mouth shut? what do you suppose i want with two of you? i meant that one of you was to wait. the other can go home. marie all right. julie all right. [_neither starts to go._] liliom one of you goes home. [_to marie._] where do you work? marie at the breier's, damjanovitsch street, number 20. liliom and you? julie i work there, too. liliom well, one of you goes home. which of you wants to stay? [_there is no answer._] come on, speak up, which of you stays? marie [_officiously._] she'll lose her job if she stays. liliom who will? marie julie. she has to be back by seven o'clock. liliom is that true? will they discharge you if you're not back on time? julie yes. liliom well, wasn't i discharged? julie yes--you were discharged, too. marie julie, shall i go? julie i--can't tell you what to do. marie all right--stay if you like. liliom you'll be discharged if you do? marie shall i go, julie? julie [_embarrassed._] why do you keep asking me that? marie you know best what to do. julie [_profoundly moved; slowly._] it's all right, marie, you can go home. marie [_exits reluctantly, but comes back, and says uncertainly._] good-night. [_she waits a moment to see if julie will follow her. julie does not move. marie exits. meantime it has grown quite dark. during the following scene the gas-lamps far in the distance are lighted one by one. liliom and julie sit on the bench. from afar, very faintly, comes the music of a calliope. but the music is intermittently heard; now it breaks off, now it resumes again, as if it came down on a fitful wind. blending with it are the sounds of human voices, now loud, now soft; the blare of a toy trumpet; the confused noises of the show-booths. it grows progressively darker until the end of the scene. there is no moonlight. the spring irridescence glows in the deep blue sky._] liliom now we're both discharged. [_she does not answer. from now on they speak gradually lower and lower until the end of the scene, which is played almost in whispers. whistles softly, then._] have you had your supper? julie no. liliom want to go eat something at the garden? julie no. liliom anywhere else? julie no. liliom [_whistles softly, then._] you don't come to this park very often, do you? i've only seen you three times. been here oftener than that? julie oh, yes. liliom did you see me? julie yes. liliom and did you know i was liliom? julie they told me. liliom [_whistles softly, then._] have you got a sweetheart? julie no. liliom don't lie to me. julie i haven't. if i had, i'd tell you. i've never had one. liliom what an awful liar you are. i've got a good mind to go away and leave you here. julie i've never had one. liliom tell that to someone else. julie [_reproachfully._] why do you insist i have? liliom because you stayed here with me the first time i asked you to. you know your way around, you do. julie no, i don't, mister liliom. liliom i suppose you'll tell me you don't know why you're sitting here--like this, in the dark, alone with me--you wouldn't 'a' stayed so quick, if you hadn't done it before--with some soldier, maybe. this isn't the first time. you wouldn't have been so ready to stay if it was--what _did_ you stay for, anyhow? julie so you wouldn't be left alone. liliom alone! god, you're dumb! i don't need to be alone. i can have all the girls i want. not only servant girls like you, but cooks and governesses, even french girls. i could have twenty of them if i wanted to. julie i know, mister liliom. liliom what do you know? julie that all the girls are in love with you. but that's not why _i_ stayed. i stayed because you've been so good to me. liliom well, then you can go home. julie i don't want to go home now. liliom and what if i go away and leave you sitting here? julie if you did, i wouldn't go home. liliom do you know what you remind me of? a sweetheart i had once--i'll tell you how i met her---one night, at closing time, we had put out the lights in the carousel, and just as i was---[_he is interrupted by the entrance of two plainclothes policemen. they take their stations on either side of the bench. they are police, searching the park for vagabonds._] first policeman what are you doing there? liliom me? second policeman stand up when you're spoken to! [_he taps liliom imperatively on the shoulder._] first policeman what's your name? liliom andreas zavoczki. [_julie begins to weep softly._] second policeman stop your bawling. we're not goin' to eat you. we are only making our rounds. first policeman see that he doesn't get away. [_the second policeman steps closer to liliom._] what's your business? liliom barker and bouncer. second policeman they call him liliom, chief. we've had him up a couple of times. first policeman so that's who you are! who do you work for now? liliom i work for the widow muskat. first policeman what are you hanging around here for? liliom we're just sitting here--me and this girl. first policeman your sweetheart? liliom no. first policeman [_to julie._] and who are you? julie julie zeller. first policeman servant girl? julie maid of all work for mister georg breier, number twenty damjanovitsch street. first policeman show your hands. second policeman [_after examining julie's hand._] servant girl. first policeman why aren't you at home? what are you doing out here with him? julie this is my day out, sir. first policeman it would be better for you if you didn't spend it sitting around with a fellow like this. second policeman they'll be disappearing in the bushes as soon as we turn our backs. first policeman he's only after your money. we know this fine fellow. he picks up you silly servant girls and takes what money you have. tomorrow you'll probably be coming around to report him. if you do, i'll throw you out. julie i haven't any money, sir. first policeman do you hear that, liliom? liliom i'm not looking for her money. second policeman [_nudging him warningly._] keep your mouth shut. first policeman it is my duty to warn you, my child, what kind of company you're in. he makes a specialty of servant girls. that's why he works in a carousel. he gets hold of a girl, promises to marry her, then he takes her money and her ring. julie but i haven't got a ring. second policeman you're not to talk unless you're asked a question. first policeman you be thankful that i'm warning you. it's nothing to me what you do. i'm not your father, thank god. but i'm telling you what kind of a fellow he is. by tomorrow morning you'll be coming around to us to report him. now you be sensible and go home. you needn't be afraid of him. this officer will take you home if you're afraid. julie do i _have_ to go? first policeman no, you don't _have_ to go. julie then i'll stay, sir. first policeman well, you've been warned. julie yes, sir. thank you, sir. first policeman come on, berkovics. [_the policemen exit. julie and liliom sit on the bench again. there is a brief pause._] julie well, and what then? liliom [_fails to understand._] huh? julie you were beginning to tell me a story. liliom me? julie yes, about a sweetheart. you said, one night, just as they were putting out the lights of the carousel---that's as far as you got. liliom oh, yes, yes, just as the lights were going out, someone came along--a little girl with a big shawl--you know---she came--eh--from---say--tell me--ain't you--that is, ain't you at all--afraid of me? the officer told you what kind of a fellow i am--and that i'd take your money away from you---julie you couldn't take it away--i haven't got any. but if i had--i'd--i'd give it to you--i'd give it all to you. liliom you would? julie if you asked me for it. liliom have you ever had a fellow you gave money to? julie no. liliom haven't you ever had a sweetheart? julie no. liliom someone you used to go walking with. you've had one like that? julie yes. liliom a soldier? julie he came from the same village i did. liliom that's what all the soldiers say. where _do_ you come from, anyway? julie not far from here. [_there is a pause._] liliom were you in love with him? julie why do you keep asking me that all the time, mister liliom? i wasn't in love with him. we only went walking together. liliom where did you walk? julie in the park. liliom and your virtue? where did you lose that? julie i haven't got any virtue. liliom well, you had once. julie no, i never had. i'm a respectable girl. liliom yes, but you gave the soldier something. julie why do you question me like that, mister liliom? liliom did you give him something? julie you have to. but i didn't love him. liliom do you love me? julie no, mister liliom. liliom then why do you stay here with me? julie um--nothing. [_there is a pause. the music from afar is plainly heard._] liliom want to dance? julie no. i have to be very careful. liliom of what? julie my--character. liliom why? julie because i'm never going to marry. if i was going to marry, it would be different. then i wouldn't need to worry so much about my character. it doesn't make any difference if you're married. but i shan't marry--and that's why i've got to take care to be a respectable girl. liliom suppose i were to say to you--i'll marry you. julie you? liliom that frightens you, doesn't it? you're thinking of what the officer said and you're afraid. julie no, i'm not, mister liliom. i don't pay any attention to what he said. liliom but you wouldn't dare to marry anyone like me, would you? julie i know that--that--if i loved anyone--it wouldn't make any difference to me what he--even if i died for it. liliom but you wouldn't marry a rough guy like me--that is,--eh--if you loved me---julie yes, i would--if i loved you, mister liliom. [_there is a pause._] liliom [_whispers._] well,--you just said--didn't you?--that you don't love me. well, why don't you go home then? julie it's too late now, they'd all be asleep. liliom locked out? julie certainly. [_they are silent a while._] liliom i think--that even a low-down good-for-nothing--can make a man of himself. julie certainly. [_they are silent again. a lamp-lighter crosses the stage, lights the lamp over the bench, and exits._] liliom are you hungry? julie no. [_another pause._] liliom suppose--you had some money--and i took it from you? julie then you could take it, that's all. liliom [_after another brief silence._] all i have to do--is go back to her--that muskat woman--she'll be glad to get me back--then i'd be earning my wages again. [_she is silent. the twilight folds darker about them._] julie [_very softly._] don't go back--to her---[_pause._] liliom there are a lot of acacia trees around here. [_pause._] julie don't go back to her---[_pause._] liliom she'd take me back the minute i asked her. i know why--she knows, too---[_pause._] julie i can smell them, too--acacia blossoms---[_there is a pause. some blossoms drift down from the tree-top to the bench. liliom picks one up and smells it._] liliom white acacias! julie [_after a brief pause._] the wind brings them down. [_they are silent. there is a long pause before_] the curtain falls scene two scene--_a photographer's "studio," operated by the hollunders, on the fringe of the park. it is a dilapidated hovel. the general entrance is back left. back right there is a window with a sofa before it. the outlook is on the amusement park with perhaps a small ferris-wheel or the scaffolding of a "scenic-railway" in the background._ _the door to the kitchen is up left and a black-curtained entrance to the dark room is down left. just in front of the dark room stands the camera on its tripod. against the back wall, between the door and window, stands the inevitable photographer's background-screen, ready to be wheeled into place._ _it is forenoon. when the curtain rises, marie and julie are discovered._ marie and _he_ beat up hollinger? julie yes, he gave him an awful licking. marie but hollinger is bigger than he is. julie he licked him just the same. it isn't size that counts, you know, it's cleverness. and liliom's awful quick. marie and then he was arrested? julie yes, they arrested him, but they let him go the next day. that makes twice in the two months we've been living here that liliom's been arrested and let go again. marie why do they let him go? julie because he is innocent. [_mother hollunder, a very old woman, sharp-tongued, but in reality quite warm-hearted beneath her formidable exterior, enters at back carrying a few sticks of firewood, and scolding, half to herself._] mother hollunder always wanting something, but never willing to work for it. he won't work, and he won't steal, but he'll use up a poor old widow's last bit of firewood. he'll do that cheerfully enough! a big, strong lout like that lying around all day resting his lazy bones! he ought to be ashamed to look decent people in the face. julie i'm sorry, mother hollunder. . . . mother hollunder sorry! better be sorry the lazy good-for-nothing ain't in jail where he belongs instead of in the way of honest, hard-working people. [_she exits into the kitchen._] marie who's that? julie mrs. hollunder--my aunt. this is her [_with a sweeping gesture that takes in the camera, dark room and screen_] studio. she lets us live here for nothing. marie what's she fetching the wood for? julie she brings us everything we need. if it weren't for her i don't know what would become of us. she's a good-hearted soul even if her tongue is sharp. [_there is a pause._] marie [_shyly._] do you know--i've found out. he's not a soldier. julie do you still see him? marie oh, yes. julie often? marie very often. he's asked me---julie to marry you? marie to marry me. julie you see--that proves he isn't a soldier. [_there is another pause._] marie [_abashed, yet a bit boastfully._] do you know what i'm doing--i'm flirting with him. julie flirting? marie yes. he asks me to go to the park--and i say i can't go. then he coaxes me, and promises me a new scarf for my head if i go. but i don't go--even then. . . . so then he walks all the way home with me--and i bid him good-night at the door. julie is that what you call flirting? marie um-hm! it's sinful, but it's so _thrilling._ julie do you ever quarrel? marie [_grandly._] only when our passionate love surges up. julie your passionate love? marie yes. . . . he takes my hand and we walk along together. then he wants to swing hands, but i won't let him. i say: "don't swing my hand"; and he says, "don't be so stubborn." and then he tries to swing my hand again, but still i don't let him. and for a long time i don't let him--until in the end i let him. then we walk along swinging hands--up and down, up and down--just like this. _that_ is passionate love. it's sinful, but it's awfully _thrilling._ julie you're happy, aren't you? marie happier than--anything---but the most beautiful thing on earth is ideal love. julie what kind is that? marie daylight comes about three in the morning this time of the year. when we've been up that long we're all through with flirting and passionate love--and then our ideal love comes to the surface. it comes like this: i'll be sitting on the bench and wolf, he holds my hand tight--and he puts his cheek against my cheek and we don't talk . . . we just sit there very quiet. . . . and after a while he gets sleepy, and his head sinks down, and he falls asleep . . . but even in his sleep he holds tight to my hand. and i--i sit perfectly still just looking around me and taking long, deep breaths--for by that time it's morning and the trees and flowers are fresh with dew. but wolf doesn't smell anything because he's so fast asleep. and i get awfully sleepy myself, but i don't sleep. and we sit like that for a long time. that is ideal love---[_there is a long pause._] julie [_regretfully; uneasily._] he went out last night and he hasn't come home yet. marie here are sixteen kreuzer. it was supposed to be carfare to take my young lady to the conservatory--eight there and eight back--but i made her walk. here--save it with the rest. julie this makes three gulden, forty-six. marie three gulden, forty-six. julie he won't work at all. marie too lazy? julie no. he never learned a trade, you see, and he can't just go and be a day-laborer--so he just does nothing. marie that ain't right. julie no. have the breiers got a new maid yet? marie they've had three since you left. you know, wolf's going to take a new job. he's going to work for the city. he'll get rent free, too. julie he won't go back to work at the carousel either. i ask him why, but he won't tell me---last monday he hit me. marie did you hit him back? julie no. marie why don't you leave him? julie i don't want to. marie i would. i'd leave him. [_there is a strained silence._] mother hollunder [_enters, carrying a pot of water; muttering aloud._] he can play cards, all right. he can fight, too; and take money from poor servant girls. and the police turn their heads the other way---the carpenter was here. julie is that water for the soup? mother hollunder the carpenter was here. there's a _man_ for you! dark, handsome, lots of hair, a respectable widower with two children--and money, and a good paying business. julie [_to marie._] it's three gulden sixty-six, not forty-six. marie yes, that's what i make it--sixty-six. mother hollunder he wants to take her out of this and marry her. this is the fifth time he's been here. he has two children, but---julie please don't bother, aunt hollunder, i'll get the water myself. mother hollunder he's waiting outside now. julie send him away. mother hollunder he'll only come back again--and first thing you know that vagabond will get jealous and there'll be a fight. [_goes out, muttering._] oh, he's ready enough to fight, he is. strike a poor little girl like that! ought to be ashamed of himself! and the police just let him go on doing as he pleases. [_still scolding, she exits at back._] marie a carpenter wants to marry you? julie yes. marie why don't you? julie because---marie liliom doesn't support you, and he beats you--he thinks he can do whatever he likes just because he's liliom. he's a bad one. julie he's not really bad. marie that night you sat on the bench together--he was gentle then. julie yes, he was gentle. marie and afterwards he got wild again. julie afterwards he got wild--sometimes. but that night on the bench . . . he was gentle. he's gentle now, sometimes, very gentle. after supper, when he stands there and listens to the music of the carousel, something comes over him--and he is gentle. marie does he say anything? julie he doesn't say anything. he gets thoughtful and very quiet, and his big eyes stare straight ahead of him. marie into your eyes? julie not exactly. he's unhappy because he isn't working. that's really why he hit me on monday. marie that's a fine reason for hitting you! beats his wife because he isn't working, the ruffian! julie it preys on his mind---marie did he hurt you? julie [_very eagerly._] oh, no. mrs. muskat [_enters haughtily._] good morning. is liliom home? julie no. mrs. muskat gone out? julie he hasn't come home yet. mrs. muskat i'll wait for him. [_she sits down._] marie you've got a lot of gall--to come here. mrs. muskat are you the lady of the house, my dear? better look out or you'll get a slap in the mouth. marie how dare you set foot in julie's house? mrs. muskat [_to julie._] pay no attention to her, my child. you know what brings me here. that vagabond, that good-for-nothing, i've come to give him his bread and butter back. marie he's not dependent on you for his bread. mrs. muskat [_to julie._] just ignore her, my child. she's just ignorant. marie [_going._] good-bye. julie good-bye. marie [_in the doorway, calling back._] sixty-six. julie yes, sixty-six. marie good-bye. [_she exits. julie starts to go toward the kitchen._] mrs. muskat i paid him a krone a day, and on sunday a gulden. and he got all the beer and cigars he wanted from the customers. [_julie pauses on the threshold, but does not answer._] and he'd rather starve than beg my pardon. well, i don't insist on that. i'll take him back without it. [_julie does not answer._] the fact is the people ask for him--and, you see, i've got to consider business first. it's nothing to me if he starves. i wouldn't be here at all, if it wasn't for business---[_she pauses, for liliom and ficsur have entered._] julie mrs. muskat is here. liliom i see she is. julie you might say good-morning. liliom what for? and what do _you_ want, anyhow? julie i don't want anything. liliom then keep your mouth shut. next thing you'll be starting to nag again about my being out all night and out of work and living on your relations---julie i'm not saying anything. liliom but it's all on the tip of your tongue--i know you--now don't start or you'll get another. [_he paces angrily up and down. they are all a bit afraid of him, and shrink and look away as he passes them. ficsur shambles from place to place, his eyes cast down as if he were searching for something on the floor._] mrs. muskat [_suddenly, to ficsur._] you're always dragging him out to play cards and drink with you. i'll have you locked up, i will. ficsur i don't want to talk to you. you're too common. [_he goes out by the door at back and lingers there in plain view. there is a pause._] julie mrs. muskat is here. liliom well, why doesn't she open her mouth, if she has anything to say? mrs. muskat why do you go around with this man ficsur? he'll get you mixed up in one of his robberies first thing you know. liliom what's it to you who i go with? i do what i please. what do you want? mrs. muskat you know what i want. liliom no, i don't. mrs. muskat what do you suppose i want? think i've come just to pay a social call? liliom do i owe you anything? mrs. muskat yes, you do--but that's not what i came for. you're a fine one to come to for money! you earn so much these days! you know very well what i'm here for. liliom you've got hollinger at the carousel, haven't you? mrs. muskat sure i have. liliom well, what else do you want? he's as good as i am. mrs. muskat you're quite right, my boy. he's every bit as good as you are. i'd not dream of letting him go. but one isn't enough any more. there's work enough for two---liliom one was enough when _i_ was there. mrs. muskat well, i might let hollinger go---liliom why let him go, if he's so good? mrs. muskat [_shrugs her shoulders._] yes, he's good. [_not once until now has she looked at liliom._] liliom [_to julie._] ask your aunt if i can have a cup of coffee. [_julie exits into the kitchen._] so hollinger is good, is he? mrs. muskat [_crosses to him and looks him, in the face._] why don't you stay home and sleep at night? you're a sight to look at. liliom he's good, is he? mrs. muskat push your hair back from your forehead. liliom let my hair be. it's nothing to you. mrs. muskat all right. but if i'd told you to let it hang down over your eyes you'd have pushed it back--i hear you've been beating her, this--this---liliom none of your business. mrs. muskat you're a fine fellow! beating a skinny little thing like that! if you're tired of her, leave her, but there's no use beating the poor---liliom leave her, eh? you'd like that, wouldn't you? mrs. muskat don't flatter yourself. [_quite embarrassed._] serves me right, too. if i had any sense i wouldn't have run after you---my god, the things one must do for the sake of business! if i could only sell the carousel i wouldn't be sitting here. . . . come, liliom, if you have any sense, you'll come back. i'll pay you well. liliom the carousel is crowded just the same . . . _without me?_ mrs. muskat crowded, yes--but it's not the same. liliom then you admit that you _do_ miss me. mrs. muskat miss you? not i. but the silly girls miss you. they're always asking for you. well, are you going to be sensible and come back? liliom and leave--her? mrs. muskat you beat her, don't you? liliom no, i don't beat her. what's all this damn fool talk about beating her? i hit her once--that was all--and now the whole city seems to be talking about it. you don't call that beating her, do you? mrs. muskat all right, all right. i take it back. i don't want to get mixed up in it. liliom beating her! as if i'd beat her---mrs. muskat i can't make out why you're so concerned about her. you've been married to her two months--it's plain to see that you're sick of it--and out there is the carousel--and the show booths--and money--and you'd throw it all away. for what? heavens, how can anyone be such a fool? [_looks at him appraisingly._] where have you been all night? you look awful. liliom it's no business of yours. mrs. muskat you never used to look like that. this life is telling on you. [_pauses._] do you know--i've got a new organ. liliom [_softly._] i know. mrs. muskat how did you know? liliom you can hear it--from here. mrs. muskat it's a good one, eh? liliom [_wistfully._] very good. fine. it roars and snorts--so fine. mrs. muskat you should hear it close by--it's heavenly. even the carousel seems to know . . . it goes quicker. i got rid of those two horses--you know, the ones with the broken ears? liliom what have you put in their place? mrs. muskat guess. liliom zebras? mrs. muskat no--an automobile. liliom [_transported._] an automobile---mrs. muskat yes. if you've got any sense you'll come back. what good are you doing here? out there is your _art_, the only thing you're fit for. you are an artist, not a respectable married man. liliom _leave_ her--this little---mrs. muskat she'll be better off. she'll go back and be a servant girl again. as for you--you're an artist and you belong among artists. all the beer you want, cigars, a krone a day and a gulden on sunday, and the girls, liliom, the girls--i've always treated you right, haven't i? i bought you a watch, and---liliom she's not that kind. she'd never be a servant girl again. mrs. muskat i suppose you think she'd kill herself. don't worry. heavens, if every girl was to commit suicide just because her---[_finishes with a gesture._] liliom [_stares at her a moment, considering, then with sudden, smiling animation._] so the people don't like hollinger? mrs. muskat you know very well they don't, you rascal. liliom well---mrs. muskat you've always been happy at the carousel. it's a great life--pretty girls and beer and cigars and music--a great life and an easy one. i'll tell you what--come back and i'll give you a ring that used to belong to my dear departed husband. well, will you come? liliom she's not that kind. she'd never be a servant girl again. but--but--for my part--if i decide--that needn't make any difference. i can go on living with her even if i do go back to my art---mrs. muskat my god! liliom what's the matter? mrs. muskat who ever heard of a married man--i suppose you think all girls would be pleased to know that you were running home to your wife every night. it's ridiculous! when the people found out they'd laugh themselves sick---liliom i know what you want. mrs. muskat [_refuses to meet his gaze._] you flatter yourself. liliom you'll give me that ring, too? mrs. muskat [_pushes the hair back from his forehead._] yes. liliom i'm not happy in this house. mrs. muskat [_still stroking his hair._] nobody takes care of you. [_they are silent. julie enters, carrying a cup of coffee. mrs. muskat removes her hand from liliom's head. there is a pause._] liliom do you want anything? julie no. [_there is a pause. she exits slowly into the kitchen._] mrs. muskat the old woman says there is a carpenter, a widower, who---liliom i know--i know---julie [_reëntering._] liliom, before i forget, i have something to tell you. liliom all right. julie i've been wanting to tell you--in fact, i was going to tell you yesterday---liliom go ahead. julie but i must tell you alone--if you'll come in--it will only take a minute. liliom don't you see i'm busy now? here i am talking business and you interrupt with---julie it'll only take a minute. liliom get out of here, or---julie but i tell you it will only take a minute---liliom will you get out of here? julie [_courageously._] no. liliom [_rising._] what's that! julie no. mrs. muskat [_rises, too._] now don't start fighting. i'll go out and look at the photographs in the show-case a while and come back later for your answer. [_she exits at back._] julie you can hit me again if you like--don't look at me like that. i'm not afraid of you. . . . i'm not afraid of anyone. i told you i had something to tell you. liliom well, out with it--quick. julie i can't tell you so quick. why don't you drink your coffee? liliom is that what you wanted to tell me? julie no. by the time you've drunk your coffee i'll have told you. liliom [_gets the coffee and sips it._] well? julie yesterday my head ached--and you asked me---liliom yes---julie well--you see--that's what it is---liliom are you sick? julie no. . . . but you wanted to know what my headaches came from--and you said i seemed--changed. liliom did i? i guess i meant the carpenter. julie i've been--what? the carpenter? no. it's something entirely different--it's awful hard to tell--but you'll have to know sooner or later--i'm not a bit--scared--because it's a perfectly natural thing---liliom [_puts the coffee cup on the table._] what? julie when--when a man and woman--live together---liliom yes. julie i'm going to have a baby. [_she exits swiftly at back. there is a pause. ficsur appears at the open window and looks in._] liliom ficsur! [_ficsur sticks his head in._] say, ficsur,--julie is going to have a baby. ficsur yes? what of it? liliom nothing. [_suddenly._] get out of here. [_ficsur's head is quickly withdrawn. mrs. muskat reënters._] mrs. muskat has she gone? liliom yes. mrs. muskat i might as well give you ten kronen in advance. [_opens her purse. liliom takes up his coffee cup._] here you are. [_she proffers some coins. liliom ignores her._] why don't you take it? liliom [_very nonchalantly, his cup poised ready to drink._] go home, mrs. muskat. mrs. muskat what's the matter with you? liliom go home [_sips his coffee_] and let me finish my coffee in peace. don't you see i'm at breakfast? mrs. muskat have you gone crazy? liliom will you get out of here? [_turns to her threateningly._] mrs. muskat [_restoring the coins to her purse._] i'll never speak to you again as long as you live. liliom that worries me a lot. mrs. muskat good-bye! liliom good-bye. [_as she exits, he calls._] ficsur! [_ficsur enters._] tell me, ficsur. you said you knew a way to get a whole lot of money---ficsur sure i do. liliom how much? ficsur more than you ever had in your life before. you leave it to an old hand like me. mother hollunder [_enters from the kitchen._] in the morning he must have his coffee, and at noon his soup, and in the evening coffee again--and plenty of firewood--and i'm expected to furnish it all. give me back my cup and saucer. [_the show booths of the amusement-park have opened for business. the familiar noises begin to sound; clear above them all, but far in the distance, sounds the organ of the carousel._] liliom now, aunt hollunder. [_from now until the fall of the curtain it is apparent that the sound of the organ makes him more and more uneasy._] mother hollunder and you, you vagabond, get out of here this minute or i'll call my son---ficsur i have nothing to do with the likes of him. he's too common. [_but he slinks out at back._] liliom aunt hollunder! mother hollunder what now? liliom when your son was born--when you brought him into the world---mother hollunder well? liliom nothing. mother hollunder [_muttering as she exits._] sleep it off, you good-for-nothing lout. drink and play cards all night long--that's all you know how to do--and take the bread out of poor people's mouths--you can do that, too. [_she exits._] liliom ficsur! ficsur [_at the window._] julie's going to have a baby. you told me before. liliom this scheme--about the cashier of the leather factory--there's money in it---ficsur lots of money--but--it takes two to pull it off. liliom [_meditatively._] yes. [_uneasily._] all right, ficsur. go away--and come back later. [_ficsur vanishes. the organ in the distant carousel drones incessantly. liliom listens a while, then goes to the door and calls._] liliom aunt hollunder! [_with naïve joy._] julie's going to have a baby. [_then he goes to the window, jumps on the sofa, looks out. suddenly, in a voice that overtops the droning of the organ, he shouts as if addressing the far-off carousel._] i'm going to be a father. julie [_enters from the kitchen._] liliom! what's the matter? what's happened? liliom [_coming down from the sofa._] nothing. [_throws himself on the sofa, buries his face in the cushion. julie watches him a moment, comes over to him and covers him with a shawl. then she goes on tip-toe to the door at back and remains standing in the doorway, looking out and listening to the droning of the organ._] the curtain falls scene three scene--_the setting is the same, later that afternoon. liliom is sitting opposite ficsur, who is teaching him a song. julie hovers in the background, engaged in some household task._ ficsur listen now. here's the third verse. [_sings hoarsely._] "look out, look out, my pretty lad. the damn police are on your trail; the nicest girl you ever had has now commenced to weep and wail: look out here comes the damn police, the damn police, the damn police, look out here comes the damn police, they'll get you every time." liliom [_sings._] "look out, look out, my pretty lad. the damn police----" ficsur, liliom [_sing together._] "are on your trail the nicest girl you ever had has now commenced to weep and wail." liliom [_alone._] "look out here comes the damn police, the damn police, the damn police----" [_julie, troubled and uneasy, looks from one to the other, then exits into the kitchen._] ficsur [_when she has gone, comes quickly over to liliom and speaks furtively._] as you go down franzen street you come to the railroad embankment. beyond that--all the way to the leather factory--there's not a thing in sight, not even a watchman's hut. liliom and does he always come that way? ficsur yes. not along the embankment, but down below along the path across the fields. since last year he's been going alone. before that he always used to have someone with him. liliom every saturday? ficsur every saturday. liliom and the money? where does he keep it? ficsur in a leather bag. the whole week's pay for the workmen at the factory. liliom much? ficsur sixteen thousand kronen. quite a haul, what? liliom what's his name? ficsur linzman. he's a jew. liliom the cashier? ficsur yes--but when he gets a knife between his ribs--or if i smash his skull for him--he won't be a cashier any more. liliom does he have to be killed? ficsur no, he doesn't _have_ to be. he can give up the money _without_ being killed--but most of these cashiers are peculiar--they'd rather be killed. [_julie reënters, pretends to get something on the other side of the room, then exits at back. during the ensuing dialogue she keeps coming in and out in the same way, showing plainly that she is suspicious and anxious. she attempts to overhear what they are saying and, in spite of their caution, does catch a word here and there, which adds to her disquiet. ficsur, catching sight of her, abruptly changes the conversation._] ficsur and the next verse is: "and when you're in the prison cell they'll feed you bread and water." ficsur and liliom [_sing together._] "they'll make your little sweetheart tell them all the things you brought her. look out here comes the damn police, the damn police, the damn police. look out here comes the damn police they'll get you every time." liliom [_sings alone._] "and when you're in the prison cell they'll feed you bread and water----" [_breaks off as julie exits._] and when it's done, do we start right off for america? ficsur no. liliom what then? ficsur we bury the money for six months. that's the usual time. and after the sixth month we dig it up again. liliom and then? ficsur then you go on living just as usual for six months more--you don't touch a heller of the money. liliom in six months the baby will be born. ficsur then we'll take the baby with us, too. three months before the time you'll go to work so as to be able to say you saved up your wages to get to america. liliom which of us goes up and talks to him? ficsur one of us talks to him with his mouth and the other talks with his knife. depends on which you'd rather do. i'll tell you what--you talk to him with your mouth. liliom do you hear that? ficsur what? liliom outside . . . like the rattle of swords. [_ficsur listens. after a pause, liliom continues._] what do i say to him? ficsur you say good evening to him and: "excuse me, sir; can you tell me the time?" liliom and then what? ficsur by that time i'll have stuck him--and then you take _your_ knife---[_he stops as a policeman enters at back._] policeman good-day! ficsur, liliom [_in unison._] good-day! ficsur [_calling toward the kitchen._] hey, photographer, come out. . . . here's a customer. [_there is a pause. the policeman waits. ficsur sings softly._] "and when you're in the prison cell they'll feed you bread and water they'll make your little sweetheart tell." liliom, ficsur [_sing together, low._] "them all the things you brought her. look out here comes the----" [_they hum the rest so as not to let the policeman hear the words "the damn police." as they sing, mrs. hollunder and her son enter._] policeman do you make cabinet photographs? young hollunder certainly, sir. [_points to a rack of photographs on the wall._] take your choice, sir. would you like one full length? policeman yes, full length. [_mother hollunder pushes out the camera while her son poses the policeman, runs from him to the camera and back again, now altering the pose, now ducking under the black cloth and pushing the camera nearer. meanwhile mother hollunder has fetched a plate from the dark room and thrust it in the camera. while this is going on, liliom and ficsur, their heads together, speak in very low tones._] liliom belong around here? ficsur not around here. liliom where, then? ficsur suburban. [_there is a pause._] liliom [_bursts out suddenly in a rather grotesquely childish and overstrained lament._] o god, what a dirty life i'm leading--god, god! ficsur [_reassuring him benevolently._] over in america it will be better, all right. liliom what's over there? ficsur [_virtuously._] factories . . . industries---young hollunder [_to the policeman._] now, quite still, please. one, two, three. [_deftly removes the cover of the lens and in a few seconds restores it._] thank you. mother hollunder the picture will be ready in five minutes. policeman good. i'll come back in five minutes. how much do i owe you? young hollunder [_with exaggerated deference._] you don't need to pay in advance, mr. commissioner. [_the policeman salutes condescendingly and exits at back. mother hollunder carries the plate into the dark room. young hollunder, after pushing the camera back in place, follows her._] mother hollunder [_muttering angrily as she passes ficsur and liliom._] you hang around and dirty the whole place up! why don't you go take a walk? things are going so well with you that you have to sing, eh? [_confronting ficsur suddenly._] weren't you frightened sick when you saw the policeman? ficsur [_with loathing._] go 'way, or i'll step on you. [_she exits into the dark room._] liliom they like hollinger at the carousel? ficsur i should say they do. liliom did you see the muskat woman, too? ficsur sure. she takes care of hollinger's hair. liliom combs his hair? ficsur she fixes him all up. liliom let her fix him all she likes. ficsur [_urging him toward the kitchen door._] go on. now's your chance. liliom what for? ficsur to get the knife. liliom what knife? ficsur the kitchen knife. i've got a pocket-knife, but if he shows fight, we'll let him have the big knife. liliom what for? if he gets ugly, i'll bat him one over the head that'll make him squint for the rest of his life. ficsur you've got to have something on you. you can't slit his throat with a bat over the head. liliom must his throat be slit? ficsur no, it _mustn't._ but if he asks for it. [_there is a pause._] you'd like to sail on the big steamer, wouldn't you? and you want to see the factories over there, don't you? but you're not willing to inconvenience yourself a little for them. liliom if i take the knife, julie will see me. ficsur take it so she won't see you. liliom [_advances a few paces toward the kitchen. the policeman enters at back. liliom knocks on the door of the dark room._] here's the policeman! mother hollunder [_coming out._] one minute more, please. just a minute. [_she reënters the dark room. liliom hesitates a moment, then exits into the kitchen. the policeman scrutinizes ficsur mockingly. ficsur returns his stare, walks a few paces toward him, then deliberately turns his back. suddenly he wheels around, points at the policeman and addresses him in a teasing, childish tone._] christiana street at the corner of retti! policeman [_amazed, self-conscious._] how do you know that? ficsur i used to practice my profession in that neighborhood. policeman what is your profession? ficsur professor of pianola---[_the policeman glares, aware that the man is joking with him, twirls his moustache indignantly. young hollunder comes out of the dark room and gives him the finished pictures._] young hollunder here you are, sir. [_the policeman examines the photographs, pays for them, starts to go, stops, glares at ficsur and exits. when he is gone, ficsur goes to the doorway and looks out after him. young hollunder exits. liliom reënters, buttoning his coat._] ficsur [_turns, sees liliom._] what are you staring at? liliom i'm not staring. ficsur what then are you doing? liliom i'm thinking it over. ficsur [_comes very close to him._] tell me then--what will you say to him? liliom [_unsteadily._] i'll say--"good evening--excuse me, sir--can you tell me the time?" and suppose he answers me, what do i say to him? ficsur he won't answer you. liliom don't you think so? ficsur no. [_feeling for the knife under liliom's coat._] where is it? where did you put it? liliom [_stonily._] left side. ficsur that's right--over your heart. [_feels it._] ah--there it is--there--there's the blade--quite a big fellow, isn't it--ah, here it begins to get narrower. [_reaches the tip of the knife._] and here is its eye--that's what it sees with. [_julie enters from the kitchen, passes them slowly, watching them in silent terror, then stops. ficsur nudges liliom._] sing, come on, sing! liliom [_in a quavering voice._] "look out for the damn police." ficsur [_joining in, cheerily, loudly, marking time with the swaying of his body._] "look out, look out, my pretty lad." liliom "--look out, my pretty lad." [_julie goes out at back. liliom's glance follows her. when she has gone, he turns to ficsur._] at night--in my dreams--if his ghost comes back--what will i do then? ficsur his ghost won't never come back. liliom why not? ficsur a jew's ghost don't come back. liliom well then--afterwards---ficsur [_impatiently._] what do you mean--afterwards? liliom in the next world--when i come up before the lord god--what'll i say then? ficsur the likes of you will never come up before him. liliom why not? ficsur have you ever come up before the high court? liliom no. ficsur our kind comes up before the police magistrate--and the highest we _ever_ get is the criminal court. liliom will it be the same in the next world? ficsur just the same. we'll come up before a police magistrate, same as we did in this world. liliom a police magistrate? ficsur sure. for the rich folks--the heavenly court. for us poor people--only a police magistrate. for the rich folks--fine music and angels. for us---liliom for us? ficsur for us, my son, there's only justice. in the next world there'll be lots of justice, yes, nothing but justice. and where there's justice there must be police magistrates; and where there're police magistrates, people like us get---liliom [_interrupting._] good evening. excuse me, sir, can you tell me the time? [_lays his hand over his heart._] ficsur what do you put your hand there for? liliom my heart is jumping--under the knife. ficsur put it on the other side then. [_looks out at the sky._] it's time we started--we'll walk slow---liliom it's too early. ficsur come on. [_as they are about to go, julie appears in the doorway at back, obstructing the way._] julie where are you going with him? liliom where am i going with him? julie stay home. liliom no. julie stay home. it's going to rain soon, and you'll get wet. ficsur it won't rain. julie how do you know? ficsur i always get notice in advance. julie stay home. this evening the carpenter's coming. i've asked him to give you work. liliom i'm not a carpenter. julie [_more and more anxious, though she tries to conceal it._] stay home. marie's coming with her intended to have their picture taken. she wants to introduce us to her intended husband. liliom i've seen enough intended husbands---julie stay home. marie's bringing some money, and i'll give it all to you. liliom [_approaching the door._] i'm going--for a walk--with ficsur. we'll be right back. julie [_forcing a smile to keep back her tears._] if you stay home, i'll get you a glass of beer--or wine, if you prefer. ficsur coming or not? julie i'm not angry with you any more for hitting me. liliom [_gruffly, but his gruffness is simulated to hide the fact that he cannot bear the sight of her suffering._] stand out of the way--or i'll---[_he clenches his fist._] let me out! julie [_trembling._] what have you got under your coat? liliom [_produces from his pocket a greasy pack of cards._] cards. julie [_trembling, speaks very low._] what's under your coat? liliom let me out! julie [_obstructing the way. speaks quickly, eagerly, in a last effort to detain him._] marie's intended knows about a place for a married couple without children to be caretakers of a house on arader street. rent free, a kitchen of your own, and the privilege of keeping chickens---liliom get out of the way! [_julie stands aside. liliom exits. ficsur follows him. julie remains standing meditatively in the doorway. mother hollunder comes out of the kitchen._] mother hollunder i can't find my kitchen knife anywhere. have you seen anything of it? julie [_horrified._] no. mother hollunder it was on the kitchen table just a few minutes ago. no one was in there except liliom. julie he didn't take it. mother hollunder no one else was in there. julie what would liliom want with a kitchen knife? mother hollunder he'd sell it and spend the money on drink. julie it just so happens--see how unjust you are to him--it just so happens that i went through all of liliom's pockets just now--i wanted to see if he had any money on him. but he had nothing but a pack of cards. mother hollunder [_returns to the kitchen, grumbling._] cards in his pocket--cards! the fine gentlemen have evidently gone off to their club to play a little game. [_she exits. after a pause marie, happy and beaming, appears in the doorway at back, and enters, followed by wolf._] marie here we are! [_she takes wolf by the hand and leads him, grinning shyly, to julie, who has turned at her call._] hello! julie hello. marie well, we're here. julie yes. wolf [_bows awkwardly and extends his hand._] my name is wolf beifeld. julie my name is julie zeller. [_they shake hands. there is an embarrassed silence. then, to relieve the situation, wolf takes julie's hand again and shakes it vigorously._] marie well--this is wolf. wolf yes. julie yes. [_another awkward silence._] marie where is liliom? wolf yes, where is your husband? julie he's out. marie where? julie just for a walk. marie is he? julie yes. wolf oh! [_another silence._] marie wolf's got a new place. after the first of the month he won't have to stand outside any more. he's going to work in a club after the first of the month. wolf [_apologetically._] she don't know yet how to explain these things just right--hehehe---beginning the first i'm to be second steward at the burger club--a good job, if one conducts oneself properly. julie yes? wolf the pay--is quite good--but the main thing is the tips. when they play cards there's always a bit for the steward. the tips, i may say, amount to twenty, even thirty kronen every night. marie yes. wolf we've rented two rooms for ourselves to start with--and if things go well---marie then we'll buy a house in the country. wolf if one only tends to business and keeps honest. of course, in the country we'll miss the city life, but if the good lord sends us children--it's much healthier for children in the country. [_there is a brief pause._] marie wolf's nice looking, isn't he? julie yes. marie and he's a good boy, wolf. julie yes. marie the only thing is--he's a jew. julie oh, well, you can get used to that. marie well, aren't you going to wish us luck? julie of course i do. [_she embraces marie._] marie and aren't you going to kiss wolf, too? julie him, too. [_she embraces wolf, remains quite still a moment, her head resting on his shoulder._] wolf why are you crying, my dear mrs.---[_he looks questioningly at marie over julie's shoulder._] marie because she has such a good heart. [_she becomes sentimental, too._] wolf [_touched._] we thank you for your heartfelt sympathy---[_he cannot restrain his own tears. there is a pause before mother hollunder and her son enter. young hollunder immediately busies himself with the camera._] mother hollunder now if you don't mind, we'll do it right away, before it gets too dark. [_she leads marie and wolf into position before the background-screen. here they immediately fall into an awkward pose, smiling mechanically._] full length? marie please. both figures full length. mother hollunder bride and groom? marie yes. mother hollunder, young hollunder [_speak in unison, in loud professionally-expressionless tones._] the lady looks at the gentleman and the gentleman looks straight into the camera. mother hollunder [_poses first marie, then wolf._] now, if you please. young hollunder [_who has crept under the black cloth, calls in muffled tones._] that's good--that's very good! marie [_stonily rigid, but very happy, trying to speak without altering her expression._] julie, dear, do we look all right? julie yes, dear. young hollunder now, if you please, hold still. i'll count up to three, and then you must hold perfectly still. [_grasps the cover of the lens and calls threateningly._] one--two--three! [_he removes the cover; there is utter silence. but as he speaks the word "one" there is heard, very faintly in the distance, the refrain of the thieves' song which ficsur and liliom have been singing. the refrain continues until the fall of the curtain. as he speaks the word "three" everybody is perfectly rigid save julie, who lets her head sink slowly to the table. the distant refrain dies out._] the curtain falls scene four scene--_in the fields on the outskirts of the city. at back a railroad embankment crosses the stage obliquely. at center of the embankment stands a red and white signal flag, and near it a little red signal lamp which is not yet lighted. here also a wooden stairway leads up to the embankment._ _at the foot of the embankment to the right is a pile of used railroad ties. in the background a telegraph pole, beyond it a view of trees, fences and fields; still further back a factory building and a cluster of little dwellings._ _it is six o'clock of the same afternoon. dusk has begun to fall._ _liliom and ficsur are discovered on the stairway looking after the train which has just passed._ liliom can you still hear it snort? ficsur listen! [_they watch the vanishing train._] liliom if you put your ear on the tracks you can hear it go all the way to vienna. ficsur huh! liliom the one that just puffed past us--it goes all the way to vienna. ficsur no further? liliom yes--further, too. [_there is a pause._] ficsur it must be near six. [_as liliom ascends the steps._] where are you going? liliom don't be afraid. i'm not giving you the slip. ficsur why should you give me the slip? that cashier has sixteen thousand kronen on him. just be patient till he comes, then you can talk to him, nice and polite. liliom i say, "good evening--excuse me, sir; what time is it?" ficsur then he tells you what time it is. liliom suppose he don't come? ficsur [_coming down the steps._] nonsense! he's got to come. he pays off the workmen every saturday. and this is saturday, ain't it? [_liliom has ascended to the top of the stairway and is gazing along the tracks._] what are you looking at up there? liliom the tracks go on and on--there's no end to them. ficsur what's that to stare about? liliom nothing--only i always look after the train. when you stand down there at night it snorts past you, and spits down. ficsur spits? liliom yes, the engine. it spits down. and then the whole train rattles past and away--and you stand there--spat on--but it draws your eyes along with it. ficsur draws your eyes along? liliom yes--whether you want to or not, you've got to look after it--as long as the tiniest bit of it is in sight. ficsur swell people sit in it. liliom and read newspapers. ficsur and smoke cigars. liliom and inhale the smoke. [_there is a short silence._] ficsur is he coming? liliom not yet. [_silence again. liliom comes down, speaks low, confidentially._] do you hear the telegraph wires? ficsur i hear them when the wind blows. liliom even when the wind doesn't blow you can hear them humming, humming---people talk through them. ficsur who? liliom jews. ficsur no--they telegraph. liliom they talk through them and from some other place they get answered. and it all goes through the iron strings--that's why they hum like that--they hum-m---ficsur what do they hum? liliom they hum! ninety-nine, ninety-nine. just listen. ficsur what for? liliom that sparrow's listening, too. he's cocked one eye and looks at me as if to say: "i'd like to know what they're talking about." ficsur you're looking at a bird? liliom he's looking at me, too. ficsur listen, you're sick! there's something the matter with you. do you know what it is? money. that bird has no money, either; that's why he cocks his eye. liliom maybe. ficsur whoever has money don't cock his eye. liliom what then does he do? ficsur he does most anything he wants. but nobody works unless he has money. we'll soon have money ourselves. liliom i say, "good evening. excuse me, sir, can you tell me what time it is!" ficsur he's not coming yet. got the cards? [_liliom gives him the pack of cards._] got any money? liliom [_takes some coins from his trousers pocket and counts._] eleven. ficsur [_sits astride on the pile of ties and looks off left._] all right--eleven. liliom [_sitting astride on the ties facing him._] put it up. ficsur [_puts the money on the ties; rapidly shuffles the cards._] we'll play twenty-one. i'll bank. [_he deals deftly._] liliom [_looks at his card._] good. i'll bet the bank. ficsur must have an ace! [_deals him a second card._] liliom another one. [_he gets another card._] another. [_gets still another._] over! [_throws down his cards. ficsur gathers in the money._] come on! ficsur come on what? got no more money, have you? liliom no. ficsur then the game's over--unless you want to---liliom what? ficsur play on credit. liliom you'll trust me? ficsur no--but--i'll deduct it. liliom deduct it from what? ficsur from your share of the money. if _you_ win you deduct from my share. liliom [_looks over his shoulder to see if the cashier is coming; nervous and ashamed._] all right. how much is bank? ficsur that cashier is bringing us sixteen thousand kronen. eight thousand of that is mine. well, then, the bank is eight thousand. liliom good. ficsur whoever has the most luck will have the most money. [_he deals._] liliom six hundred kronen. [_ficsur gives him another card._] enough. ficsur [_laying out his own cards._] twenty-one. [_he shuffles rapidly._] liliom [_moves excitedly nearer to ficsur._] well, then, double or nothing. ficsur [_dealing._] double or nothing. liliom [_gets a card._] enough. ficsur [_laying out his own cards._] twenty-one. [_shuffles rapidly again._] liliom [_in alarm._] you're not--cheating? ficsur me? do i look like a cheat? [_deals the cards again._] liliom [_glances nervously over his shoulder._] a thousand. ficsur [_nonchalantly._] kronen? liliom kronen. [_he gets a card._] another one. [_gets another card._] over again! [_like an inexperienced gambler who is losing heavily, liliom is very nervous. he plays dazedly, wildly, irrationally. from now on it is apparent that his only thought is to win his money back._] ficsur that makes twelve hundred you owe. liliom double or nothing. [_he gets a card. he is greatly excited._] another one. [_gets another card._] another. [_throws down three cards._] ficsur [_bends over and adds up the sum on the ground._] ten--fourteen--twenty-three---you owe two thousand, four hundred. liliom now what? ficsur [_takes a card out of the deck and gives it to him._] here's the red ace. you can play double or nothing again. liliom [_eagerly._] good. [_gets another card._] enough. ficsur [_turns up his own cards._] nineteen. liliom you win again. [_almost imploring._] give me an ace again. give me the green one. [_takes a card._] double or nothing. ficsur not any more. liliom why not? ficsur because if you lose you won't be able to pay. double would be nine thousand six hundred. and you've only got eight thousand altogether. liliom [_greatly excited._] that--that--i call that--a dirty trick! ficsur three thousand, two hundred. that's all you can put up. liliom [_eagerly._] all right, then--three thousand, two hundred. [_ficsur deals him a card._] enough. ficsur i've got an ace myself. now we'll have to take our time and squeeze 'em. [_liliom pushes closer to him, as he takes up his cards and slowly, intently unfolds them._] twenty-one. [_he quickly puts the cards in his pocket. there is a pause._] liliom now--now--i'll tell you now--you're a crook, a low-down---[_now linzman enters at right. he is a strong, robust, red-bearded jew about 40 years of age. at his side he carries a leather bag slung by a strap from his shoulder. ficsur coughs warningly, moves to the right between linzman and the embankment, pauses just behind linzman and follows him. liliom stands bewildered a few paces to the left of the railroad ties. he finds himself facing linzman. trembling in every limb._] good evening. excuse me, sir, can you tell me the time? [_ficsur springs silently at linzman, the little knife in his right hand. but linzman catches ficsur's right hand with his own left and forces ficsur to his knees. simultaneously linzman thrusts his right hand into his coat pocket and produces a revolver which he points at liliom's breast. liliom is standing two paces away from the revolver. there is a long pause._] linzman [_in a low, even voice._] it is twenty-five minutes past six. [_pauses, looks ironically down at ficsur._] it's lucky i grabbed the hand with the knife instead of the other one. [_pauses again, looks appraisingly from one to the other._] two fine birds! [_to ficsur._] i should live so--rothschild has more luck than you. [_to liliom._] i'd advise you to keep nice and quiet. if you make one move, you'll get two bullets in you. just look into the barrel. you'll see some little things in there made of lead. ficsur let me go. i didn't do anything. linzman [_mockingly shakes the hand which still holds the knife._] and this? what do you call this? oh, yes, i know. you thought i had an apple in my pocket, and you wanted to peel it. that's it. forgive me for my error. i beg your pardon, sir. liliom but i--i---linzman yes, my son, i know. it's so simple. you only asked what time it is. well, it's twenty-five minutes after six. ficsur let us go, honorable sir. we didn't do anything to you. linzman in the first place, my son, i'm not an honorable sir. in the second place, for the same money, you could have said your excellency. but in the third place you'll find it very hard to beg off by flattering me. liliom but i--_i_ really didn't do anything to you. linzman look behind you, my boy. don't be afraid. look behind you, but don't run away or i'll have to shoot you down. [_liliom turns his head slowly around._] who's coming up there? liliom [_looking at linzman._] policemen. linzman [_to ficsur._] you hold still, or---[_to liliom teasingly._] how many policemen are there? liliom [_his eyes cast down._] two. linzman and what are the policemen sitting on? liliom horses. linzman and which can run faster, a horse or a man? liliom a horse. linzman there, you see. it would be hard to get away now. [_laughs._] i never saw such an unlucky pair of highway robbers. i can't imagine worse luck. just today i had to put a pistol in my pocket. and even if i hadn't--old linzman is a match for four like you. but even that isn't all. did you happen to notice, you oxen, what direction i came from? from the factory, didn't i? when i _went_ there i had a nice bit of money with me. sixteen thousand crowns! but now--not a heller. [_calls off left._] hey, come quicker, will you? this fellow is pulling pretty strong. [_ficsur frees himself with a mighty wrench and darts rapidly off. as linzman aims his pistol at the vanishing ficsur, liliom runs up the steps to the embankment. linzman hesitates, perceives that liliom is the better target, points the pistol at him._] stop, or i'll shoot! [_calls off left to the policemen._] why don't you come down off your horses? [_his pistol is leveled at liliom, who stands on the embankment, facing the audience. from the left on the embankment a policeman appears, revolver in hand._] first policeman stop! linzman well, my boy, do you still want to know what time it is? from ten to twelve years in prison! liliom you won't get me! [_linzman laughs derisively. liliom is now three or four paces from the policeman and equally distant from linzman. his face is uplifted to the sky. he bursts into laughter, half defiant, half self-pitying, and takes the kitchen knife from under his coat._] julie---[_the ring of farewell is in the word. he turns sideways, thrusts the knife deep in his breast, sways, falls and rolls down the far side of the embankment. there is a long pause. from the left up on the embankment come the two policemen._] linzman what's the matter? [_the first policeman comes along the embankment as far as the steps, looks down in the opposite side, then climbs down at about the spot where liliom disappeared. linzman and the other policeman mount the embankment and look down on him._] stabbed himself? voice of first policeman yes--and he seems to have made a thorough job of it. linzman [_excitedly to the second policeman._] i'll go and telephone to the hospital. [_he runs down the steps and exits at left._] second policeman go to eisler's grocery store and telephone to the factory from there. they've a doctor there, too. [_calling down to the other policeman._] i'm going to tie up the horses. [_comes down the steps and exits at left. the stage is empty. there is a pause. the little red signal lamp is lit._] voice of first policeman hey, stephan! voice of second policeman what? voice of first policeman shall i pull the knife out of his chest? voice of second policeman better not, or he may bleed to death. [_there is a pause._] voice of first policeman stephan! voice of second policeman yes. voice of first policeman lot of mosquitoes around here. voice of second policeman yes. voice of first policeman got a cigar? voice of second policeman no. [_there is a pause. the first policeman appears over the opposite side of the embankment._] first policeman a lot of good the new pay-schedule's done us--made things worse than they used to be--we _get_ more but we _have_ less than we ever had. if the government could be made to realize that. it's a thankless job at best. you work hard year after year, you get gray in the service, and slowly you die--yes. second policeman that's right. first policeman yes. [_in the distance is heard the bell of the signal tower._] the curtain falls scene five scene--_the photographic "studio" a half hour later that same evening._ _mother hollunder, her son, marie and wolf stand in a group back right, their heads together. julie stands apart from them, a few paces to the left._ young hollunder [_who has just come in, tells his story excitedly._] they're bringing him now. two workmen from the factory are carrying him on a stretcher. wolf where is the doctor? young hollunder a policeman telephoned to headquarters. the police-surgeon ought to be here any minute. marie maybe they'll pull him through after all. young hollunder he stabbed himself too deep in his chest. but he's still breathing. he can still talk, too, but very faintly. at first he lay there unconscious, but when they put him on the stretcher he came to. wolf that was from the shaking. marie we'd better make room. [_they make room. two workmen carry in liliom on a stretcher which has four legs and stands about as high as a bed. they put the stretcher at left directly in front of the sofa, so that the head is at right and the foot at left. then they unobtrusively join the group at the door. later, they go out. julie is standing at the side of the stretcher, where, without moving, she can see liliom's face. the others crowd emotionally together near the door. the first policeman enters._] first policeman are you his wife? julie yes. first policeman the doctor at the factory who bandaged him up forbade us to take him to the hospital.--dangerous to move him that far. what he needs now is rest. just let him be until the police-surgeon comes. [_to the group near the door._] he's not to be disturbed. [_they make way for him. he exits. there is a pause._] wolf [_gently urging the others out._] please--it's best if we all get out of here now. we'll only be in the way. marie [_to julie._] julie, what do you think? [_julie looks at her without answering._] julie, can i do anything to help? [_julie does not answer._] we'll be just outside on the bench if you want us. [_mother hollunder and her son have gone out when first requested. now marie and wolf exit, too. julie sits on the edge of the stretcher and looks at liliom. he stretches his hand out to her. she clasps it. it is not quite dark yet. both of them can still be plainly seen._] liliom [_raises himself with difficulty; speaks lightly at first, but later soberly, defiantly._] little--julie--there's something--i want to tell you--like when you go to a restaurant--and you've finished eating--and it's time--to pay--then you have to count up everything--everything you owe--well--i beat you--not because i was mad at you--no--only because i can't bear to see anyone crying. you always cried--on my account--and, well, you see,--i never learned a trade--what kind of a caretaker would i make? but anyhow--i wasn't going back to the carousel to fool with the girls. no, i spit on them all--understand? julie yes. liliom and--as for hollinger--he's good enough--mrs. muskat can get along all right with him. the jokes he tells are mine--and the people laugh when he tells them--but i don't care.--i didn't give you anything--no home--not even the food you ate--but you don't understand.--it's true i'm not much good--but i couldn't be a caretaker--and so i thought maybe it would be better over there--in america--do you see? julie yes. liliom i'm not asking--forgiveness--i don't do that--i don't. tell the baby--if you like. julie yes. liliom tell the baby--i wasn't much good--but tell him--if you ever talk about me--tell him--i thought--perhaps--over in america--but that's no affair of yours. i'm not asking forgiveness. for my part the police can come now.--if it's a boy--if it's a girl.--perhaps i'll see the lord god today.--do you think i'll see him? julie yes. liliom i'm not afraid--of the police up there--if they'll only let me come up in front of the lord god himself--not like down here where an officer stops you at the door. if the carpenter asks you--yes--be his wife--marry him. and the child--tell him he's his father.--he'll believe you--won't he? julie yes. liliom when i beat you--i was right.--you mustn't always think--you mustn't always be right.--liliom can be right once, too.--it's all the same to me who was right.--it's so dumb. nobody's right--but they all think they are right.--a lot they know! julie yes. liliom julie--come--hold my hand tight. julie i'm holding it tight--all the time. liliom tighter, still tighter--i'm going---[_pauses._] julie---julie good-bye. [_liliom sinks slowly back and dies. julie frees her hand. the doctor enters with the first policeman._] doctor good evening. his wife? julie yes, sir. [_behind the doctor and policeman enter marie, wolf, mother hollunder, young hollunder and mrs. muskat. they remain respectfully at the doorway. the doctor bends over liliom and examines him._] doctor a light, if you please. [_julie fetches a burning candle from the dark room. the doctor examines liliom briefly in the candle-light, then turns suddenly away._] have you pen and ink? wolf [_proffering a pen._] a fountain-pen--american---doctor [_takes a printed form from his pocket; speaks as he writes out the death-certificate at the little table._] my poor woman, your husband is dead--there's nothing to be done for him--the good god will help him now--i'll leave this certificate with you. you will give it to the people from the hospital when they come--i'll arrange for the body to be removed at once. [_rises._] please give me a towel and soap. policeman i've got them for you out here, sir. [_points to door at back._] doctor god be with you, my good woman. julie thank you, sir. [_the doctor and policeman exit. the others slowly draw nearer._] marie poor julie. may he rest in peace, poor man, but as for you--please don't be angry with me for saying it--but you're better off this way. mother hollunder he is better off, the poor fellow, and so are you. marie much better, julie . . . you are young . . . and one of these days some good man will come along. am i right? wolf she's right. marie julie, tell me, am i right? julie you are right, dear; you are very good. young hollunder there's a good man--the carpenter. oh, i can speak of it now. he comes here every day on some excuse or other--and he never fails to ask for you. marie a widower--with two children. mother hollunder he's better off, poor fellow--and so are you. he was a bad man. marie he wasn't good-hearted. was he, wolf? wolf no, i must say, he really wasn't. no, liliom wasn't a good man. a good man doesn't strike a woman. marie am i right? tell me, julie, am i right? julie you are right, dear. young hollunder it's really a good thing for her it happened. mother hollunder he's better off--and so is she. wolf now you have your freedom again. how old are you? julie eighteen. wolf eighteen. a mere child! am i right? julie you are right, wolf. you are kind. young hollunder lucky for you it happened, isn't it? julie yes. young hollunder all you had before was bad luck. if it weren't for my mother you wouldn't have had a roof over your head or a bite to eat--and now autumn's coming and winter. you couldn't have lived in this shack in the winter time, could you? marie certainly not! you'd have frozen like the birds in the fields. am i right, julie? julie yes, marie. marie a year from now you will have forgotten all about him, won't you? julie you are right, marie. wolf if you need anything, count on us. we'll go now. but tomorrow morning we'll be back. come, marie. god be with you. [_offers julie his hand._] julie god be with you. marie [_embraces julie, weeping._] it's the best thing that could have happened to you, julie, the best thing. julie don't cry, marie. [_marie and wolf exit._] mother hollunder i'll make a little black coffee. you haven't had a thing to eat today. then you'll come home with us. [_mother hollunder and her son exit. mrs. muskat comes over to julie._] mrs. muskat would you mind if i--looked at him? julie he used to work for you. mrs. muskat [_contemplates the body; turns to julie._] won't you make up with me? julie i wasn't angry with you. mrs. muskat but you were. let's make it up. julie [_raising her voice eagerly, almost triumphantly._] i've nothing to make up with _you._ mrs. muskat but i have with you. everyone says hard things against the poor dead boy--except us two. you don't say he was bad. julie [_raising her voice yet higher, this time on a defiant, wholly triumphant note._] yes, i _do._ mrs. muskat i understand, my child. but he beat me, too. what does that matter? i've forgotten it. julie [_from now on answers her coldly, drily, without looking at her._] that's your own affair. mrs. muskat if i can help you in any way---julie there's nothing i need. mrs. muskat i still owe him two kronen, back pay. julie you should have paid him. mrs. muskat now that the poor fellow is dead i thought perhaps it would be the same if i paid you. julie i've nothing to do with it. mrs. muskat all right. please don't think i'm trying to force myself on you. i stayed because we two are the only ones on earth who loved him. that's why i thought we ought to stick together. julie no, thank you. mrs. muskat then you couldn't have loved him as i did. julie no. mrs. muskat i loved him better. julie yes. mrs. muskat good-bye. julie good-bye. [_mrs. muskat exits. julie puts the candle on the table near liliom's head, sits on the edge of the stretcher, looks into the dead man's face and caresses it tenderly._] sleep, liliom, sleep--it's no business of hers--i never even told you--but now i'll tell you--now i'll tell you--you bad, quick-tempered, rough, unhappy, wicked--_dear_ boy--sleep peacefully, liliom--they can't understand how i feel--i can't even explain to you--not even to you--how i feel--you'd only laugh at me--but you can't hear me any more. [_between tender motherliness and reproach, yet with great love in her voice._] it was wicked of you to beat me--on the breast and on the head and face--but you're gone now.--you treated me badly--that was wicked of you--but sleep peacefully, liliom--you bad, bad boy, you--i love you--i never told you before--i was ashamed--but now i've told you--i love you, liliom--sleep--my boy--sleep. [_she rises, gets a bible, sits down near the candle and reads softly to herself, so that, not the words, but an inarticulate murmur is heard. the carpenter enters at back._] carpenter [_stands near the door; in the dimness of the room he can scarcely be seen._] miss julie---julie [_without alarm._] who is that? carpenter [_very slowly._] the carpenter. julie what does the carpenter want? carpenter can i be of help to you in any way? shall i stay here with you? julie [_gratefully, but firmly._] don't stay, carpenter. carpenter shall i come back tomorrow? julie not tomorrow, either. carpenter don't be offended, miss julie, but i'd like to know--you see, i'm not a young man any more--i have two children--and if i'm to come back any more--i'd like to know--if there's any use---julie no use, carpenter. carpenter [_as he exits._] god be with you. [_julie resumes her reading. ficsur enters, slinks furtively sideways to the stretcher, looks at liliom, shakes his head. julie looks up from her reading. ficsur takes fright, slinks away from the stretcher, sits down at right, biting his nails. julie rises. ficsur rises, too, and looks at her half fearfully. with her piercing glance upon him he slinks to the doorway at back, where he pauses and speaks._] ficsur the old woman asked me to tell you that coffee is ready, and you are to come in. [_julie goes to the kitchen door. ficsur withdraws until she has closed the door behind her. then he reappears in the doorway, stands on tiptoes, looks at liliom, then exits. now the body lies alone. after a brief silence music is heard, distant at first, but gradually coming nearer. it is very much like the music of the carousel, but slower, graver, more exalted. the melody, too, is the same, yet the tempo is altered and contrapuntal measures of the thieves' song are intertwined in it. two men in black, with heavy sticks, soft black hats and black gloves, appear in the doorway at back and stride slowly into the room. their faces are beardless, marble white, grave and benign. one stops m front of the stretcher, the other a pace to the right. from above a dim violet light illuminates their faces._] the first [_to liliom._] rise and come with us. the second [_politely._] you're under arrest. the first [_somewhat louder, but always in a gentle, low, resonant voice._] do you hear? rise. don't you hear? the second we are the police. the first [_bends down, touches liliom's shoulder._] get up and come with us. [_liliom slowly sits up._] the second come along. the first [_paternally._] these people suppose that when they die all their difficulties are solved for them. the second [_raising his voice sternly._] that simply by thrusting a knife in your heart and making it stop beating you can leave your wife behind with a child in her womb---the first it is not as simple as that. the second such things are not settled so easily. the first come along. you will have to give an account of yourself. [_as both bow their heads, he continues softly._] we are god's police. [_an expression of glad relief lights upon liliom's face. he rises from the stretcher._] come. the second you mortals don't get off quite as easy as that. the first [_softly._] come. [_liliom starts to walk ahead of them, then stops and looks at them._] the end is not as abrupt as that. your name is still spoken. your face is still remembered. and what you said, and what you did, and what you failed to do--these are still remembered. remembered, too, are the manner of your glance, the ring of your voice, the clasp of your hand and how your step sounded--as long as one is left who remembers you, so long is the matter unended. before the end there is much to be undone. until you are quite forgotten, my son, you will not be finished with the earth--even though you _are_ dead. the second [_very gently._] come. [_the music begins again. all three exit at back, liliom leading, the others following. the stage is empty and quite dark save for the candle which burns by the stretcher, on which, in the shadows, the covers are so arranged that one cannot quite be sure that a body is not still lying. the music dies out in the distance as if it had followed liliom and the two policemen. the candle flickers and goes out. there is a brief interval of silence and total darkness before_ the curtain falls scene six scene--_in the beyond. a whitewashed courtroom. there is a green-topped table; behind it a bench. back center is a door with a bell over it. next to this door is a window through which can be seen a vista of rose-tinted clouds._ _down right there is a grated iron door. down left another door._ _two men are on the bench when the curtain rises. one is richly, the other poorly dressed._ _from a great distance is heard a fanfare of trumpets playing the refrain, of the thieves' song in slow, altered tempo._ _passing the window at back appear liliom and the two policemen._ _the bell rings._ _an old guard enters at right. he is bald and has a long white beard. he wears the conventional police uniform._ _he goes to the door at back, opens it, exchanges silent greetings with the two policemen and closes the door again._ _liliom looks wonderingly around._ the first [_to the old guard._] announce us. [_the guard exits at left._] liliom is this it? the second yes, my son. liliom this is the police court? the second yes, my son. the part for suicide cases. liliom and what happens here? the first here justice is done. sit down. [_liliom sits next to the two men. the two policemen stand silent near the table._] the richly dressed man [_whispers._] suicide, too? liliom yes. the richly dressed man [_points to the poorly dressed man._] so's he. [_introducing himself._] my name is reich. the poorly dressed man [_whispers, too._] my name is stephen kadar. [_liliom only looks at them._] the poorly dressed man and you? what's your name? liliom none of your business. [_both move a bit away from him._] the poorly dressed man i did it by jumping out of a window. the richly dressed man i did it with a pistol--and you? liliom with a knife. [_they move a bit further away from him._] the richly dressed man a pistol is cleaner. liliom if i had the price of a pistol---the second silence! [_the police magistrate enters. he has a long white beard, is bald, but only in profile can be seen on his head a single tuft of snow-white hair. the guard reënters behind him and sits on the bench with the dead men. as the magistrate enters, all rise, except liliom, who remains surlily seated. when the magistrate sits down, so do the others._] the guard yesterday's cases, your honor. the numbers are entered in the docket. the magistrate number 16,472. the first [_looks in his notebook, beckons the richly dressed man._] stand up, please. [_the richly dressed man rises._] the magistrate your name? the richly dressed man doctor reich. the magistrate age? the richly dressed man forty-two, married, jew. the magistrate [_with a gesture of dismissal._] religion does not interest us here--why did you kill yourself? the richly dressed man on account of debts. the magistrate what good did you do on earth? the richly dressed man i was a lawyer---the magistrate [_coughs significantly._] yes--we'll discuss that later. for the present i shall only ask you: would you like to go back to earth once more before sunrise? i advise you that you have the right to go if you choose. do you understand? the richly dressed man yes, sir. the magistrate he who takes his life is apt, in his haste and his excitement, to forget something. is there anything important down there you have left undone? something to tell someone? something to undo? the richly dressed man my debts---the magistrate they do not matter here. here we are concerned only with the affairs of the soul. the richly dressed man then--if you please--when i left--the house--my youngest son, oscar--was asleep. i didn't trust myself to wake him--and bid him good-bye. i would have liked--to kiss him good-bye. the magistrate [_to the second._] you will take dr. reich back and let him kiss his son oscar. the second come with me, please. the richly dressed man [_to the magistrate._] i thank you. [_he bows and exits at back with the second._] the magistrate [_after making an entry in the docket._] number 16,473. the first [_looks in his notebook, then beckons liliom._] stand up. liliom you said _please_ to him. [_he rises._] the magistrate your name? liliom liliom. the magistrate isn't that your nickname? liliom yes. the magistrate what is your right name? liliom andreas. the magistrate and your last name? liliom zavocki--after my mother. the magistrate your age? liliom twenty-four. the magistrate what good did _you_ do on earth? [_liliom is silent._] why did you take your life? [_liliom does not answer. the magistrate addresses the first._] take that knife away from him. [_the first does so._] it will be returned to you, if you go back to earth. liliom do i go back to earth again? the magistrate just answer my questions. liliom i wasn't answering then, i was asking if---the magistrate you don't ask questions here. you only answer. only answer, andreas zavocki! i ask you whether there is anything on earth you neglected to accomplish? anything down there you would like to do? liliom yes. the magistrate what is it? liliom i'd like to break ficsur's head for him. the magistrate punishment is our office. is there nothing else on earth you'd like to do? liliom i don't know--i guess, as long as i'm here, i'll not go back. the magistrate [_to the first._] note that. he waives his right. [_liliom starts back to the bench._] stay where you are. you are aware that you left your wife without food or shelter? liliom yes. the magistrate don't you regret it? liliom no. the magistrate you are aware that your wife is pregnant, and that in six months a child will be born? liliom i know. the magistrate and that the child, too, will be without food or shelter? do you regret that? liliom as long as i won't be there, what's it got to do with me? the magistrate don't try to deceive us, andreas zavocki. we see through you as through a pane of glass. liliom if you see so much, what do you want to ask me for? why don't you let me rest--in peace? the magistrate first you must earn your rest. liliom i want--only--to sleep. the magistrate your obstinacy won't help you. here patience is endless as time. we can wait. liliom can i ask something--i'd like to know--if your honor will tell me--whether the baby will be a boy or a girl. the magistrate you shall see that for yourself. liliom [_excitedly._] i'll see the baby? the magistrate when you do it won't be a baby any more. but we haven't reached that question yet. liliom i'll see it? the magistrate again i ask you: do you not regret that you deserted your wife and child; that you were a bad husband, a bad father? liliom a bad husband? the magistrate yes. liliom and a bad father? the magistrate that, too. liliom i couldn't get work--and i couldn't bear to see julie--all the time--all the time---the magistrate weeping! why are you ashamed to say it? you couldn't bear to see her weeping. why are you afraid of that word? and why are you ashamed that you loved her? liliom [_shrugs his shoulders._] who's ashamed? but i couldn't bear to see her--and that's why i was bad to her. you see, it wouldn't do to go back to the carousel--and ficsur came along with his talk about--that other thing--and all of a sudden it happened, i don't know how. the police and the jew with the pistol--and there i stood--and i'd lost the money playing cards--and i didn't want to be put in prison. [_demanding justification._] maybe i was wrong not to go out and steal when there was nothing to eat in the house? should i have gone out to steal for julie? the magistrate [_emphatically._] yes. liliom [_after an astounded pause._] the police down there never said that. the magistrate you beat that poor, frail girl; you beat her because she loved you. how could you do that? liliom we argued with each other--she said this and i said that--and because she was right i couldn't answer her--and i got mad--and the anger rose up in me--until it reached here [_points to his throat_] and then i beat her. the magistrate are you sorry? liliom [_shakes his head, but cannot utter the word "no"; continues softly._] when i touched her slender throat--then--if you like--you might say---[_falters, looks embarrassed at the magistrate._] the magistrate [_confidently expectant._] are you sorry? liliom [_with a stare._] i'm not sorry for anything. the magistrate liliom, liliom, it will be difficult to help you. liliom i'm not asking any help. the magistrate you were offered employment as a caretaker on arader street. [_to the first._] where is that entered? the first in the small docket. [_hands him the open book. the magistrate looks in it._] the magistrate rooms, kitchen, quarterly wages, the privilege of keeping poultry. why didn't you accept it? liliom i'm not a caretaker. i'm no good at caretaking. to be a caretaker--you have to be a caretaker---the magistrate if i said to you now: liliom, go back on your stretcher. tomorrow morning you will arise alive and well again. would you be a caretaker then? liliom no. the magistrate why not? liliom because--because that's just why i died. the magistrate that is not true, my son. you died because you loved little julie and the child she is bearing under her heart. liliom no. the magistrate look me in the eye. liliom [_looks him in the eye._] no. the magistrate [_stroking his beard._] liliom, liliom, if it were not for our heavenly patience---go back to your seat. number 16,474. the first [_looks in his note book._] stephan kadar. [_the poorly dressed man rises._] the magistrate you came out today? the poorly dressed man today. the magistrate [_indicating the crimson sea of clouds._] how long were you in there? the poorly dressed man thirteen years. the magistrate officer, you went to earth with him? the first yes, sir. the magistrate stephan kadar, after thirteen years of purification by fire you returned to earth to give proof that your soul had been burned clean. what good deed did you perform? the poorly dressed man when i came to the village and looked in the window of our cottage i saw my poor little orphans sleeping peacefully. but it was raining and the rain beat into the room through a hole in the roof. so i went and fixed the roof so it wouldn't rain in any more. my hammering woke them up and they were afraid. but their mother came in to them and comforted them. she said to them: "don't cry! it's your poor, dear father hammering up there. he's come back from the other world to fix the roof for us." the magistrate officer? the first that's what happened. the magistrate stephan kadar, you have done a good deed. what you did will be written in books to gladden the hearts of children who read them. [_indicates the door at left._] the door is open to you. the eternal light awaits you. [_the first escorts the poorly dressed man out at left with great deference._] liliom! [_liliom rises._] you have heard? liliom yes. the magistrate when this man first appeared before us he was as stubborn as you. but now he has purified himself and withstood the test. he has done a good deed. liliom what's he done, anyhow? any roofer can fix a roof. it's much harder to be a barker in an amusement park. the magistrate liliom, you shall remain for sixteen years in the crimson fire until your child is full grown. by that time your pride and your stubbornness will have been burnt out of you. and when your daughter---liliom my daughter! the magistrate when your daughter has reached the age of sixteen---[_liliom bows his head, covers his eyes with his hands, and to keep from weeping laughs defiantly, sadly._] the magistrate when your daughter has reached the age of sixteen you will be sent for one day back to earth. liliom me? the magistrate yes--just as you may have read in the legends of how the dead reappear on earth for a time. liliom i never believed them. the magistrate now you see they are true. you will go back to earth one day to show how far the purification of your soul has progressed. liliom then i must show what i can do--like when you apply for a job--as a coachman? the magistrate yes--it is a test. liliom and will i be told what i have to do? the magistrate no. liliom how will i know, then? the magistrate you must decide that for yourself. that's what you burn sixteen years for. and if you do something good, something splendid for your child, then---liliom [_laughs sadly._] then? [_all stand up and bow their heads reverently. there is a pause._] then? the magistrate now i'll bid you farewell, liliom. sixteen years and a day shall pass before i see you again. when you have returned from earth you will come up before me again. take heed and think well of some good deed to do for your child. on that will depend which door shall be opened to you up here. now go, liliom. [_he exits at left. the guard stands at attention. there is a pause._] the first [_approaches liliom._] come along, my son. [_he goes to the door at right; pulls open the bolt and waits._] liliom [_to the old guard, softly._] say, officer. the guard what do you want? liliom please--can i get--have you got----? the guard what? liliom [_whispers._] a cigarette? [_the old guard stares at him, goes a few paces to the left, shakes his head disapprovingly. then his expression softens. he takes a cigarette from his pocket and, crossing to liliom--who has gone over to the door at right--gives him the cigarette. the first throws open the door. an intense rose-colored light streams in. the glow of it is so strong that it blinds liliom and he takes a step backward and bows his head and covers his eyes with his hand before he steps forward into the light._] the curtain falls scene seven scene--_sixteen years later. a small, tumble-down house on a bare, unenclosed plot of ground. before the house is a tiny garden enclosed by a hip-high hedge._ _at back a wooden fence crosses the stage; in the center of it is a door large enough to admit a wagon. beyond the fence is a view of a suburban street which blends into a broad vista of tilled fields._ _it is a bright sunday in spring._ _in the garden a table for two is laid._ _julie, her daughter louise, wolf and marie are discovered in the garden. wolf is prosperously dressed, marie somewhat elaborately, with a huge hat._ julie you could stay for lunch. marie impossible, dear. since he became the proprietor of the café sorrento, wolf simply has to be there all the time. julie but you needn't stay there all day, too. marie oh, yes. i sit near the cashier's cage, read the papers, keep an eye on the waiters and drink in the bustle and excitement of the great city. julie and what about the children? marie you know what modern families are like. parents scarcely ever see their children these days. the four girls are with their governess, the three boys with their tutor. louise auntie, dear, do stay and eat with us. marie [_importantly._] impossible today, dear child, impossible. perhaps some other time. come, mr. beifeld. julie since when do you call your husband mister? wolf i'd rather she did, dear lady. when we used to be very familiar we quarreled all the time. now we are formal with each other and get along like society folk. i kiss your hand, dear lady. julie good-bye, wolf. marie adieu, my dear. [_they embrace._] adieu, my dear child. louise good-bye, aunt marie. good-bye, uncle wolf. [_wolf and marie exit._] julie you can get the soup now, louise dear. [_louise goes into the house and reënters with the soup. they sit at the table._] louise mother, is it true we're not going to work at the jute factory any more? julie yes, dear. louise where then? julie uncle wolf has gotten us a place in a big establishment where they make all kinds of fittings for cafés. we're to make big curtains, you know, the kind they hang in the windows, with lettering on them. louise it'll be nicer there than at the jute factory. julie yes, dear. the work isn't as dirty and pays better, too. a poor widow like your mother is lucky to get it. [_they eat. liliom and the two heavenly policemen appear in the big doorway at back. the policemen pass slowly by. liliom stands there alone a moment, then comes slowly down and pauses at the opening of the hedge. he is dressed as he was on the day of his death. he is very pale, but otherwise unaltered. julie, at the table, has her back to him. louise sits facing the audience._ liliom good day. louise good day. julie another beggar! what is it you want, my poor man? liliom nothing. julie we have no money to give, but if you care for a plate of soup---[_louise goes into the house._] have you come far today? liliom yes--very far. julie are you tired? liliom very tired. julie over there at the gate is a stone. sit down and rest. my daughter is bringing you the soup. [_louise comes out of the house._] liliom is that your daughter? julie yes. liliom [_to louise._] you are the daughter? louise yes, sir. liliom a fine, healthy girl. [_takes the soup plate from her with one hand, while with the other he touches her arm. louise draws back quickly._] louise [_crosses to julie._] mother! julie what, my child? louise the man tried to take me by the arm. julie nonsense! you only imagined it, dear. the poor, hungry man has other things to think about than fooling with young girls. sit down and eat your soup. [_they eat._] liliom [_eats, too, but keeps looking at them._] you work at the factory, eh? julie yes. liliom your daughter, too? louise yes. liliom and your husband? julie [_after a pause._] i have no husband. i'm a widow. liliom a widow? julie yes. liliom your husband--i suppose he's been dead a long time. [_julie does not answer._] i say--has your husband been dead a long time? julie a long time. liliom what did he die of? [_julie is silent._] louise no one knows. he went to america to work and he died there--in the hospital. poor father, i never knew him. liliom he went to america? louise yes, before i was born. liliom to america? julie why do you ask so many questions? did you know him, perhaps? liliom [_puts the plate down._] heaven knows! i've known so many people. maybe i knew him, too. julie well, if you knew him, leave him and us in peace with your questions. he went to america and died there. that's all there is to tell. liliom all right. all right. don't be angry with me. i didn't mean any harm. [_there is a pause._] louise my father was a very handsome man. julie don't talk so much. louise did i say anything----? liliom surely the little orphan can say that about her father. louise my father could juggle so beautifully with three ivory balls that people used to advise him to go on the stage. julie who told you that? louise uncle wolf. liliom who is that? louise mr. wolf beifeld, who owns the café sorrento. liliom the one who used to be a porter? julie [_astonished._] do you know him, too? it seems that you know all budapest. liliom wolf beifeld is a long way from being all budapest. but i do know a lot of people. why shouldn't i know wolf beifeld? louise he was a friend of my father. julie he was not his friend. no one was. liliom you speak of your husband so sternly. julie what's that to you? doesn't it suit you? i can speak of my husband any way i like. it's nobody's business but mine. liliom certainly, certainly--it's your own business. [_takes up his soup plate again. all three eat._] louise [_to julie._] perhaps he knew father, too. julie ask him, if you like. louise [_crosses to liliom. he stands up._] did you know my father? [_liliom nods. louise addresses her mother._] yes, he knew him. julie [_rises._] you knew andreas zavocky? liliom liliom? yes. louise was he really a very handsome man? liliom i wouldn't exactly say handsome. louise [_confidently._] but he was an awfully good man, wasn't he? liliom he wasn't so good, either. as far as i know he was what they called a clown, a barker in a carousel. louise [_pleased._] did he tell funny jokes? liliom lots of 'em. and he sang funny songs, too. louise in the carousel? liliom yes--but he was something of a bully, too. he'd fight anyone. he even hit your dear little mother. julie that's a lie. liliom it's true. julie aren't you ashamed to tell the child such awful things about her father? get out of here, you shameless liar. eats our soup and our bread and has the impudence to slander our dead! liliom i didn't mean--i---julie what right have you to tell lies to the child? take that plate, louise, and let him be on his way. if he wasn't such a hungry-looking beggar, i'd put him out myself. [_louise takes the plate out of his hand._] liliom so he didn't hit you? julie no, never. he was always good to me. louise [_whispers._] did he tell funny stories, too? liliom yes, and _such_ funny ones. julie don't speak to him any more. in god's name, go. louise in god's name. [_julie resumes her seat at the table and eats._] liliom if you please, miss--i have a pack of cards in my pocket. and if you like, i'll show you some tricks that'll make you split your sides laughing. [_louise holds liliom's plate in her left hand. with her right she reaches out and holds the garden gate shut._] let me in, just a little way, miss, and i'll do the tricks for you. louise go, in god's name, and let us be. why are you making those ugly faces? liliom don't chase me away, miss; let me come in for just a minute--just for a minute--just long enough to let me show you something pretty, something wonderful. [_opens the gate._] miss, i've something to give you. [_takes from his pocket a big red handkerchief in which is wrapped a glittering star from heaven. he looks furtively about him to make sure that the police are not watching._] louise what's that? liliom pst! a star! [_with a gesture he indicates that he has stolen it out of the sky._] julie [_sternly._] don't take anything from him. he's probably stolen it somewhere. [_to liliom._] in god's name, be off with you. louise yes, be off with you. be off. [_she slams the gate._] liliom miss--please, miss--i've got to do something good--or--do something good--a good deed---louise [_pointing with her right hand._] that's the way out. liliom miss---louise get out! liliom miss! [_looks up at her suddenly and slaps her extended hand, so that the slap resounds loudly._] louise mother! [_looks dazedly at liliom, who bows his head dismayed, forlorn. julie rises and looks at liliom in astonishment. there is a long pause._] julie [_comes over to them slowly._] what's the matter here? louise [_bewildered, does not take her eyes off liliom._] mother--the man--he hit me--on the hand--hard--i heard the sound of it--but it didn't hurt--mother--it didn't hurt--it was like a caress--as if he had just touched my hand tenderly. [_she hides behind julie. liliom sulkily raises his head and looks at julie._] julie [_softly._] go, my child. go into the house. go. louise [_going._] but mother--i'm afraid--it sounded so loud---[_weepingly._] and it didn't hurt at all--just as if he'd--kissed my hand instead--mother! [_she hides her face._] julie go in, my child, go in. [_louise goes slowly into the house. julie watches her until she has disappeared, then turns slowly to liliom._] julie you struck my child. liliom yes--i struck her. julie is that what you came for, to strike my child? liliom no--i didn't come for that--but i did strike her--and now i'm going back. julie in the name of the lord jesus, who are you? liliom [_simply._] a poor, tired beggar who came a long way and who was hungry. and i took your soup and bread and i struck your child. are you angry with me? julie [_her hand on her heart; fearfully, wonderingly._] jesus protect me--i don't understand it--i'm not angry--not angry at all---[_liliom goes to the doorway and leans against the doorpost, his back to the audience. julie goes to the table and sits._] julie louise! [_louise comes out of the house._] sit down, dear, we'll finish eating. louise has he gone? julie yes. [_they are both seated at the table. louise, her head in her hands, is staring into space._] why don't you eat, dear? louise what has happened, mother? julie nothing, my child. [_the heavenly policemen appear outside. liliom walks slowly off at left. the first policeman makes a deploring gesture. both shake their heads deploringly and follow liliom slowly off at left._] louise mother, dear, why won't you tell me? julie what is there to tell you, child? nothing has happened. we were peacefully eating, and a beggar came who talked of bygone days, and then i thought of your father. louise my father? julie your father--liliom. [_there is a pause._] louise mother--tell me--has it ever happened to you--has anyone ever hit you--without hurting you in the least? julie yes, my child. it has happened to me, too. [_there is a pause._] louise is it possible for someone to hit you--hard like that--real loud and hard--and not hurt you at all? julie it is possible, dear--that someone may beat you and beat you and beat you,--and not hurt you at all.---[_there is a pause. nearby an organ-grinder has stopped. the music of his organ begins._] the curtain falls transcriber's note this transcription is based on images scanned from a copy made available by cornell university and posted by the internet archive at: archive.org/details/cu31924026943195 these images were supplemented by images scanned from a copy made available by harvard university and posted by the internet archive at: archive.org/details/liliomalegendin00glazgoog the following changes were noted: for consistency, all names in the stage directions have been capitalized. p. 12: i'll stand for no indecency in my establishment--added a period to the end of the sentence. p. 29: which of you wants to stay. [_there is no answer._]--changed the period after "stay" to a question mark. p. 47: _the door to the kitchen is up left and a black-curtained entrance to the dark-room is down left._--for consistency, changed "_dark-room_" to "_dark room_". p. 49: [_with a sweeping gesture that takes in the camera, dark-room and screen_]--for consistency, changed "_dark-room_" to "_dark room_". p. 75: _ficsur's head is quickly withdrawn. mrs. muskat re-enters._--changed "re-enters" to "reënters". the hyphenation occurs at the end of a line. elsewhere in the text the word is printed with a diaeresis. p. 162: the magistrat--changed the character title to "the magistrate". alternate spellings such as "irridescence," "moustache," "improvization," and "reënters" have been retained as has the inconsistent spelling of liliom's last name ("zavoczki," "zavocki," and "zavocky"). produced from scanned images of public domain material from the google print project.) st. peter's umbrella [illustration: "joined hands under the sacred umbrella"] st. peter's umbrella a novel by kálmán mikszáth translated from the hungarian by b. w. worswick, with introduction by r. nisbet bain [illustration] illustrated harper & brothers, publishers new york and london, mdcccci copyright, 1900, by jarrold & sons. all rights reserved. contents introduction, vii part i.--the legend. i. little veronica is taken away, 3 ii. glogova as it used to be, 7 iii. the new priest at glogova, 11 iv. the umbrella and st. peter, 25 part ii.--the gregorics family. i. the tactless member of the family, 49 ii. dubious signs, 63 iii. pál gregorics's death and will, 77 iv. the avaricious gregorics, 92 part iii.--traces. i. the umbrella again, 123 ii. our rosália, 138 iii. the traces lead to glogova, 144 iv. the earring, 160 part iv.--intellectual society in bábaszék. i. the supper at the mravucsáns, 191 ii. night brings counsel, 218 part v.--the third devil. i. maria czobor's rose, the precipice, and the old pear-tree, 235 ii. three sparks, 256 iii. little veronica is taken away, 276 illustrations "joined hands under the sacred umbrella" frontispiece "the child was in the basket" facing p. 26 introduction kálmán mikszáth, perhaps the most purely national, certainly, after jókai, the most popular of all the magyar novelists, was born at szklabonya, in the county of nográd, on january 16th, 1849. educated at rimaszombáth and pest, he adopted the legal profession, and settled down as a magistrate in his native county, where his family had for generations lived the placid, patriarchal life of small country squires. a shrewd observer, with a strong satirical bent and an ardent love of letters, the young advocate made his _début_ as an author, at the age of twenty-five, with a volume of short stories, which failed, however, to catch the public taste. shortly afterward he flitted to szeged, and contributed to the leading periodical there a series of sketches, whose piquant humor and perfection of style attracted so much notice as to encourage a bookseller in the famous city on the theiss to publish, in 1881, another volume of tales, the epoch-making "tót atyafiak," which was followed, four months later, by a supplementary volume, entitled "a jó palóczok." critics of every school instantly hailed these two little volumes as the finished masterpieces of a new and entirely original _genre_, the like of which had hitherto been unknown in hungary. the short story had, indeed, been previously cultivated, with more or less of success, by earlier magyar writers; but these first attempts had, for the most part, been imitations of foreign novelists, mere exotics which struck no deep root in the national literature. mikszáth was the first to study from the life the peculiarities and characteristics of the peasantry among whom he dwelt, the first to produce real, vivid pictures of magyar folk-life in a series of humoresks, dramas, idylls--call them what you will--of unsurpassable grace and delicacy, seasoned with a pleasantly pungent humor, but never without a sub-flavor of that tender melancholy which lies at the heart of the hungarian peasantry. and these exquisite miniatures were set in the frame of a lucid, pregnant, virile style, not unworthy of maupassant or kjelland. henceforth mikszáth was sure of an audience. in 1883 he removed to pest, and in the following year a fresh series of sketches, "a tisztelt házból," appeared in the columns of the leading hungarian newspaper, the "pesti hirlap," which established his reputation once for all. during the last twelve years mikszáth has published at least a dozen volumes, and, so far, his productivity shows no sign of exhaustion. the chief literary societies of his native land, including the hungarian academy, have all opened their doors to him, and since 1882 he has been twice, unanimously, elected a member of the hungarian parliament, in the latter case, oddly enough, representing a constituency vacated by his illustrious compeer and fellow-humorist, maurus jókai. fortunately for literature, he has shown no very remarkable aptitude for politics. when i add that in 1873 mikszáth married miss ilona mauks, and has two children living, who have frequently figured in his tales, i have said all that need be said of the life-story of this charming and interesting author. as already implied, the _forte_ of mikszáth is the _conte_, and as a _conteur_ he has few equals in modern literature. "a jó palóczok," in particular, has won a world-wide celebrity, and been translated into nearly every european language except english, the greater part of the swedish version being by the accomplished and versatile pen of king oscar. but mikszáth has also essayed the romance with eminent success, and it is one of his best romances that is now presented to the reader. "szent péter esernyöje," to give it its magyar title, is a quaintly delightful narrative in a romantic environment of out-of-the-world slovak villages, with a ragged red umbrella and a brand-new brass caldron as the good and evil geniuses of the piece respectively. the umbrella, which is worth a king's ransom, is sold for a couple of florins to the "white jew" of the district, becomes the tutelary deity--or shall i say the fetish?--of half a dozen parishes, and is only recovered, after the lapse of years, by its lawful owner, when, by a singular irony of fate, it has become absolutely valueless--from a pecuniary point of view. the caldron, on the other hand, which is erroneously supposed to contain countless treasures, and is the outcome of a grimly practical joke, proves a regular box of pandora, and originates a famous lawsuit which lasts ten years and ruins three families--who deserve no better fate. how the umbrella and the caldron first come into the story the reader must be left to find out for himself. suffice it to say that grouped around them are very many pleasant and--by way of piquant contrast--a sprinkling of unpleasant personages, whose adventures and vicissitudes will, i am convinced, supply excellent entertainment to all lovers of fine literature and genuine humor. r. nisbet bain. the legend part i chapter i. little veronica is taken away. the schoolmaster's widow at the haláp was dead. when a schoolmaster dies there is not much of a funeral, but when his widow follows him, there is still less fuss made. and this one had left nothing but a goat, a goose she had been fattening, and a tiny girl of two years. the goose ought to have been fattened at least a week longer, but the poor woman had not been able to hold out so long. as far as the goose was concerned she had died too soon, for the child it was too late. in fact, she ought never to have been born. it would have been better had the woman died when her husband did. (dear me, what a splendid voice that man had to be sure!) the child was born some months after its father's death. the mother was a good, honest woman, but after all it did not seem quite right, for they already had a son, a priest, a very good son on the whole, only it was a pity he could not help his mother a bit; but he was very poor himself, and lived a long way off in wallachia, as chaplain to an old priest. but it was said that two weeks ago he had been presented with a living in a small village called glogova, somewhere in the mountains between selmeczbánya and besztercebánya. there was a man in haláp, jános kapiczány, who had passed there once when he was driving some oxen to a fair, and he said it was a miserable little place. and now the schoolmaster's widow must needs go and die, just when her son might have been able to help her a little. but no amount of talking would bring her back again, and i must say, for the honor of the inhabitants of haláp, that they gave the poor soul a very decent funeral. there was not quite enough money collected to defray the expenses, so they had to sell the goat to make up the sum; but the goose was left, though there was nothing for it to feed on, so it gradually got thinner and thinner, till it was its original size again; and instead of waddling about in the awkward, ungainly way it had done on account of its enormous size, it began to move in a more stately manner; in fact, its life had been saved by the loss of another. god in his wisdom by taking one life often saves another, for, believe me, senseless beings are entered in his book as well as sensible ones, and he takes as much care of them as of kings and princes. the wisdom of god is great, but that of the judge of haláp was not trifling either. he ordered that after the funeral the little girl (veronica was her name) was to spend one day at every house in the village in turns, and was to be looked after as one of the family. "and how long is that to last?" asked one of the villagers. "until i deign to give orders to the contrary," answered the judge shortly. and so things went on for ten days, until máté billeghi decided to take his wheat to besztercebánya to sell, for he had heard that the jews down that way were not yet so sharp as in the neighborhood of haláp. this was a good chance for the judge. "well," he said, "if you take your wheat there, you may as well take the child to her brother. glogova must be somewhere that way." "not a bit of it," was the answer, "it is in a totally different direction." "it _must_ be down that way if i wish it," thundered out the judge. billeghi tried to get out of it, saying it was awkward for him, and out of his way. but it was of no use, when the judge ordered a thing, it had to be done. so one wednesday they put the sacks of wheat into billeghi's cart, and on the top of them a basket containing veronica and the goose, for the latter was, of course, part of the priest's inheritance. the good folks of the village had made shortbread and biscuits for the little orphan to take with her on her journey out into the great world, and they also filled a basket with pears and plums; and as the cart drove off, many of them shed tears for the poor little waif, who had no idea where they were taking her to, but only saw that when the horses began to move, she still kept her place in the basket, and only the houses and trees seemed to move. chapter ii. glogova as it used to be. not only the worthy kapiczány had seen glogova, the writer of these pages has also been there. it is a miserable little place in a narrow valley between bare mountains. there is not a decent road for miles around, much less a railway. nowadays they say there is some sort of an old-fashioned engine, with a carriage or two attached, which plies between besztercebánya and selmeczbánya, but even that does not pass near to glogova. it will take at least five hundred years to bring it up to that pitch of civilization other villages have reached. the soil is poor, a sort of clay, and very little will grow there except oats and potatoes, and even these have to be coaxed from the ground. a soil like that cannot be spoken of as "mother earth," it is more like "mother-in-law earth." it is full of pebbles, and has broad cracks here and there, on the borders of which a kind of whitish weed grows, called by the peasants "orphans' hair." is the soil too old? why, it cannot be older than any other soil, but its strength has been used up more rapidly. down below in the plain they have been growing nothing but grass for about a thousand years, but up here enormous oak-trees used to grow; so it is no wonder that the soil has lost its strength. poverty and misery are to be found here, and yet a certain feeling of romance takes possession of one at the sight of it. the ugly peasant huts seem only to heighten the beauty of the enormous rocks which rise above us. it would be a sin to build castles there, which, with their ugly modern towers, would hide those wild-looking rocks. the perfume of the elder and juniper fills the air, but there are no other flowers, except here and there in one of the tiny gardens, a mallow, which a barefooted, fair-haired slovak girl tends, and waters from a broken jug. i see the little village before me, as it was in 1873, when i was there last; i see its small houses, the tiny gardens sown partly with clover, partly with maize, with here and there a plum-tree, its branches supported by props. for the fruit-trees at least did their duty, as though they had decided to make up to the poor slovaks for the poverty of their harvest. when i was there the priest had just died, and we had to take an inventory of his possessions. there was nothing worth speaking of, a few bits of furniture, old and well worn, and a few shabby cassocks. but the villagers were sorry to lose the old priest. "he was a good man," they said, "but he had no idea of economy, though, after all, he had not very much to economize with." "why don't you pay your priest better?" we asked. and a big burly peasant answered: "the priest is not our servant, but the servant of god, and every master must pay his own servant." after making the inventory, and while the coachman was harnessing the horses, we walked across the road to have a look at the school, for my companion was very fond of posing as a patron of learning. the schoolhouse was small and low, with a simple, thatched roof. only the church had a wooden roof, but even the house of god was very simply built, and there was no tower to it, only a small belfry at one side. the schoolmaster was waiting for us. if i remember rightly his name was györgy majzik. he was a strong, robust-looking man, with an interesting, intelligent face, and a plain, straightforward way of speaking which immediately awoke a feeling of friendship in one. he took us in to see the children; the girls sat on one side, the boys on the other, all as tidy and clean as possible. they rose on our entrance, and in a singing voice said: "vitajtye panyi, vitajtye!" (good-morning, honored sirs!) my companion put a few questions to the rosy, round-faced children, who stared at us with their large brown eyes. they all had brown eyes. the questions were, of course, not difficult, but they caused the children an amount of serious thinking. however, my friend was indulgent, and he only patted the schoolmaster on the back and said: "i am quite contented with their answers, my friend." the schoolmaster bowed, then, with his head held high, he accompanied us out to the road. chapter iii. the new priest at glogova. the new priest had arrived in the only cart the villagers had at their disposal. two cows were harnessed to it, and on the way the sacristan stopped to milk them, and then offered some of the milk to the young priest. "it's very good milk," he said, "especially bimbo's." his reverence's luggage was not bulky; it consisted of a plain wooden box, a bundle of bed-clothes, two walking-sticks, and some pipes tied together with string. as they passed through the various villages the sacristan was often chaffed by the inhabitants. "well," they called out to him, "couldn't you find a better conveyance than that for your new priest?" whereupon the sacristan tried to justify his fellow-villagers by saying with a contemptuous look at the luggage in the cart: "it's good enough, i'm sure. why, a calf a month old could draw those things." but if he had not brought much with him in the way of worldly goods, jános bélyi did not find much either in his new parish, which appeared to be going to wreck and ruin. the relations of the dead priest had taken away every stick they could lay hands on, and had only left a dog, his favorite. it was a dog such as one sees every day, as far as his shape and coat were concerned, but he was now in a very unpleasant position. after midday he began to wander from house to house in the village, slinking into the kitchens; for his master had been in the habit of dining every day with one or other of his parishioners, and always took his dog with him. the dog's name was vistula, but his master need not have gone so far to find the name of a river, when the bjela voda flowed right through the meadows outside the village. (the hungarian peasants generally give their dogs the name of a river, thinking it prevents hydrophobia.) the dog had already begun to feel that he and the priest together had been better received than he alone, though, until now, he had always imagined, with his canine philosophy, that his master had in reality been eating more than his share of the food. but now he saw the difference, for he was driven away from the houses where he had once been an honored guest. so altogether he was in a very miserable, lean condition when the new priest arrived. the sacristan had shown him his new home, with its four bare walls, its garden overgrown with weeds, its empty stable and fowl-house. the poor young man smiled. "and is that all mine?" he asked. "all of it, everything you see here," was the answer, "and this dog too." "whose dog is it?" "it belonged to the poor dead priest, god rest his soul. we wanted to kill the poor beast, but no one dares to, for they say that the spirit of his old master would come back and haunt us." the dog was looking at the young priest in a melancholy, almost tearful way; perhaps the sight of the cassock awoke sad memories in him. "i will keep him," said the priest, and stooping down he patted the dog's lean back. "at all events there will be some living thing near me." "that will be quite right," said the sacristan. "one must make a beginning, though one generally gets something worth watching first, and then looks out for a watch-dog. but it doesn't matter if it is the other way about." jános bélyi smiled (he had a very winning smile, like a girl's), for he saw that old vistula would not have much to do, in fact would be quite like a private gentleman in comparison to his companions. all this time people had been arriving in the yard to have a look at the new priest; the women kept at a distance, and said: "dear me! so young and already in holy orders!" the men went up and shook hands with him, saying, "god bless you! may you be happy with us!" an old woman called out, "may you be with us till your death!" the older women admired his looks, and remarked how proud his mother must be of him. in fact the new priest seemed to have taken every one's fancy, and he spoke a few words with them all, and then said he was tired, and went across to the schoolmaster's, for he was to live there for a time till he could get his own place a bit straight, and until he saw some signs of an income. only a few of the more important villagers accompanied him to talk over the state of affairs: péter szlávik, the sacristan; mihály gongoly, the nabob of glogova; and the miller, györgy klincsok. he began to question them, and took out his note-book, in order to make notes as to what his income was likely to be. "how many inhabitants are there in the village?" "rather less than five hundred." "and how much do they pay the priest?" they began to reckon out how much wood they had to give, how much corn, and how much wine. the young priest looked more and more serious as they went on. "that is very little," he said sadly. "and what are the fees?" "oh, they are large enough," answered klincsok; "at a funeral it depends on the dead person, at a wedding it depends on the people to be married; but they are pretty generous on that occasion as a rule; and at a christening one florin is paid. i'm sure that's enough, isn't it?" "and how many weddings are there in a year?" "oh, that depends on the potato harvest. plenty of potatoes, plenty of weddings. the harvest decides it; but as a rule there are at least four or five." "that is not many. and how many deaths occur?" "that depends on the quality of the potato harvest. if the potatoes are bad, there are many deaths, if they are good, there are less deaths, for we are not such fools as to die then. of course now and then a falling tree in the woods strikes one or the other dead; or an accident happens to a cart, and the driver is killed. you may reckon a year with eight deaths a good one as far as you are concerned." "but they don't all belong to the priest," said the nabob of glogova, smoothing back his hair. "why, how is that?" asked the priest. "many of the inhabitants of glogova are never buried in the cemetery at all. the wolves eat them without ever announcing it in the parish." "and some die in other parts of the country," went on györgy klincsok, "so that only very few of them are buried here." "it is a bad lookout," said the priest. "but the parish fields, what about them?" now they all wanted to speak at once, but klincsok pulled the sacristan aside, and stood up in front of the priest. "fields?" he said. "why you can have as much ground as you like. if you want one hundred acres ..." "one hundred acres!" shouted szlávik, "five hundred if you like; we shall not refuse our priest any amount of ground he likes to ask for." the priest's countenance began to clear, but honest szlávik did not long leave him in doubt. "the fact is," he began, "the boundaries of the pasture-lands of glogova are not well defined to this day. there are no proper title-deeds; there was some arrangement made with regard to them, but in 1823 there was a great fire here, and all our documents were burnt. so every one takes as much of the land as he and his family can till. each man ploughs his own field, and when it is about used up he looks out a fresh bit of land. so half the ground is always unused, of course the worst part, into which it is not worth while putting any work." "i see," sighed the priest, "and that half belongs to the church." it was not a very grand lookout, but by degrees he got used to the idea of it, and if unpleasant thoughts would come cropping up, he dispersed them by a prayer. when praying, he was on his own ground, a field which always brought forth fruit; he could reap there at any minute all he was in need of--patience, hope, comfort, content. he set to work to get his house in order, so that he could at least be alone. luckily he had found in the next village an old school friend, tamás urszinyi, a big, broad-shouldered man, plain-spoken, but kind-hearted. "glogova is a wretched hole," he said, "but not every place can be the bishopric of neutra. however, you will have to put up with it as it is. daniel was worse off in the lions' den, and after all these are only sheep." "which have no wool," remarked his reverence, smiling. "they have wool, but you have not the shears." in a few days he had furnished his house with the money he had borrowed of his friend, and one fine autumn afternoon he was able to take possession of his own house. oh, how delightful it was to arrange things as he liked! what pleasant dreams he would have lying in his own bed, on pillows made by his own mother! he thought over it all when he lay down to sleep, and before going to sleep he counted the corners of the room so as to be sure and remember his dreams. (the hungarian peasants say, that when you sleep in a room for the first time you must count the corners, then you will remember your dream, which is sure to come true.) he remembered his dream the next morning, and it was a very pleasant one. he was chasing butterflies in the fields outside his native village, looking for birds' nests, playing games with the boys and girls, having a quarrel with pali szabó, and they were just coming to blows when some one tapped at the window outside. the priest awoke and rubbed his eyes. it was morning, the sun was shining into the room. "who is it?" he called out. "open the door, jankó!" jankó! who was calling him jankó? it seemed to him as though it were one of his old schoolfellows, from whom he had just parted in his dream. he jumped out of bed and ran to the window. "who is it?" he repeated. "it is i," was the answer, "máté billeghi from your old home. come out, jankó, no, i mean of course, please come out, your reverence. i've brought something." the priest dressed hastily. his heart was beating fast with a kind of presentiment that he was to hear bad news. he opened the door and stepped out. "here i am, mr. billeghi; what have you brought me?" but mr. billeghi had left the window and gone back to the cart, where he was unfastening the basket containing little veronica and the goose. the horses hung their heads, and one of them tried to lie down, but the shaft was in the way, and when he tried the other side, he felt the harness cutting into his side, which reminded him that he was not in the stable, and a horse's honorable feeling will not allow of its lying down, as long as it is harnessed to the cart. there must be something serious the matter to induce it to lie down in harness, for a horse has a high sense of duty. máté billeghi now turned round and saw the priest standing near him. "hallo, jankó! why, how you have grown! how surprised your mother would be if she were alive! bother this rope, i did make a firm knot in it!" the priest took a step toward the cart, where billeghi was still struggling with the knot. the words, "if your mother were alive," had struck him like a blow, his head began to swim, his legs to tremble. "are you speaking of my mother?" he stammered. "is my mother dead?" "yes, poor woman, she has given up the ghost. but" (and here he took out his knife and began to cut the rope) "here is your little sister, jankó, that is, i mean, your reverence; my memory is as weak as a chicken's, and i always forget whom i am talking to. i've brought your reverence's little sister; where shall i put her down?" and with that he lifted up the basket in which the child was sleeping soundly with the goose beside her. the bird seemed to be acting the part of nurse to her, driving off the flies which tried to settle on her little red mouth. the autumn sunlight fell on the basket and the sleeping child, and máté was standing with his watery blue eyes fixed on the priest's face, waiting for a word or a sign from him. "dead!" he murmured after a time. "impossible. i had no feeling of it." he put his hand to his head, saying sadly, "no one told me, and i was not there at the funeral." "i was not there either," said máté, as though that would console the other for his absence; and then added, as an afterthought: "god almighty took her to himself, he called her to his throne. he doesn't leave one of us here. bother those frogs, now i've trodden on one!" there were any amount of them in the weedy courtyard of the presbytery; they came out of the holes in the damp walls of the old church. "where shall i put the child?" repeated mr. billeghi, but as he received no answer, he deposited her gently on the small veranda. the priest stood with his eyes fixed on the ground; it seemed to him as though the earth, with the houses and gardens, máté billeghi and the basket, were all running away, and only he was standing there, unable to move one way or the other. from the ukrica woods in the distance there came a rustling of leaves, seeming to bring with it a sound that spoke to his heart, the sound of his mother's voice. he listened, trembling, and trying to distinguish the words. again they are repeated; what are they? "jános, jános, take care of my child!" but while jános was occupied in listening to voices from a better land, máté was getting tired of waiting, and muttering something to himself about not getting even a "thank you" for his trouble, he prepared to start. "well, if that's the way they do things in these parts, i'll be off," he grumbled, and cracking his whip he added, "good-by, your reverence. gee-up, sármány!" father jános still gave no answer, did not even notice what was going on around him, and the horses were moving on, máté billeghi walking beside them, for they had to go uphill now, and the good man was muttering to himself something about its being the way of the world, and only natural that if a chicken grows into a peacock, of course the peacock does not remember the time when it was a chicken. when he got up to the top of the hill he turned round and saw the priest still standing in the same place, and, making one last effort to attract his attention, he shouted: "well, i've given you what i was told to, so good-by." the priest's senses at last returned from the paths in which they had been wandering, far away, with his mother. in imagination he was kneeling at her death-bed, and with her last breath she was bidding him take care of his little sister. there was no need for it to be written nor to be telegraphed to him; there were higher forces which communicated the fact to him. jános's first impulse was to run after máté, and ask him to stop and tell him all about his mother, how she had lived during the last two years, how she had died, how they had buried her, in fact, everything. but the cart was a long way off by now, and, besides, his eyes at that moment caught sight of the basket and its contents, and they took up his whole attention. his little sister was still asleep in the basket. the young priest had never yet seen the child, for he had not been home since his father's funeral, and she was not born then; so he had only heard of her existence from his mother's letters, and they were always so short. jános went up to the basket and looked at the small rosy face. he found it bore a strong resemblance to his mother's, and as he looked the face seemed to grow bigger, and he saw the features of his mother before him; but the vision only lasted a minute, and the child's face was there again. if she would only open her eyes! but they were firmly closed, and the long eyelashes lay like silken fringes on her cheeks. "and i am to take care of this tiny creature?" thought jános. "and i will take care of her. but how am i to do it? i have nothing to live on myself. what shall i do?" he did as he always had done until now, when he had been in doubt, and turned toward the church in order to say a prayer there. the church was open, and two old women were inside, whitewashing the walls. so the priest did not go quite in but knelt down before a crucifix at the entrance. chapter iv. the umbrella and st. peter. father jános remained kneeling a long time and did not notice that a storm was coming up. when he came out of the church it was pouring in torrents, and before long the small mountain streams were so swollen that they came rushing down into the village street, and the cattle in their fright ran lowing into their stables. jános's first thought was that he had left the child on the veranda, and it must be wet through. he ran home as fast as he could, but paused with surprise before the house. the basket was where he had left it, the child was in the basket, and the goose was walking about in the yard. the rain was still coming down in torrents, the veranda was drenched, but on the child not a drop had fallen, for an immense red umbrella had been spread over the basket. it was patched and darned to such an extent that hardly any of the original stuff was left, and the border of flowers round it was all but invisible. [illustration: "the child was in the basket"] the young priest raised his eyes in gratitude to heaven, and taking the child into his arms, carried it, under the red umbrella, into his room. the child's eyes were open now; they were a lovely blue, and gazed wonderingly into the priest's face. "it is really a blessing," he murmured, "that the child did not get wet through; she might have caught her death of cold, and i could not even have given her dry clothes." but where had the umbrella come from? it was incomprehensible, for in the whole of glogova there was not a single umbrella. in the next yard some peasants were digging holes for the water to run into. his reverence asked them all in turn, had they seen no one with the child? no, they had seen the child, but as far as they knew no one had been near it. old widow adamecz, who had run home from the fields with a shawl over her head, had seen something red and round, which seemed to fall from the clouds right over the child's head. might she turn to stone that minute if it were not true, and she was sure the virgin mary had sent it down from heaven herself to the poor orphan child. widow adamecz was a regular old gossip; she was fond of a drop of brandy now and then, so it was no wonder she sometimes saw more than she ought to have done. the summer before, on the eve of the feast of sts. peter and paul, she had seen the skies open, and heaven was before her; she had heard the angels sing, as they passed in procession before god, sitting on a throne of precious stones. and among them she had seen her grandson, jános plachta, in a pretty red waistcoat which she herself had made him shortly before his death. and she had seen many of the inhabitants of glogova who had died within the last few years, and they were all dressed in the clothes they had been buried in. you can imagine that after that, when the news of her vision was spread abroad, she was looked upon as a very holy person indeed. all the villagers came to ask if she had seen their dead relations in the procession; this one's daughter, that one's father, and the other one's "poor husband!" they quite understood that such a miracle was more likely to happen to her than to any one else, for a miracle had been worked on her poor dead father andrás, even though he had been looked upon in life as something of a thief. for when the high road had had to be made broader eight years before, they were obliged to take a bit of the cemetery in order to do it, and when they had opened andrás's grave, so as to bury him again, they saw with astonishment that he had a long beard, though five witnesses swore to the fact that at the time of his death he was clean-shaven. so they were all quite sure that old andrás was in heaven, and having been an old cheat all his life he would, of course, manage even up above to leave the door open a bit now and then, so that his dear agnes could have a peep at what was going on. but pál kvapka, the bell-ringer, had another tale to tell. he said that when he had gone up the belfry to ring the clouds away, and had turned round for a minute, he saw the form of an old jew crossing the fields beyond the village, and he had in his hands that immense red thing like a plate, which his reverence had found spread over the basket. kvapka had thought nothing of it at the time, for he was sleepy, and the wind blew the dust in his eyes, but he could take an oath that what he had told them had really taken place. (and pál kvapka was a man who always spoke the truth.) others had also seen the jew. he was old, tall, gray-haired, his back was bent, and he had a crook in his hand, and when the wind carried his hat away, they saw that he had a large bald place at the back of his head. "he was just like the picture of st. peter in the church," said the sacristan, who had seen him without his hat. "he was like it in every respect," he repeated, "except that he had no keys in his hand." from the meadow he had cut across stropov's clover-field, where the krátki's cow, which had somehow got loose, made a rush at him; in order to defend himself he struck at it with his stick (and from that time, you can ask the krátki family if it is not true, the cow gave fourteen pints of milk a day, whereas they used to have the greatest difficulty in coaxing four pints from it). at the other end of the village the old man had asked the miller's servant-girl which was the way to lehota, and erzsi had told him, upon which he had started on the footpath up the mountains. erzsi said she was sure, now she came to think of it, that he had a glory round his head. why, of course it must have been st. peter! why should it not have been? there was a time when he walked about on earth, and there are many stories told still as to all he had done then. and what had happened once could happen again. the wonderful news spread from house to house, that god had sent down from heaven a sort of red-linen tent, to keep the rain off the priest's little sister, and had chosen st. peter himself for the mission. thereupon followed a good time for the child, she became quite the fashion in the village. the old women began to make cakes for her, also milk puddings, and various other delicacies. his reverence had nothing to do but answer the door all day, and receive from his visitors plates, dishes, or basins wrapped up in clean cloths. the poor young priest could not make out what was going on in his new parish. "oh, your reverence, please, i heard your little sister had come, so i've brought her a trifle for her dinner; of course it might be better, but it is the best such poor folks as we can give. our hearts are good, your reverence, but our flour might be better than it is, for that good-for-nothing miller burned it a bit the last time--at least, that part of it which he did not keep for his own use. may i look at the little angel? they say she's a little beauty." of course his reverence allowed them all to look at her in turn, to pat her and smooth her hair; some of them even kissed her tiny feet. the priest was obliged to turn away now and then to hide the tears of gratitude. he reproached himself, too, for his hard thoughts of the good villagers. "how i have misjudged them!" he thought to himself. "there are no better people in the world. and how they love the child!" at tea-time widow adamecz appeared on the scene; until now she had not troubled much about the new priest. she considered herself entitled to a word in the management of the ecclesiastical affairs of the village, and based her rights on the fact of her father having grown a beard in his grave, which, of course, gave him a place among the saints at once. "your reverence," she began, "you will want some one to look after the child." "yes, of course, i ought to have some one," he replied, "but the parish is poor, and ..." "nobody is poor but the devil," burst out widow adamecz, "and he's poor because he has no soul. but we have souls. and after all, your reverence won't know how to dress and undress a child, nor how to wash it and plait its hair. and then she will often be hungry, and you can't take her across to the schoolmaster's each time. you must have some one to cook at home, your reverence. the sacristan is all very well for sweeping and tidying up a bit, but what does he know about children?" "true, true; but where am i to ..." "where? and am _i_ not here? the lord created me for a priest's cook, i'm sure." "yes, i daresay. but how am i to pay your wages?" widow adamecz put her hands on her hips, and planted herself in front of father jános. "never mind about that, your honor. leave it to god and to me. he will pay me. i shall enter your service this evening, and shall bring all my saucepans and things with me." the priest was more and more surprised, but even more astonished was his friend urszinyi when he came over toward evening and the priest related the events of the day, and told him of widow adamecz's offer. "what!" he exclaimed, "widow adamecz? that old witch? and without payment? why, jános, a greater miracle never yet happened. an inhabitant of glogova working for payment from heaven! you seem to have bewitched the people." the priest only smiled, but his heart was full of gratitude. he also felt that a miracle had taken place; it was all so strange, so incomprehensible. but he guessed at the cause of the change. the prayer he had said at the entrance to the church had been heard, and this was the answer. yes, it really was a miracle! he had not heard all the stories that were spread abroad about the red umbrella, and he only smiled at those that had come to his ears. it is true he did not understand himself how the umbrella came to be where he had found it; he was surprised at first, but had not thought any more about it, and had hung it on a nail in his room, so that if the owner asked for it he could have it at once, though it was not really worth sixpence. but the day's events were not yet done. toward evening the news spread that the wife of the miller, the village nabob, had been drowned in the bjela voda, which was very swollen from the amount of rain that had fallen. the unfortunate woman had crossed the stepping-stones in order to bring back her geese, which had strayed to the other side. she had brought back two of them, one under each arm, but as she was re-crossing to fetch the third, her foot slipped, and she fell into the stream. in the morning there had been so little water there, that a goat could have drank it all in half a minute, and by midday it was swollen to such an extent that the poor woman was drowned in it. they looked for her the whole afternoon in the cellar, in the loft, everywhere they could think of, until in the evening her body was taken out of the water near lehota. there some people recognized her, and a man was sent over on horseback to tell mihály gongoly of the accident. all this caused great excitement in the village, and the people stood about in groups, talking of the event. "yes, god takes the rich ones too," they said. györgy klincsok came running in to the priest. "there will be a grand funeral the day after to-morrow," he exclaimed. the sacristan appeared at the schoolmaster's in the hope of a glass of brandy to celebrate the event. "collect your thoughts," he exclaimed, "there will be a grand funeral, and they will expect some grand verses." two days later the funeral took place, and it was a long time since anything so splendid had been seen in glogova. mr. gongoly had sent for the priest from lehota too, for, as he said, why should not his wife have two priests to read the burial service over her. he sent all the way to besztercebánya for the coffin, and they took the wooden cross that was to be put at the head of the grave to kopanyik to have it painted black, with the name and the date of her death in white letters. there were crowds of people at the funeral in spite of the bad weather, and just as the priest was starting in full canonicals, with all the little choir-boys in their clean surplices, it began to pour again; so father jános turned to kvapka, the sacristan, and said: "run back as fast as you can and fetch the umbrella out of my room." kvapka turned and stared; how was he to know what an umbrella was? "well," said father jános, "if you like it better, fetch the large, round piece of red linen i found two days ago spread over my little sister." "ah, now i understand!" the priest took shelter in a cottage until the fleet-footed kvapka returned with the umbrella, which his reverence, to the great admiration of the crowd, with one sweeping movement of his hand spread out in such a fashion that it looked like a series of bats' wings fastened together. then, taking hold of the handle, he raised it so as to cover his head, and walked on with stately step, without getting wet a bit; for the drops fell angrily on the strange tent spread over him, and, not being able to touch his reverence, fell splashing on to the ground. the umbrella was the great attraction for all the peasants at the funeral, and they exchanged many whispered remarks about the (to them) strange thing. "that's what st. peter brought," they said. only the beautiful verses the schoolmaster had composed for the occasion distracted their attention for a while, and sobs broke forth as the various relations heard their names mentioned in the lines in which the dead woman was supposed to be taking leave of them: "good-by, good-by, my dearest friends; pál lajkó my brother, györgy klincsok my cousin," etc. the whole of pál lajkó's household began to weep bitterly, and mrs. klincsok exclaimed rapturously: "how on earth does he manage to compose such beautiful lines!" which exclamation inspired the schoolmaster with fresh courage, and, raising his voice, he continued haranguing the assembled friends in the dead woman's name, not forgetting a single one, and there was not a dry eye among them. for some time after they had buried mrs. gongoly the grand doings at the funeral were still the talk of the place, and even at the funeral the old women had picked out pretty anna tyurek as the successor of mrs. gongoly, and felt sure it would not be long before her noted "mentyék" had an owner. (every well-to-do slovak peasant buys a long cloak of sheepskin for his wife; it is embroidered outside in bright colors, and inside is the long silky hair of the hungarian sheep. it is only worn on sundays and holidays, and is passed on from one generation to another.) the mourners had hardly recovered from the large quantities of brandy they had imbibed in order to drown their sorrow, when they had to dig a new grave; for jános srankó had followed mrs. gongoly. in olden times they had been good friends, before mrs. gongoly was engaged; and now it seemed as though they had arranged their departure from this world to take place at the same time. they found srankó dead in his bed, the morning after the funeral; he had died of an apoplectic fit. srankó was a well-to-do man, in fact a "mágná." (the fifteen richest peasants in a slovak village are called "mágnás" or "magnates.") he had three hundred sheep grazing in his meadows and several acres of ploughed land, so he ought to have a grand funeral too. and mrs. srankó was not idle, for she went herself to the schoolmaster, and then to the priest, and said she wished everything to be as it had been at mrs. gongoly's funeral. let it cost what it might, but the srankós were not less than the gongolys. she wished two priests to read the funeral service, and four choir-boys to attend in their best black cassocks, the bell was to toll all the time, and so on, and so on. father jános nodded his head. "very well, all shall be as you wish," he said, and then proceeded to reckon out what it would cost. "that's all right," said mrs. srankó, "but please, your reverence, put the red thing in too, and let us see how much more it will cost." "what red thing?" "why, what you held over your head at mrs. gongoly's funeral. oh, it _was_ lovely!" the young priest could not help smiling. "but that is impossible," he said. mrs. srankó jumped up, and planted herself before him, with her arms crossed. "and why is it impossible i should like to know? my money is as good as the gongolys', isn't it?" "but, my dear mrs. srankó, it was raining then, and to-morrow we shall in all probability have splendid weather." but it was no use arguing with the good woman, for she spoke the dialect of the country better than father jános did. "raining, was it?" she exclaimed. "well, all the more reason you should bring it with you to-morrow, your honor; at all events it won't get wet. and, after all, my poor dear husband was worthy of it; he was no worse than mrs. gongoly. every one honored him, and he did a lot for the church; why, it was he who five years ago sent for those lovely colored candles we have on the altar; they came all the way from besztercebánya. and the white altar-cloth my husband's sister embroidered. so you see we have a right to the red thing." "but i can't make myself ridiculous by burying some one with an umbrella held over me when the sun is shining. you must give up the idea, mrs. srankó." thereupon mrs. srankó burst into tears. what had she done to be put to such shame, and to be refused the right to give her husband all the honors due to the dead, and which were a comfort to the living too? what would the villagers say of her? they would say, "mrs. srankó did not even give her husband a decent funeral, they only threw him into the grave like a beggar." "please do it, your reverence," she begged tearfully, and kept on wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, until one of the corners which had been tied in a knot came unfastened, and out fell a ten-florin note. mrs. srankó picked it up, and put it carefully on the table. "i'll give this over and above the other sum," she said, "only let us have all the pomp possible, your honor." at this moment widow adamecz rushed in from the kitchen, flourishing an immense wooden spoon in the air. "yes, your reverence, srankó was a good, pious man; not all the gossip you hear about him is true. and even if it were, it would touch mrs. gongoly as much as him, may god rest her soul. if the holy umbrella was used at her funeral, it can be used at his too. if god is angry at its having been used for her, he will only be a little more angry at its being used for him; and if he was not angry then, he won't be angry now either." "you ought to be ashamed of yourself, widow adamecz, talking such nonsense. don't bother me any more with your superstitions. the whole thing is simply ridiculous." but the two women were not to be put off. "we know what we know," they said, nodding their heads sagely, "your honor can't deceive us." and they worried him to such an extent that he was obliged at last to give way, and agreed to bring the red umbrella to jános srankó's funeral, but he added as an afterthought, "that is, of course, if the owner does not come for it before then. for it is certain that some one left it here, and if they come for it, i shall be obliged to give it them." "well," said widow adamecz, "as far as that goes we can sleep in peace, for the one who brought it only walks on our planet once in a thousand years." nobody appeared to claim the umbrella, and so the next day, though it was a lovely afternoon, and not a cloud was to be seen on the horizon, the young priest opened his umbrella, and followed the coffin to the grave. four strong men carried the bier on which the coffin was placed, and as chance willed it, when they passed the smithy, one of the bearers stumbled and fell, which so startled the one walking behind him, that he lost his presence of mind, the bier lurched to one side, and the coffin fell to the ground. it cracked, then the fastenings gave way, and it broke to pieces; first the embroidered shirt was visible, and then the supposed dead man himself, who awoke from the trance he had been in, moved slightly, and whispered: "where am i?" of course every one was as surprised as they could be, and there was plenty of running backward and forward to the smithy for blankets, shawls, and pillows, of which they made a bed in a cart that was outside waiting to be repaired. into this they put the man on whom such a miracle had been worked, and the funeral procession returned as a triumphant one to srankó's house. he had so far recovered on the way home as to ask for something to eat immediately on his arrival. they brought him a jug of milk, at which he shook his head. lajkó offered him a flask of brandy he had taken with him to cheer his drooping spirits. he smiled and accepted it. this ridiculous incident was the beginning of the umbrella legend, which spread and spread beyond the village, beyond the mountains, increasing in detail as it went. if a mark or impression were found on a rock it was said to be the print of st. peter's foot. if a flower of particularly lovely color were found growing on the meadow, st. peter's stick had touched the spot. everything went to prove that st. peter had been in glogova lately. after all it was no common case. the only real mystery in the whole affair was how the umbrella had come to be spread over little veronica's basket; but that was enough to make the umbrella noted. and its fame spread far and wide, as far as the bjela voda flows; the slovak peasants told the tale sitting round the fire, with various additions, according to the liveliness of their imagination. they imagined st. peter opening the gates of heaven, and coming out with the umbrella in his hand, in order to bring it down to the priest's little sister. the only question they could not settle was how st. peter had got down to the earth. but they thought he must have stood on a cloud which let him gently down, and set him on the top of one of the neighboring hills. then they discussed the power the umbrella possessed of raising the dead to life, and so the legend was spread abroad. and whenever a rich peasant died, even in the villages miles off, father jános was sent for, with the red umbrella, to read the burial services. he was also sent for to sick persons who wished the umbrella spread over them while they confessed their sins. it must have a good effect, and either the sick person would recover, or if he did not do that he was at least sanctified. if a newly married couple wished to do things very grandly (and they generally do), they were not only married at home by their own priest, but they made a pilgrimage to glogova in order to join hands once more under the sacred umbrella. and that, to them, was the real ceremony. the bell-ringer held it over their heads, and in return many a piece of silver found its way into his pocket. and as for the priest, money and presents simply poured in upon him. at first he fought against all this superstition, but after a while even he began to believe that the red umbrella, which day by day got more faded and shabby, was something out of the common. had it not appeared on the scene as though in answer to his prayer, and was it not the source of all his good fortune? "oh, lord!" he had prayed, "unless thou workest a miracle, how am i to bring up the child?" and lo and behold, the miracle had been worked! money, food, all the necessaries of life flowed from that ragged old umbrella. its fame spread to higher circles too. the bishop of besztercebánya heard of it and sent for father jános and the umbrella; and after having examined it and heard the whole story, he crossed his hands on his breast and exclaimed: "deus est omnipotens." which was equivalent to saying he believed in it. a few weeks later he went still further, and sent orders for the umbrella to be kept in the church, instead of in the priest's room. upon which father jános answered that in reality the umbrella belonged to his little sister, who was still a minor, so that he had no right to it, nor to give it away. but he was sure, as soon as veronica was of age, she would make a present of it to the church. but the umbrella not only brought good fortune to the priest, who soon started a small farm, and in a few years built himself a new house, and kept a horse and trap, but it made a great difference in glogova too. every summer numbers of ladies came from the small watering-places round about, very often countesses too (mostly old countesses), in order to say a prayer under the umbrella, and for these an inn was built opposite the priest's house, called the "miraculous umbrella." in fact, glogova increased in size and importance from day to day. in time the villagers began to feel ashamed of the simple wooden belfry, and had a tower built to the church, and hung two bells in it from besztercebánya. jános srankó had a splendid statue of the holy family erected in front of the church, to commemorate his resurrection from the dead. the governess (for a time father jános had a governess for little veronica) filled the priest's garden with dahlias, fuchsias, and other flowers which the inhabitants of glogova had never yet seen. everything improved and was beautified (except widow adamecz, who got uglier day by day), and the villagers even went so far as to discuss on sunday afternoons the advisability of building a chapel upon the mountain st. peter had been seen on, in order to make it a place of pilgrimage and attract even more visitors. the gregorics family part ii chapter i. the tactless member of the family. many years before our story begins, there lived in besztercebánya a man of the name of pál gregorics, who was always called a tactless man, whereas all his life was spent in trying to please others. pál gregorics was always chasing popularity, and instead of finding it came face to face with criticism, a much less pleasing figure. he was born nine months after his father's death, an act of tactlessness which gave rise to plenty of gossip, and much unpleasantness to his mother, who was a thoroughly good, honest woman. if he had only arrived a little earlier ... but after all _he_ could not help it. as far as the other gregorics were concerned, he had better not have been born at all, for of course the estates were cut up more than they would otherwise have been. the child was weak and sickly, and his grown-up brothers always hoped for his death; however, he did not die, but grew up, and when of age took possession of his fortune, most of which he had inherited from his mother, who had died during his minority and left him her whole fortune; whereas the children of the first wife only had their share of the father's fortune, which, however, was not to be sneered at, for old gregorics had done well in the wine trade. in those days it was easier to get on in that line than it is now, for, in the first place, there was wine in the country, and in the second place there were no jews. in these days there is plenty of danube water in the wine-cellars, but not much juice of the grapes. nature had blessed pál gregorics with a freckly face and red hair, which made people quote the old saying, "red-haired people are never good." so pál gregorics made up his mind to prove that it was untrue. all these old sayings are like pots in which generations have been cooking for ages, and pál gregorics intended to break one of them. he meant to be "as good as a piece of bread, and as soft as butter, which allows itself to be spread equally well on white bread or black." (this is a favorite phrase among the peasants, when describing a very good man.) and he was as good a man as you could wish to see, but what was the good of it? some evil spirit always seemed to accompany him and induce people to misunderstand his intentions. the day he came back from pest, where he had been completing his studies, he went into a tobacconist's shop and bought some fine havanas, which at once set all the tongues in besztercebánya wagging. "the good-for-nothing fellow smokes seven-penny cigars, does he? that is a nice way to begin. he'll die in the workhouse. oh, if his poor dead father could rise from his grave and see him! why, the old man used to mix dry potato leaves with his tobacco to make it seem more, and poured the dregs of the coffee on it to make it burn slower." pál gregorics heard that he had displeased the good townsfolk by smoking such dear cigars, and immediately took to short halfpenny ones. but this did not suit them either, and they remarked: "really, pál gregorics is about the meanest man going, he'll be worse than his father in time!" gregorics felt very vexed at being called mean, and decided to take the very next opportunity to prove the contrary. the opportunity presented itself in the form of a ball, given in aid of a hospital, and of which the mayoress of the town was patroness. the programme announced that though the tickets were two florins each, any larger sum would be gratefully accepted. so pál gregorics gave twenty florins for his two-florin ticket, thinking to himself "they shan't say i am mean this time." upon that the members of the committee put their heads together and decided that pál gregorics was a tactless fellow. it was the greatest impertinence on his part to outbid the mayor, and a baron to boot! baron radvánszky had given ten florins for his ticket, and gregorics throws down twenty. why, it was an insult! the son of a wine merchant! what things do happen in the nineteenth century, to be sure! whatever pál gregorics did was wrong; if he quarrelled with some one and would not give in, they said he was a brawler; and if he gave in, he was a coward. though he had studied law, he did nothing particular at first, only drove to his estate a mile or two out of the town and spent a few hours shooting; or he went for a few days to vienna, where he had a house inherited from his mother; and the rest of his time he spent in besztercebánya. "pál gregorics," they said, "is a lazy fellow; he does nothing useful from one year's end to the other. why are such useless creatures allowed to live?" pál heard this too, and quite agreed with them that he ought to get some work to do, and not waste his life as he was doing. of course, every one should earn the bread they eat. so he looked for some employment in the town. that was enough to set all the tongues wagging again. what? gregorics wanted work in the town? was he not ashamed of himself, trying to take the bread out of poor men's mouths, when he had plenty of cake for himself? let him leave the small amount of employment there was in the town to those who really needed it. gregorics quite understood the force of this argument, and gave up his idea. he now turned his thoughts toward marriage, and determined to start a family; after all that was as good an occupation as any other. so he began to frequent various houses where there were pretty girls to be met, and where he, being a good match, was well received; but his step-brothers, who were always in hopes that the delicate little man would not live long, did their best to upset his plans in this case too. so pál gregorics got so many refusals one after the other, that he was soon renowned in the whole neighborhood. later on he could have found many who would have been glad of an offer from him, but they were ashamed to let him see it. after all, how could they marry a man whom so many girls had refused? on the eve of st. andrew's any amount of lead was melted by the young girls of the town, but not one of them saw in the hardened mass the form of gregorics. in fact, none of the young girls wanted to marry him. what they looked for was romance, not money. perhaps some old maid would have jumped at his offer, but between the young maids and the old maids there is a great difference--they belong to two different worlds. the young girls were told that pál gregorics spat blood, and of course, the moment they heard that, they would have nothing more to do with him, so that at his next visit their hearts would beat loudly, but not in the same way they had done last time he drove up in his coach and four. poor gregorics! what a pity! the horses outside may paw the ground, and toss their manes as much as they like, what difference does it make? pál gregorics spits blood! oh, you silly little marys and carolines. of course pál gregorics is an ugly, sickly man, but think how rich he is; and after all, he only spits his own blood. so what can it matter to you? believe me, rosália, who is ten years older than you, would not be such a silly little goose, if she had your chances, for she is a philosopher, and if she were to be told that pál gregorics spits blood she would only think to herself, "what an interesting man!" and aloud she would say, "i will nurse him." and deep down in her mind where she keeps the ideas that cannot be put into words, which, in fact, are hardly even thoughts as yet, she would find these words, "if gregorics spits blood already, he won't last so very long." you silly little girls, you know nothing of life as yet; your mothers have put you into long dresses, but your minds have not grown in proportion. don't be angry with me for speaking so plainly, but it is my duty to show my readers why pál gregorics did not find a wife among you. the reason is a simple one. the open rose is not perfectly pure; bees have bathed in its chalice, insects have slept in it. but in the heart of an opening bud, not a speck of dust is to be found. that is why pál gregorics was refused by so many young girls, and by degrees he began to see that they were right (for, as i said before, he was a good, simple man), marriage was not for him, as he spat blood; for after all, blood is one of the necessaries of life. when he had once made up his mind not to marry, he troubled his head no more about the girls, but turned his attention to the young married women. he had beautiful bouquets sent from vienna for mrs. vozáry, and one fine evening he let five hundred nightingales loose in mrs. muskulyi's garden. he had the greatest difficulty in getting so many together, but a bird-fancier in transylvania had undertaken to send them to him. the beautiful young woman, as she turned on her pillows, was surprised to hear how delightfully the birds were singing in her garden that night. he had no success with the young married women either, and was beginning to get thoroughly sick of life, when the war broke out. they would not take him for a soldier either, they said he was too small and thin, he would not be able to stand the fatigues of war. but he wanted to do something at any cost. the recruiting sergeant, who was an old friend of his, gave him the following advice: "i don't mind taking you if you particularly wish to work with us, but you must look out for some occupation with no danger attached to it. the campaign is fatiguing; we'll give you something in the writing business." gregorics was wounded in his pride. "i intend accepting only the most dangerous employment," he said; "now which do you consider the most dangerous?" "why, that of a spy," was the answer. "then i will be a spy." and he kept his word. he dressed himself as one of those vagrants of whom so many were seen at that time, and went from one camp to the other, carrying information and letters. old soldiers remember and still talk of the little old man with the red umbrella, who always managed to pass through the enemy's camp, his gaze as vacant as though he were unable to count up to ten. with his thin, bird-like face, his ragged trousers, his battered top-hat, and his red umbrella, he was seen everywhere. if you once saw him it was not easy to forget him, and there was no one who did not see him, though few guessed at his business. some one once wrote about him: "the little man with the red umbrella is the devil himself, but he belongs to the better side of the family." in the peaceful time that succeeded the war, he returned to besztercebánya, and became a misanthrope. he never moved out of his ugly, old stone house, and thought no more of making a position for himself, nor of marrying. and like most old bachelors he fell in love with his cook. his theory now was to simplify matters. he needed a woman to cook for him and to wait on him, and he needed a woman to love; that means two women in the house. why should he not simplify matters and make those two women one? anna wibra was a big stout woman, somewhere from the neighborhood of detvár. she was a rather good-looking woman, and used to sing very prettily when washing up the plates and dishes in the evening. she had such a nice soft voice that her master once called her into his sitting-room, and made her sit down on one of the leather-covered chairs. she had never sat so comfortably in her life before. "i like your voice, anna; sing me something here, so that i can hear you better." so anna started a very melancholy sort of song, "the recruit's letter," in which he complains to the girl he loves of all the hardships of war. gregorics was quite softened by the music, and three times he exclaimed: "what a wonderful voice!" and he kept moving nearer and nearer to anna, till all at once he began to stroke her cheek. at this she turned scarlet, and jumped up from her chair, pushing him away from her. "that's not in my contract, sir!" she exclaimed. gregorics blushed too. "don't be silly, anna," he said. but anna tossed her head and walked to the door. "don't run away, you stupid, i shan't eat you." but anna would not listen, and took refuge in her kitchen, from which she was not to be coaxed again that evening. the next day she gave notice to leave, but her master pacified her by the gift of a golden ring, and a promise never to lay a finger on her again. he told her he could not let her go, for he would never get any one to cook as well as she did. anna was pleased with the praise and with the ring, and stayed, on condition that he kept his promise. he did keep it for a time, and then forgot it, and anna was again on the point of leaving. but gregorics pacified her this time with a necklace of corals with a golden clasp, like the baronesses radvánszky wore at church. the necklace suited her so well, that she no longer thought of forbidding her master to touch her. he was rich enough, let him buy her a few pretty things. in fact, the same afternoon she paid a visit to the old woman who kept a grocer's shop next door, and asked whether it would hurt very much to have her ears pierced. the old woman laughed. "oh, you silly creature," she said, "you surely don't want to wear earrings? anna, anna, you have bad thoughts in your head." anna protested and then banged the door behind her, so that the bell fastened to it went on ringing for some moments. of course she wanted some earrings, why should she not have some? god had given her ears the same as to all those grand ladies she saw at church. and before the day was over she had found out that it would hardly hurt her at all to have her ears pierced. yes, she wanted to have some earrings, and now she did all she could to bring gregorics into temptation. she dressed herself neatly, wore a red ribbon in her hair, in fact, made herself thoroughly irresistible. gregorics may have been wily enough to be a spy for a whole russian and austrian army, but a woman, however simple, was far deeper than he. next sunday she went to church with earrings in her ears, much to the amusement of the lads and lasses of the town, who had long ago dubbed her "the grenadier." and in a few weeks' time the whole town was full of gossip about gregorics and his cook, and all sorts of tales were told, some of them supremely ridiculous. his step-brothers would not believe it. "a gregorics and a servant! such a thing was never heard of before!" the neighbors tried to pacify them by saying there was nothing strange in the fact, on the contrary it was quite natural. pál gregorics had never done things correctly all his life. how much was true and how much false is not known, but the gossip died away by degrees, only to awaken again some years later, when a small boy was seen playing about with a pet lamb in pál gregorics's courtyard. who was the child? where did he come from? gregorics himself was often seen playing with him. and people, who sometimes out of curiosity looked through the keyhole of the great wooden gates, saw gregorics, with red ribbons tied round his waist for reins, playing at horses with the child, who with a whip in his hand kept shouting, "gee-up, ráró." and the silly old fellow would kick and stamp and plunge, and even race round the courtyard. and now he was rarely seen limping through the town in his shabby clothes, to which he had become accustomed when he was a spy, and under his arm his red umbrella; he always had it with him, in fine or wet weather, and never left it in the hall when he paid a visit, but took it into the room with him, and kept it constantly in his hand. sometimes the lady of the house asked if he would not put it down. "no, no," he would answer, "i am so used to having it in my hand that i feel quite lost without it. it is as though one of my ribs were missing, upon my word it is!" there was a good deal of talk about this umbrella. why was he so attached to it? it was incomprehensible. supposing it contained something important? somebody once said (i think it was istván pazár who had served in the war), that the umbrella contained all sorts of notes, telegrams, and papers written in his spying days, and that they were in the handle of the umbrella, which was hollow. well, perhaps it was true. the other members of the gregorics family looked with little favor on the small boy in the gregorics's household, and never rested till they had looked through all the baptismal registers they could lay hands on. at last they came upon the entry they wanted, "györgy wibra, illegitimate; mother, anna wibra." he was a pretty little fellow, so full of life and spirits that every one took a fancy to him. chapter ii. dubious signs. little gyuri wibra grew to be a fine lad, strong and broad chested. pál gregorics was always saying, "where on earth does he take that chest from?" he was so narrow-chested himself that he always gazed with admiration at the boy's sturdy frame, and was so taken up in the contemplation of it, that he hardly interested himself in the child's studies. and he was a clever boy too. an old pensioned professor, márton kupeczky, gave him lessons every day, and was full of his praises. "there's plenty in him, sir," he used to say. "he'll be a great man, sir. what will you bet, sir?" gregorics was always delighted, for he loved the boy, though he never showed it. on these occasions he would smile and answer: "i'll bet you a cigar, and we'll consider i've lost it." and then he would offer the old professor, who was very fond of betting, one of his choicest cigars. "i never had such a clever pupil before," the old professor used to say. "i have had to teach very ordinary minds all my life, and have wasted my talents on them. a sad thing to say, sir. i feel like that nugget of gold which was lost at the mint. you know the tale, sir? what, you have never heard it? why, a large nugget of gold was once lost at the mint. it was searched for everywhere, but could not be found. well, after a long examination of all the clerks, it turned out that the gold had been melted by accident with the copper for the kreutzers. you understand me, sir? i have been pouring my soul into two or three generations of fools, but, thank goodness, i have at last found a worthy recipient for my knowledge. of course, you understand me, sir?" but pál gregorics needed no spurring on in this case; he had fixed intentions as far as the boy was concerned, and folks were not far wrong when they (mostly in order to vex the other gregorics) prophesied the end would be that gregorics would marry anna wibra, and adopt her boy. kupeczky himself often said: "yes, that will be the end of it. who will bet with me?" it would have been the end, and the correct way too, for gregorics was fond enough of the boy to do a correct thing for once in a way. but two things happened to prevent the carrying out of this plan. first of all anna fell from a ladder and broke her leg, so that she limped all her life after, and who wants a lame wife? the second thing was, that little gyuri was taken ill very suddenly. he turned blue in the face and was in convulsions; they thought he would die. gregorics fell on his knees by the side of the bed of the sick child, kissed his face and cold little hands, and asked despairingly: "what is the matter, my boy? tell me what hurts you." "i don't know, uncle," moaned the child. at that moment gregorics suffered every pain the child felt, and his heart seemed breaking. he seized hold of the doctor's hand, and his agony pressed these words from him: "doctor, save the child, and i'll give you a bag full of gold." the doctor saved him, and got the bag of money too, as gregorics had promised in that hour of danger. (of course the doctor did not choose the bag, gregorics had one made on purpose.) the doctor cured the boy, but made gregorics ill, for he instilled suspicion into his mind by swearing that the boy's illness was the result of poison. nothing could have upset gregorics as much as this declaration. how could it have happened? had he eaten any poisonous mushrooms? gyuri shook his head. well, what could he have eaten? the mother racked her brains to find out what could have been the cause. perhaps this, perhaps that, perhaps the vinegar was bad, or the copper saucepans had not been quite clean? gregorics shook his head sorrowfully. "don't talk nonsense, anna," he said. deep down in his heart was a thought which he was afraid to put into words, but which entirely spoiled his life for him, and robbed him of sleep and appetite. he had thought of his step-brothers; they had something to do with it, he was sure. there was an end to all his plans for adopting the boy, giving him his own name, and leaving him his fortune. no, no, it would cost gyuri his life; they would kill him if he gave them the chance. but he did not intend to give them the chance. he trembled for the child, and hardly dared to love him. he started a new line of conduct, a very mad one too. he ordered the boy to address him as "sir" for the future, and forbade him to love him. "it was only a bit of fun, you know, my allowing you to call me 'uncle.' do you understand?" tears stood in the boy's eyes, and seeing them old gregorics bent down and kissed them away; and his voice was very sad as he said: "don't tell any one i kissed you, or you will be in great danger." precaution now became his mania. he took kupeczky into his house, and the old professor had to be with the boy day and night, and taste every bit of food he was to eat. if gyuri went outside the gates, he was first stripped of his velvet suit and patent leather shoes, and dressed in a ragged old suit kept on purpose, and allowed to run barefoot. let people ask in the streets, "who is that little scarecrow?" and let those who knew answer, "oh, that is gregorics's cook's child." and, in order thoroughly to deceive his relations, he undertook to educate one of his step-sister's boys; took him up to vienna and put him in the terezianum, and kept him there in grand style with the sons of counts and barons. to his other nephews and nieces he sent lots of presents, so that the gregorics family, who had never liked the younger brother, came at last to the conclusion that he was not such a bad fellow after all, only something of a fool. little gyuri himself was sent away to school after a time; to kolozsvár and then to szeged, as far away as possible, so as to be out of reach of the family. at these times kupeczky secretly disappeared from the town too, though he might as well have been accompanied by a drum and fife band, for not a soul would have asked where he was going. doubtless there was a lot of exaggeration in all this secrecy and precaution, but exaggeration had a large share in gregorics's character. if he undertook something very difficult he was more adventurous than the devil himself, and once his fear was overcome, he saw hope in every corner. his love for the child and his fear were both exaggerated, but he could not help it. while the boy was pursuing his studies with success, the little man with the red umbrella was placing his money in landed estate. he said he had bought a large estate in bohemia, and in order to pay for it had been obliged to sell his house in vienna. not long after he had built a sugar factory on the estate, upon which he began to look out for a purchaser for his privorec estates. he soon found one in the person of a rich merchant from kassa. there was something strange and mysterious in the fact of the little man making so many changes in his old age. one day he had his house in besztercebánya transferred to anna wibra's name. and the little man was livelier and more contented than he had ever been in his life before. he began to pay visits again, interested himself in things and events, chattered and made himself agreeable to every one, dined with all his relations in turn, throwing out allusions and hints, such as, "after all, i can't take my money with me into the next world," and so on. he visited all the ladies who had refused him years ago, and very often went off by train, with his red umbrella under his arm, and stayed away for months and weeks at a time. no one troubled about him, every one said: "i suppose the old fellow has gone to look after his property." he never spoke much about his bohemian estates, though his step-brothers were much interested in them. they both offered in turns to go there with him, for they had never been in bohemia; but gregorics always had an answer ready, and to tell the truth he did not seem to trouble himself much about the whole affair. which was not to be wondered at, for he had no more possessions in bohemia than the dirt and dust he brought home in his clothes from carlsbad, where he spent a summer doing the cure. the whole story was only trumped up to put his relations off the scent, whereas the truth was that he had turned all he had into money, and deposited it in a bank in order to be able to give it to the boy. gyuri's inheritance would be a draft on a bank, a bit of paper which no one would see, which he could keep in his waistcoat pocket, and yet be a very rich man. it was well and carefully thought out. so he did not really go to his estates, but simply to the town where gyuri was studying with his old professor. those were his happiest times, the only rays of light in his lonely life; weeks in which he could pet the boy to his heart's content. gyuri was a favorite at school, always the first in his class, and a model of good behavior. the old man used to stay for weeks in szeged and enjoy the boy's society. they were often seen walking arm in arm on the banks of the tisza, and when they and kupeczky talked slovak together, every one turned at the sound of the strange language, wondering which of the many it was that had been invented at the tower of babel. when the last lesson was over, gregorics was waiting at the gate, and the delighted boy would run and join him--though his comrades, who, one would have thought, would have had enough to occupy their thoughts elsewhere, teased him about the old man. they swore he was the devil in _propria persona_, that he did gyuri wibra's exercises for him, and that he had a talisman which caused him to know his lessons well. it was easy to be the first in his class at that rate. there were even some silly enough to declare the old gentleman had a cloven foot, if you could only manage to see him with his boots off. the old red umbrella, too, which he always had with him, they thought must be a talisman, something after the style of aladdin's lamp. pista paracsányi, the best classical verse writer, made up some lines on the red umbrella; which were soon learnt by most of the boys, and spouted on every possible occasion, in order to annoy the "head boy." but the poet had his reward in the form of a black eye and a bleeding nose, bestowed upon him by gyuri wibra, who, however, began to be vexed himself at the sight of the red umbrella, which made his old friend seem ridiculous in the eyes of his schoolfellows, and one day he broached the subject to the old gentleman. "you might really buy a new umbrella, uncle." the old gentleman smiled. "what, you don't like my umbrella?" "you only get laughed at, and the boys have even made verses about it." "well, my boy, tell your schoolfellows that 'all that glitters is not gold,' as they may have heard; but tell them, too, that very often things that do not glitter may be gold. you will understand that later on when you are grown up." he thought for a bit, idly making holes in the sand with the umbrella, and then added: "when the umbrella is yours." gyuri made a wry face. "thank you, uncle, but i hope you don't mean to give it me on my birthday instead of the pony you promised me?" and he laughed heartily, upon which the old gentleman began to laugh too, contentedly stroking his mustache, consisting of half a dozen hairs. there was something strange in his laugh, as though he had laughed _inward_ to his own soul. "no, no, you shall have your pony. but i assure you that the umbrella will once belong to you, and you will find it very useful to protect you from the wind and clouds." gyuri thought this great nonsense. such old gentlemen always attached themselves so to their belongings, and thought such a lot of them. why, one of his professors had a penholder he had used for forty years! one episode in connection with the umbrella remained fixed in gyuri's memory ever after. one day they rowed out to the "yellow," as they call a small island situated just where the maros and the tisza met, and where the fishermen of szeged cook their far-famed "fish with paprika" (a kind of cayenne grown in hungary, and much used in the national dishes). we read in márton's famous cookery book that "fish with paprika" must only be boiled in tisza water, and the same book says that a woman cannot prepare the dish properly. well, as i said before, the three of them rowed out to the "yellow." as they were landing they struck against a sand heap, and gregorics, who was in the act of rising from his seat, stumbled and lost his balance, and in trying to save himself from falling dropped his umbrella into the water, and the current carried it away with it. "my umbrella, save it!" shouted gregorics, who had turned as white as a sheet, and in whose eyes they read despair. the two boatmen smiled, and the elder one, slowly removing his pipe from his mouth, remarked laconically: "no great loss that, sir; it was only fit to put in the hands of a scarecrow." "one hundred florins to the one who brings it me back," groaned the old gentleman. the boatmen, astonished, gazed at one another, then the younger man began to pull off his boots. "are you joking, sir, or do you mean it?" "here are the hundred florins," said gregorics, taking a bank-note from his pocket-book. the young man, a fine specimen of a szeged fisherman, turned to kupeczky. "is the old chap mad?" he asked in his lackadaisical way, while the umbrella quietly floated down the stream. "oh dear no," answered kupeczky, who, however, was himself surprised at gregorics's strange behavior. "it's not worth it, domine spectabilis," he added, turning to the old gentleman. "quick, quick!" gasped gregorics. another doubt had arisen in the boatman's mind. "is the bank-note a real one, sir?" he asked. "of course it is. make haste!" the man, who had by this time taken off both his boots and his jacket, now sprang into the water like a frog, and began to swim after the umbrella, the old boatman shouting after him: "you're a fool, jankó; come back, don't exert yourself for nothing." gregorics, afraid the warning would take effect, flew at the old man and seized hold of his tie. "hold your tongue or i'll murder you. do you want to ruin me?" "well, what would that matter? do you want to throttle me? leave go of my neck-tie." "well, let the boy go after my umbrella." "after all, what is the hen good for if not to look after the chickens?" muttered the old boatman. "the current just here is very strong, and he won't be able to reach the umbrella. and what's the good of it, when it will come back of itself when the tide turns in half an hour's time, to the other side of the 'yellow.' in half an hour the fishermen will spread their nets, and the gentleman's umbrella will be sure to be caught in them; even if a big fish swallows it we can cut it open." and as the old fisherman had said, so it came to pass; the umbrella was caught in one of the fishing nets, and great was the joy of old gregorics when he once more held his treasure in his hand. he willingly paid the young fisherman the promised one hundred florins, though it was not really he who had brought the umbrella back; and in addition he rewarded the fishermen handsomely, who, the next day, spread the tale through the whole town of the old madman, who had given one hundred florins for the recovery of an old torn red umbrella. they had never before caught such a big fish in the tisza. "perhaps the handle of the umbrella was of gold?" "not a bit of it; it was only of wood." "perhaps the linen was particularly fine?" "rubbish! is there any linen in the world worth one hundred florins? it was plain red linen, and even that was torn and ragged." "then you have not told us the tale properly." "i've told you the whole truth." kupeczky remarked to gyuri: "i would not mind betting the old gentleman has a tile loose." "a strange man, but a good one," answered gyuri. "who knows what memories are attached to that umbrella!" chapter iii. pál gregorics's death and will. no signification was attached to the above-mentioned incident till years after, when every one had forgotten all about it, gyuri included. as for kupeczky, he could not remember it, for as soon as the news came from besztercebánya that old gregorics was dead, he took to his bed and never rose from it again. "i am dying, gyuri," he said to his sobbing pupil, "i feel it. it was only gregorics kept me alive, or rather i kept myself alive for his sake. but now i'm done for. i don't know if he has provided for your future, my poor boy, but it's all over with me, i'm dying, i wouldn't mind betting it." and he would have won his bet too. gyuri went home for gregorics's funeral, and a week later the landlady sent word that the old professor was dead, and he was to send money for the funeral. but what was kupeczky's death to that of gregorics? the poor old fellow was quite right to take his departure, for no one wanted him, no one took any notice of him. he slipped quietly into the next world, just as one ought to do; even during his life he caused no disturbance; he was here, he went, and there was an end of it. but pál gregorics went to work in quite a different style. he was taken ill with cramp on the thursday in holy week, and went to bed in great pain. after a time the cramp ceased, but left him very weak, and he fell asleep toward evening. some hours after he opened his eyes and said: "anna, bring me my umbrella, and put it here, near my bed. that's it! now i feel better!" he turned over and went to sleep again, but soon woke up with a start. "anna," he said, "i have had a fearful dream. i thought i was a horse, and was being taken to a fair to be sold. my step-brothers and nephews appeared on the scene, and began to bid for me, and i stood trembling there, wondering which of them i was to belong to. my brother boldizsár pulled open my mouth, examined my teeth, and then said, 'he is not worth anything, we could only get five florins for his skin.' as he was speaking, up came a man with a scythe. he poked me in the ribs (it hurts me still), and exclaimed, 'the horse is mine, i'll buy it.' i turned and looked at him, and was horrified to see it was death himself. 'but i will not give the halter with the horse,' said my owner. 'it does not matter,' answered the man with the scythe, 'i can get one from the shop round the corner; wait a minute, i'll be back directly.' and then i awoke. oh, it was dreadful!" his red hair stood on end, and beads of perspiration rolled down his face, which anna wiped with a handkerchief. "nonsense," she said, "you must not believe in dreams; they do not come from heaven, but from indigestion." "no, no," said the sick man, "i'm going, i feel it. my time will be up when they bring the halter. don't waste words trying to console me, but bring me pen and paper, i want to send a telegram to the boy; he must come home at once. i'll wait for his arrival, yes, i'll wait till then." they brought a table to his bed, and he wrote the following words: "come at once, uncle is dying and wants to give you something.--mother." "send the servant with this at once." he was very restless while the man was away, and asked three times if he had returned. at length he came back, but with bad news; the telegraph office was closed for the night. "well, it does not matter," said anna, "we will send it in the morning. the master is not really so bad, it is half imagination; but he is so nervous we must not excite him, so go in and tell him the telegram is sent." he was quieter after that, and began to reckon at what time the boy would arrive, and decided he might be there by the afternoon of the second day. he slept quietly all night, and got up the next morning very pale and weak, but went about putting things straight and turning out drawers. "it is unnecessary to send the telegram," thought anna to herself. "he seems nearly himself again, and will be all right in a day or two." the whole day he pottered about, and in the afternoon shut himself up in his study and drank a small bottle of tokay wine, and wrote a great deal. anna only went in once to see if he wanted anything. no, he wanted nothing. "have you any pain?" "my side hurts me, just where the man with the scythe touched me. there is something wrong inside." "does it hurt very much?" "yes, very much!" "shall i send for a doctor?" "no." in the evening he sent for his lawyer, jános sztolarik. he was quite lively when he came, made him sit down, and sent for another bottle of tokay. "the february vintage, anna," he called after her. the wine had been left him by his father, and dated from the year when there had been two vintages in tokay in twelve months, one in february, and one in october. only kings can drink the like of it. on account of the mildness of the winter the vines had been left uncovered, had flowered and borne fruit, so that in february they were able to have a vintage, and you can imagine what a flavor those grapes had. there was never anything like it before nor after. old gregorics's father used to call it the "life-giver," and often said: "if a man intending to commit suicide were to drink a thimbleful of it beforehand, he would, if unmarried, go and look up a 'best man,' or, if married, would go and sue for a divorce; but kill himself he would not." the two friends drank to each other's health, and gregorics smacked his lips. "it's devilish good," he said. then he gave the lawyer a sealed packet. "in that you will find my will," he said. "i sent for you in order to give it you." he rubbed his hands and smiled. "there will be some surprises in that." "why are you in such a hurry with it? there is plenty of time," said sztolarik, taking the packet. gregorics smiled. "i know more about that than you, sztolarik. but take a drop more, and don't let us talk of death. and now i'll tell you how my father got this wine. well, he was a very sly customer, and if he couldn't get a thing by fair means, he got it by foul, and i have inherited some of his slyness from him. but mine is not the genuine article; however, that does not matter. in zemplin there lived a very, very rich man, a count, and an ass into the bargain; at least he was a good-hearted man, and liked to give pleasure to others, thus proving that he was an ass. my father used to buy his wine of him, and if they had struck a good bargain the count used to give him a glass of this nectar. being an assiduous wine merchant, of course my father was always worrying him to sell him some of the wine, but the count would not hear of it, and said, 'the emperor ferdinand has not enough money to buy it!' well, once when they were drinking a small glass of the 'life-giver,' my father began sighing deeply: 'if my poor wife could only drink a thimbleful of this every day for two months, i am sure she would get quite well again.' upon which the count's heart softened, and he called up his major-domo and said: 'fill mr. gregorics's cask with the "life-giver."' a few days later several visitors arrived at the castle, and the count ordered some of the wine to be brought. 'there is none left, sir,' said the butler. 'why, what has become of it?' asked the count. 'mr. gregorics took it with him, there was not even enough to fill his cask!' it was true, for my father had ordered an enormous cask of mr. pivák (old pivák is still alive and remembers the whole story), took the cask in a cart to zemplin, and, after filling it with the wine, brought it home. not bad, was it? drink another glass before you go, sztolarik." when the lawyer had gone, gregorics called his man-servant in. "go at once to the ironmonger's and buy a large caldron; then find me two masons and bring them here; but don't speak to a soul about it." now that was matykó's weak point, but if he had not been told to hold his tongue he might have managed to do so later on, when the opportunity for speaking came. "off you go, and mind you are back in double quick time!" before dark the masons had arrived, and the caldron too. gregorics took the two men into his room, and carefully shut the door. "can you keep silence?" he asked. the masons looked at each other surprised, and the elder one answered. "why, of course we can keep silence, that is the first thing a man does on his arrival in this world." "yes, until he has learnt to talk," answered gregorics. "and even afterward you can make the trial if it is worth your while," said the younger man slyly. "it will be worth your while, for you shall have fifty florins each if you will make a hole in a wall large enough to put this caldron in, and then close it again so that no one can see where it was put." "is that all?" "that is all. but besides that you will receive fifty florins each from the owner of this house every year, as long as you keep silence." the masons again exchanged glances, and the elder said: "we will do it. where is it to be done?" "i will show you." gregorics took down a rusty key from a nail, and went out with the men into the courtyard. "now follow me," he said, and led them through the garden to an orchard, in which was a small house built of stone. the most delicious apples grew here, and that had induced old gregorics to buy the orchard and house from the widow of the clergyman; he had made a present of both to little gyuri, and it was entered in his name. when the boy was at home he used to study there with kupeczky, but since he left it had been quite deserted. gregorics led the masons to this little house, and showed them the wall in which he wished an opening made large enough to receive the caldron, and told them when they were ready to come and tell him, as he wished to be present when they walled it in. by midnight the hole was ready, and the masons came and tapped at the window. gregorics let them in, and they saw the caldron in the middle of the room. the top was covered with sawdust, so that they could not see what was in it, but it was so heavy the two masons could hardly carry it. gregorics followed them step for step, and did not move until they had built up the wall again. "if you have it whitewashed to-morrow, sir, no one will find the place." "i am quite satisfied with the work," said gregorics. "here is the promised reward, and now you may go." the elder of the two masons was surprised at being let off so easily. "i've heard and read of this sort of thing," he said, "but they did things differently then. they used to put the masons' eyes out, so that even they could not find the place again, but of course they got a hundred times as much as we do." "ah, that was in the good old times," sighed the other. gregorics troubled his head no more about them, but closed the heavy oaken door of the house, and went home to bed. the next morning the cramp returned, and was only partially relieved by the medicine anna gave him. he was frightfully weak, and only now and then showed interest in what was going on around him. "give us a good dinner, anna," he said once, "and make dumplings, the boy likes them." and half an hour afterward: "make the dumplings with jam, anna, the boy likes them best so." the only thing he would take himself was mineral water. toward afternoon the cramp was much worse, and he began to spit blood. anna was frightened, and began to cry, and ask if he would not have a doctor or a priest. gregorics shook his head. "no, no, i am quite ready to die, everything is in order. i am only waiting for gyuri. what time is it?" the church clock just then struck twelve. "it is time the coach arrived. go and tell matykó to wait outside by the gate, and carry gyuri's bag in when he comes." anna wrung her hands in despair. should she own she had not sent off the telegram? no, she dare not tell him; she would carry on the deception, and send matykó out to the gate. but the sick man got more and more restless. "anna," he said, "take the horn out, and tell matykó to blow it when the boy arrives, so that i may know at once." so anna took down the horn, and had less courage than ever to own the truth. the sick man was quieter after that, and listened attentively, raising his head at every sound, and feeling for his umbrella every now and then. "open the window, anna, or i shan't hear matykó blow the horn." the sunlight streamed in through the open window, and the perfume of acacia blossoms was borne in on the breeze. "put your hand on my forehead, anna." she did as she was told, and found his skin cold and dry. the sick man sighed. "your hand is too rough, anna. the boy's is so soft and warm." he smiled faintly, then opened his eyes. "did you not hear anything? listen! was that the horn?" "i don't think so. i heard nothing." gregorics pointed to a clock in the next room. "stop it," he said. "i can't hear anything. quick, quick!" anna got on a chair, and stopped the clock. in that moment she heard a sound in the next room, something like a groan, then the muttered words: "i hear the horn!" then another groan. anna jumped off the chair, and ran into the next room. there all was still; on the bed were large spots of blood, and gregorics lay there dead, his face white, his eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. one hand hung down by his side, the other firmly held the umbrella. thus died poor pál gregorics, and the news of his death soon spread among his relations and his neighbors. the doctor said he had died of some illness with a long latin name, which no one had ever heard, and said that if he had been called sooner he might have saved him. boldizsár was soon on the spot, also his brother gáspár with all his family. mrs. panyóki, the eldest sister, was in the country at the time, and on receipt of the news late the same evening, exclaimed despairingly: "what a deception! here have i been praying all my life for him to die in the winter, and he must needs go and die in the summer. is there any use in praying nowadays? what a deception! those two thieves will take everything they can lay their hands on." she ordered the horses to be harnessed, and drove off as fast as she could, arriving about midnight, by which time the two brothers were in possession of everything, had even taken up their abode in the house, and driven anna out in spite of her protests that the house was hers, and she was mistress there. "only the four walls are yours, and those you shall have. the rest is ours, and a good-for-nothing creature like you has no right here. so off you go!" gáspár was a lawyer, and understood things; how was poor anna to take her stand against him. she could only cry, put on her hat, pack up her box, and limp over the road to matykó's mother. but before she went the two brothers turned her box out, to see she took nothing with her to which she had no right. the funeral took place on the third day. it was not a grand one by any means; no one shed a tear except poor anna, who did not dare go near the coffin for fear of being sent off by the relations. the boy had not yet arrived from szeged, and it was better so, for he would probably have been turned out of the courtyard by the two brothers of the dead man. but even though anna did not walk with the mourners, she was the centre of all eyes, for did not that big house outside the town belong to her now? and when she dropped her handkerchief wet with her tears, did not all the unmarried men, one of them even a lawyer, rush to pick it up for her? this incident went to prove how much she had risen in people's estimation. after the funeral, there was a general gathering of all the family at sztolarik's in order to hear the will read. well, it was a rather strange one on the whole. the old gentleman had left 2000 florins to the academy of arts and sciences, and 2000 florins to each of the ladies at whose houses he had visited years before, and to those who had refused to marry him. nine ladies were mentioned by name, and the legacy had been placed in the hands of sztolarik to be paid at once to the legatees. the relations listened with bated breath, every now and then throwing in a remark, such as, "very good. quite right of him," etc. only mrs. panyóki muttered, when the nine ladies' names were read out: "dear me, how very strange!" boldizsár, who was of opinion it was not worth while worrying over such trifles (after all, pál had been slightly mad all his life), said grandly: "please continue, mr. sztolarik." the lawyer answered shortly: "there is no more!" their surprise was great, and there was a general rush to look at the will. "impossible!" they all exclaimed at once. the lawyer turned his back on them repeating: "i tell you there is not another word!" "and the rest of his fortune, his estates in bohemia?" "there is no mention of them. i can only read what i see written here; you must at least understand that, gentlemen." "it is incomprehensible," groaned gáspár. "the curious part of it is," remarked boldizsár, "that there is no mention of that woman and her son." "yes, of course," answered gáspár, "it does seem strange." the lawyer hastened to reassure them. "it can make no difference to you," he said. "whatever fortune there may be that is not mentioned in the will falls to you in any case." "yes, of course," said gáspár, "and that is only right. but the money? where is it? there must be any amount of it. i'm afraid some wrong has been done." mrs. panyóki said nothing, only looked suspiciously at her two brothers. chapter iv. the avaricious gregorics. the contents of the will soon became known in the town, and caused quite a little storm in the various patriarchal drawing-rooms, with their old-fashioned cherry-wood pianos, over which hung the well-known picture, the "march of miklós zrínyi," and their white embroidered table-cloths on small tables, in the centre of which stands a silver candlestick, or a glass brought from some watering-place with the name engraved on it, and a bunch of lilac in it. yes, in those dear little drawing-rooms, there was any amount of gossip going on. it was really disgraceful of gregorics, but he was always tactless. the idea of compromising honest old ladies, mothers and grandmothers! the nine ladies were the talk of the town, their names were in every mouth, and though there were many who blamed gregorics, there were also some who took his part. "after all," they said, "who knows what ties there were between them? gregorics must have been a lively fellow in his youth." and even those who defended gregorics decided that after all there must have been some friendship between him and the nine ladies at some time or other, or why should he have remembered them in his will; but his behavior was not gentlemanly in any case, even if they were to believe the worst. in fact, in that case it was even more tactless. "for such behavior he ought to be turned out of the club, i mean he ought to have been turned out; in fact, i mean, if he were alive he might be turned out. i assure you, if they write on his gravestone that he was an honorable man, i'll strike it out with my own pencil." these were the words of the notary. the captain of the fire-brigade looked at it from a different point of view. "it is a cowardly trick," he declared. "women only reckon until they are thirty-five years of age, and these are all old women. a little indiscretion of this kind cannot hurt them. if you breathe on a rusty bit of steel it leaves no mark. we only remove caterpillars from those trees which have flowers or leaves, or which will bear fruit, but on old, dried-up trees we leave them alone. but it is the husbands gregorics has offended, for it is cowardly to affront people who cannot demand satisfaction from you. and i think i may affirm with safety that gregorics is now incapable of giving satisfaction." the next morning istván vozáry (whose wife was one of the nine ladies mentioned in the will) appeared at the lawyer's and informed him that as his wife had never had anything to do with the dead man, she had no intention of accepting the 2000 florins. when this was known in the town, the eight remaining ladies arrived, one after the other, at the lawyer's, in order to make known to him their refusal of the legacy, as they also had nothing to do with gregorics. i do not know when sztolarik had had such a lively time of it as on that day, for it was really amusing to see those wrinkled old dames, toothless and gray-haired, coming to defend their honor. but it was even livelier for the gregorics family, for they thus got back the 20,000 florins they had been cheated out of--that is, with the exception of the 2000 florins left to the academy of arts and sciences, for, of course, the academy accepted the legacy, though it also had had nothing to do with gregorics. but the academy (the tenth old woman) was not so conscientious as the other nine. the joy of the gregorics soon turned to bitterness, for they could not manage to find out where the bohemian estates were. gáspár went off to prague, but came back after a fruitless search. they were unable to find any papers referring to the estates; not a bill, not a receipt, not a letter was to be found. "it was incomprehensible, such a thing had never happened before," boldizsár said. they were wild with anger, and threatened matykó and anna to have them locked up, if they would not tell them where the estates were in bohemia; and at length they were brought before the court and examined. matykó at least must know all about it, for he had travelled everywhere with his master. so matykó had to own that his master had never been to bohemia at all, but had always gone to szeged or to kolozsvár, where gyuri had been at school. oh! that sly pál gregorics, how he had cheated his relations! now it was as clear as day why he had turned all his possessions into money, of course he had given it all to that boy. but _had_ he given it him? how could he have trusted hundreds of thousands to a child of that age? then, where had he put it? to whom had he given it? that was the riddle the gregorics were trying to solve. the lawyer, the last person who had spoken to gregorics, declared he had not mentioned any money, and anna swore by heaven and earth that she and her son had not received a kreutzer from him, and were much embittered at the fact of his leaving them without any provision. she had not a good word to say for the dead man. he had made the boy unhappy for life, spending so much on him and his education, and then leaving him totally without providing for him; so that the boy, for whom expensive professors had been kept, would now be reduced to giving lessons himself, in order to enable him to live, for the house would hardly bring in enough to pay for his keep, while attending the lectures at the university. "well," said sztolarik, "if he had intended the boy to have his money, he could have given it straight into his hands, no one could prevent it." this was quite true, and that was the very reason it seemed so strange he had not done so. the house in vienna had been sold for 180,000 florins, the privorec estates for 75,000, which made over a quarter of million florins. good heavens! where had he put it to? if he had exchanged the paper notes for gold, melted it, and eaten it by spoonfuls ever since, he could not have finished it yet. but gregorics had been a careful man, so the money must be in existence somewhere. it was enough to drive one mad. it did not seem likely that anna or the boy should have the money, nor sztolarik, who was gyuri wibra's guardian; so the brothers gregorics did not despair of finding it, and they engaged detectives to keep their eyes on anna, and looked up a sharp boy in pest to let them know how gyuri lived there, and to find out from his conversation whether he knew anything of the missing money. for gyuri had gone to pest, to attend the university lectures, and study law. the boy sent word that gyuri lived very simply, attended every lecture, lived at the "seven owls," and dined at a cheap eating-house known by the name of the "first of april." this little restaurant was mostly frequented by law students. on the daily bill of fare was the picture of a fat man speaking to a very thin man, and underneath was the following conversation: thin man: "how well you look; where do you dine?" fat man: "why here, at the 'first of april.'" thin man: "really? well, i shall dine there too for the future." all the same, the fare was not of the best, and perhaps the above conversation was intended to make april fools of people. for the restaurant-keepers of olden times were frank, and even if they lied, they did it so naively, that every one saw through the lie. gáspár gregorics received the following particulars as to gyuri's mode of life: "he breakfasts at a cheap coffee-house, attends lectures all the morning, dines at the 'first of april,' the afternoon he passes at a lawyer's office, copying deeds, etc., and in the evening he buys a little bacon or fried fish for supper, then goes home and studies till midnight. every one likes him, and he will make his way in the world." that avaricious gáspár gregorics began to wish the boy had the quarter of a million after all, for he might in a few years' time marry his daughter minka, who was just eleven. anna had let the house, and sztolarik sent gyuri thirty florins every month out of the rent. the gregorics divided the 18,000 florins refused by the nine ladies, among the three of them, and also the few hundreds obtained by the sale of the dead man's furniture and personal property, but the rest of the money was still missing. the whole town was discussing the question of its whereabouts, and all sorts of silly tales were set afloat. some said the old gentleman had sent it to klapka, and that one day klapka would return with it in the form of guns and cannon. others said he had a castle, somewhere away in the woods, where he kept a very beautiful lady, and even if he had not been able to eat up his fortune in the form of melted gold, a pretty woman would soon know how to dispose of it. but what made the most impression on every one was, that an ironmonger appeared at gáspár's house with a bill for a large caldron gregorics had bought the day before his death, but had not paid for. gáspár gave a long whistle. "that caldron was not among the things we sold," he said. and he went through the inventory again; but no, the caldron was not there. "i am on the right road," thought gáspár. "he did not buy the caldron for nothing. consequently, what did he buy it for? why, to put something in it of course, and that something is what we are looking for!" boldizsár was of the same opinion, and positively beamed with delight. "it is god's finger," he said. "now i believe we shall find the treasure. pál must have buried the caldron somewhere, thinking to do us out of our rights; and he would have succeeded if he had not been so stupid as not to pay for the caldron. but luckily in cases of this kind the wrongdoer generally makes some stupid mistake." the ironmonger remembered that it was matykó who had chosen the caldron and taken it with him; so gáspár one day sent for the servant, gave him a good dinner with plenty of wine, and began to question him about pál's last days, introducing the incident of the caldron, the bill for which the ironmonger had just sent him he said. "what about it, matykó," he asked. "did your master really order it? i can hardly believe it, for what could he have wanted it for? i'm afraid you have been buying things for yourself, in your master's name." that was the very way to make matykó speak, to doubt his honor; and now he let out the whole story in order to clear himself. the day before his death, his master had told him to go and buy a caldron, and bring it him, together with two masons. he had done as he was told, and toward evening had taken the caldron into his master's bedroom; the masons had arrived at the same time, and had seen the caldron, so they could bear witness to the fact. "well, that's right, matykó, you're a lucky fellow, for if you have two witnesses, your honor is as intact as ever, and you must consider my words as unspoken. drink another glass of wine, and don't be offended at my suspicion; after all, it was only a natural conclusion; we could find no traces of the caldron, and the ironmonger wanted to be paid for it, and said you had taken it away. where can it have got to?" "heaven only knows," answered matykó. "did you never see it again?" "never." "and what became of the masons? what did they come for?" "i don't know." gáspár smiled pleasantly at the man. "you are like 'john don't-know' in the fairy tale. he always answered, 'i don't know' to everything that was asked him. of course you don't know the two witnesses either who could establish your innocence? in that case, my good fellow, you're no better off than you were before." "but i do know one of them." "what is his name?" "oh, i don't know his name." "well, how do you know him, then?" "he has three hairs at the end of his nose." "rubbish! he may have cut them off since then." "i should know him all the same by his face; it is just like an owl's." "and where did you pick up the two masons?" "they were mending the wall of the parish church." by degrees gáspár gregorics got all particulars out of the man; and now the ground seemed to be burning under his feet, so he went straight into the town to look for the man with the three hairs on his nose. it was not difficult to find him, and at the first place he asked at, three voices answered at once: "that must be andrás prepelicza. his mustache made a mistake, and grew on the top of his nose instead of on his lip." after that it was mere child's play, for every workman knew that prepelicza was "building pest," as they expressed it. he was working at a large house in the kerepesi street. gáspár immediately had the horses harnessed, and drove to pest, not stopping till he reached the capital; and there he set to work to find prepelicza among the slovak workmen. the mason was just going up on a pulley to the third story when he found him, and gáspár shuddered as he thought: "supposing the cords were to give way now!" "hallo, prepelicza!" he shouted. "wait a bit, i was just looking for you. i want to have a talk with you." "all right," called out the mason, examining the newcomer from above. "come up if you want to talk." "you come down to me, it is very important." "well, shout it out, i can hear it all right up here." "i can't do that, i must speak to you in private at any cost." "good or bad?" "very good." "good for me?" "yes, good for you." "well, if it is good for me it can wait till the evening. i shall be down by then, but i want to finish this top window first." "don't argue, but come down at once. you won't be sorry for it." "why, i don't even know who you are." "i'll send you word in a minute." and with the next pulley he sent prepelicza up a nice new crisp ten-florin note. the man who took it up got a florin for doing so. at the sight of this novel visiting-card prepelicza threw down his hammer and trowel, and with the next pulley returned to his mother earth, where miracles have been going on ever since the time of moses. "what can i do for you, sir?" "follow me." "to the end of the world, sir." "we need not go as far as that," said gregorics, smiling. and they only went as far as "the cock," a small public-house, where they ordered some wine, after drinking which, the wily gáspár began, smiling blandly: "can you speak, prepelicza?" the mason began to wonder what was going to happen, and looked long and attentively into the steely gray eyes of his new acquaintance, and then said guardedly: "a jay can speak, sir." "i am from besztercebánya." "really? there are very decent people there. i seem to know your face too, sir." "you probably mistake me for my half-brother," said gáspár. "you know, the one who had the caldron put away so secretly." "the caldron!" prepelicza's mouth was wide open from astonishment. "was that your brother? now i understand where the likeness is, at least ... i mean ... (and he began to scratch his ear doubtfully). what caldron are you speaking of? i can't be expected to remember every pot and pan i have seen in my life." gáspár was prepared for such hitches as this, so was not surprised, and offered the mason a cigar, which he immediately wetted to make it burn slower, then lit it, and began to drum on the table like a man who has just found out that he has something to sell, and has the right purchaser before him. now he must be as phlegmatic as possible, and the price of the article would rise in proportion. his heart beat loud and fast, and the white cock framed on the wall above the green table seemed to awake to life before his eyes, and to crow out these words: "good afternoon, andrás prepelicza! cock-a-doodledo. you have luck before you! seize hold of it!" "what do you say, prepelicza, you don't remember the caldron? what do you take me for? do i look like a fool? but i daresay in your place i should do the same. this wine is very good, isn't it? what do you say? it tastes of the cask? why, my good fellow, it can't taste of mortar, can it? here, waiter, fetch another bottle of wine, and then be off and leave us alone. well, what were we speaking of? ah, yes, you said a short time ago that the jay could speak, and that is quite true; you are a wise man, prepelicza, and the right man for me, for we shall soon come to terms. yes, the jay can speak, but only if they cut its tongue. that is what you meant, isn't it?" "h'm!" was the answer, and the three hairs on the mason's nose began to move, as though a breath of air had passed through them. "i know of course that they cut the jay's tongue with a knife, but as you are not a bird, prepelicza ..." "no, no," stammered the man hastily. "well, instead of a knife i take these two bank-notes to cut your tongue with." and with that he took two hundred-florin bank-notes out of his pocket-book. the eyes of the mason fixed themselves greedily upon the bank-notes, upon the two figures printed on them, one holding a sheaf of wheat, the other a book; his eyes nearly dropped out of his head he stared so hard, and then he said: "the caldron was heavy, very heavy indeed." that was all he could get out, while he continued gazing at the two cherubs on the paper notes. he had six of his own at home, but they were not as pretty as these. "well, my good man," said gregorics surprised, "still silent?" "it would be like a stone on my heart if i were to speak," sighed the mason--"a very big stone. i don't think i could bear it." "don't talk such nonsense! a stone, indeed! why, you have had to do with nothing else all your life, you need not cry about having one on your heart! you can't expect me to give you two hundred florins, and then give you a hot roll to carry in your heart. don't be a fool, man." prepelicza smiled at this, but he put his big red hands behind his back, a sign that he did not intend to touch the money. "perhaps you find it too little?" not a word did he answer, only pushed his hair up in front, till he looked like a sick cockatoo; then, after a few moments, raised his glass to his lips, and drained it to the dregs, and then put it back on the table so brusquely that it broke. "it is disgraceful!" he burst out; "a poor man's honor is only worth two hundred florins, though god created us all equal, and he gave me my honor as well as to the bishop or to baron radvánszky. and yet you tax mine at two hundred florins. it's a shame!" upon that gáspár decided to play his trump. "very well, prepelicza, you needn't be so cross. if your honor is so dear, i'll look for cheaper." and with that he put back the two bank-notes in his pocket. "i'll look up your companion, the other mason." then he called the head waiter, in order to pay for the wine. prepelicza smiled. "well, well, can't a poor man give his opinion? of course you can look up the other man, and he won't be as honest as i, probably. but ... well, put another fifty to it, and i'll tell you all." "very well. it's a bargain!" and the mason began to relate the events of that memorable night, and how they had carried the caldron through the courtyard and garden to a small house. "to the 'lebanon'!" exclaimed gáspár excitedly. "to that boy's house!" and the mason went on to tell how gregorics had stood by while they had walled in the caldron, and watched every movement, gáspár throwing in a question now and then. "was it heavy?" "very heavy." "did no one see you as you passed through the courtyard?" "no one; every one had gone to bed." gáspár was quite excited, and seemed to enjoy every word he heard; his eyes shone, his thoughts were occupied with the future, in which he imagined himself a rich man, the owner of untold wealth. he might even buy a baronetcy! baron gáspár gregorics! how well it sounded! and minka would be a little baroness. that fool of a pál had not known how to make proper use of his wealth, so it must have increased immensely, he had been so economical! "and what did my brother pay you for your work?" "he gave us each fifty florins." "that was quite right of him." a weight had fallen from his heart at these words, for he had begun to fear gregorics had given them some thousands to buy their silence, and that would have been a great pity, as it would have diminished the sum he hoped to possess before long. for he had decided to buy "lebanon," with its caldron and its orchard. he would go to-morrow to that boy's guardian and make an offer for it. and he rejoiced inwardly at the trick he was playing his brother and sister. he returned home as fast as horses could take him, and did not even stop at his own house, but went straight on to sztolarik's and informed him he would like to buy "lebanon." this was the name they had given to the orchard and house old gregorics had bought of the clergyman's widow. he had tried to grow cedars there at first, but the soil of besztercebánya was not suitable for these trees, and the sarcastic inhabitants of the small town christened the orchard "lebanon." mr. sztolarik showed no surprise at the offer. "so you want to buy 'lebanon'?" he said. "it is a good orchard, and produces the finest fruit imaginable. this year a well-known hotel-keeper bought all the fruit, and paid an enormous price for it. but what made you think of buying 'lebanon'?" "i should like to build a house there, a larger house than the present one." "h'm! there is always a good deal of bother attached to a purchase of that kind," said sztolarik coldly; "the present owner is a minor, and the court of chancery must give permission for the sale to take place. i would rather leave things as they are. when the boy is of age he may do what he likes, but if i sell it now he may be sorry for it later on. no, no, mr. gregorics, i can't agree to it. after all the house and orchard are a _pretium affectionis_ for the boy; he spent his childhood there." "but if i offer a good sum for it," broke in gáspár, nervously. sztolarik began to feel curious. "what do you consider a good sum? what do you think of offering for it?" "why, i would give--" and here he was overcome by a fit of coughing, which made him turn as red as a peony--"i would give 15,000 florins." well, that was a brilliant offer, for pál gregorics had bought it of the clergyman's widow for 5000 florins. it was only a small bit of ground, and a good way from the market, which decreased its value exceedingly. "utcumque," said sztolarik, "your offer is a good one. but, but ... well, i'll tell you what, mr. gregorics, i'll consider your offer a bit, and i must write to the boy about it too, and also speak to his mother." "but i want to settle it as soon as possible." "i'll write about it to-day." gáspár did not wish to say any more about the matter, for fear of awakening the lawyer's suspicions, but a day or two afterward he sent a tiny cask of tokay wine to him (some pál gregorics had left in his cellar, and which they had divided among them), with the inquiry as to whether he had any answer from budapest. sztolarik sent back word he expected a letter every minute, and thanked him very much for the wine; he also remarked to the footman who had brought it that he hoped it would go smoothly, but whether he meant the wine, or something else, the footman did not quite understand. hardly had the man gone, when the expected letter arrived, containing the news that gyuri agreed to the sale of the orchard, and sztolarik was just going to send one of his clerks to gáspár, when the door opened, and in walked boldizsár gregorics, puffing and blowing from the haste he had made. "pray take a seat, mr. gregorics. to what do i owe the honor of your visit?" "i've brought you a lot of money," gasped boldizsár, still out of breath. "we can always do with plenty of that," said the lawyer. "i want to buy that poor orphan's little bit of property, 'lebanon.'" "'lebanon'?" repeated sztolarik, surprised. "what on earth is the matter with them all?" he muttered to himself; then continued out loud: "perhaps you want it for your brother?" "no, no, i want it for myself. it would suit me nicely; the view from there is so lovely, and the fruit-trees are so good." "it is really strange, very strange!" "why is it strange?" said the other, surprised. "because i have already one purchaser in view." "well, we won't let him have it. i daresay i can offer you more than he." "i doubt it," said the lawyer; "the first offer was 15,000 florins." boldizsár showed no surprise. "well, i offer 20,000." not till after he had said it did it occur to him that the orchard was not worth even 15,000 florins, and he turned impatiently and asked: "who is the fool who offers so much?" "your brother gáspár." at this name boldizsár turned deathly pale, and dropped gasping on to a chair. his lips moved, but no sound came from them, and sztolarik thought he would have a stroke, and rushed out for some water, calling for help as he went; but when he returned with the cook armed with a rolling-pin and a jug of water, the old gentleman had recovered, and began to excuse himself. "i felt a bit giddy; i often have attacks like this. i'm getting old, you see. and now to return to our discussion. yes, i'll give you 20,000 florins for 'lebanon,' and pay the money down." the lawyer thought a minute, then said: "we can't manage things so quickly, for we must have the consent of the court of chancery. i'll see about it at once." and he was as good as his word, for such an advantageous sale of the orchard he had never dared to hope for. but all the time he was wondering why the two gregorics were so anxious to have it. there must be some reason for it. supposing they had struck upon some treasure there, it was not impossible, for had not king arpád and his successors lived about here? he decided to send istván drotler, the civil engineer, to have a look at the place, and see if it contained gold or coal. but before he had time to start for the engineer's, gáspár gregorics appeared on the scene, to ask if there were any letter from pest. sztolarik was in difficulties. "the letter is here, yes, the letter is here; but something else has happened. another purchaser has turned up, and he offers 20,000 florins for 'lebanon.'" this was evidently a great blow for gáspár. "impossible," he stammered. "is it boldizsár?" "yes." gáspár was furious; he began to swear like a trooper, and waved his stick about, thereby knocking down one of mrs. sztolarik's flower-pots, in which a rare specimen of hyacinth was just blossoming. "the wretch!" he hissed. and then he sat staring fixedly in front of him for some time. how did he get to know of it? was the question he was revolving in his mind. it was very simple. that sly prepelicza had easily found out in besztercebánya that pál gregorics had more than one brother living, and he decided that if one of them paid him 250 florins for the secret, the other would perhaps be inclined to pay something too. so he got into the train, travelled to besztercebánya, and looked up boldizsár. there was nothing surprising in that except, perhaps, the fact that prepelicza was not such a fool as he looked. "oh, the wretch!" gáspár kept on saying. "but he shall not have it, i _will_ buy it. i'll give you 25,000 florins for it." sztolarik smiled and rubbed his hands. "it will belong to the one who gives most for it. if it were mine, i would give it you for the 15,000 florins you offered at first, for i always keep my word. but as it belongs to a minor, and i have his interests at heart, i must do the best i can for him. now don't you think i am right?" gáspár agreed with him, and tried to make him promise to give him the preference. but what was the good of it? sztolarik met boldizsár that evening at the club, and made no secret of the fact that gáspár had been to see him that morning, and offered him 5000 florins more for the orchard. but boldizsár was not surprised, and only answered: "well, i will give 30,000." and this mad auction went on for days, until the attention of the whole town was drawn to it, and people began to think the gregorics must have gone mad, or that there must be some important reason for their wishing to have possession of "lebanon." gáspár came and offered 32,000 florins, and as soon as boldizsár heard of it, he came and offered 3000 florins more; and so on, until people's hair began to stand on end. "let them go on as long as they like," thought the lawyer. and they did go on, until they reached the sum of 50,000 florins, which was boldizsár's last offer. and heaven only knows how long it would have gone on still. the engineer had been to look at the place, and had declared there was nothing of any value to be found there, not even a bit of gold, unless it were the stoppings of some dead woman's teeth. "but supposing there is coal there?" "not a sign of it." "then what on earth are the gregorics thinking of?" whatever the reason was, it was certainly to gyuri's advantage, and his guardian meant to make the most of the opportunity, so he let the two brothers go on bidding till the sum promised was 50,000 florins. he intended to wait till gáspár capped it with 52,000, and then close the bargain. but he had reckoned without his host, for one fine day it suddenly occurred to gáspár it was strange mrs. panyóki showed no signs of taking part in the auction. she evidently knew nothing of the existence of the treasure; prepelicza had not told her the secret, and had thus proved himself a clever man, for if he had told her too, his part in the play was over. whereas now, when the two brothers had the caldron in their possession, they would be obliged to pay him hush-money to hold his tongue. as gáspár turned all this over in his mind, he began to find it ridiculous for him and boldizsár to keep on outbidding each other, thus attracting every one's attention to them, putting money into the boy's pocket, and awakening mrs. panyóki's suspicions. and whichever bought "lebanon" at last would certainly not be left to enjoy it unmolested. so he decided it would be cheaper if they were to work together, buy the estate, share the contents of the caldron, and pay prepelicza a certain sum yearly to hold his tongue. so one day the brothers came to terms, and sztolarik was very surprised when, the next day, the door opened, and in walked boldizsár and announced that he had thought things over, and come to the conclusion that "lebanon" was decidedly not worth 50,000 florins, and he had given up all idea of buying it. "that does not matter," said sztolarik, "your brother will give us 48,000 for it." and he waited impatiently till he had a chance of speaking to gáspár about it. but that good man calmly answered: "it was very stupid of me to offer so much for it, and i am really grateful to you, sztolarik, for not taking me at my word at once. why, i can buy a good-sized estate for the money i offered for it." the lawyer hardly knew what to do next. he was afraid he had made them go back on their bargain, by letting them carry it on so long, and felt sure he would be the laughing stock of the town, and that gyuri would reproach him with not looking after his interests properly. so off he rushed to boldizsár and offered him "lebanon" for 45,000 florins; but boldizsár only laughed, and said: "do you take me for a fool?" whereupon he went to gáspár and said: "well, you may have 'lebanon' for 40,000 florins." gáspár shook his head and answered: "i'm not quite mad yet." and now the auction began again, but this time it went _backward_, until at last, with the greatest difficulty, sztolarik got 15,000 florins out of them. they bought it together, and both signed their names to the deeds. on the day they received the key of the house from the guardian, they both went there, shut themselves in, and began to pull down the inner wall with the pickaxes they had brought with them under their cloaks. of course they found the caldron, but what was in it has not become clear to this day, though that was the chief point to be settled in the gregorics lawsuit, which took up the attention of the besztercebánya law courts for ten years. it began in this way. a few months after the purchase of "lebanon," prepelicza appeared on the scene, and demanded his share of the treasure discovered in the wall, otherwise he would make known the whole affair to mrs. panyóki. the brothers got mad with rage at the sight of him. "you miserable thief!" they cried. "you were a party to the fraud practised upon us by that good-for-nothing brother of ours, who wanted to rob us in order to benefit that boy. you helped him to fill the caldron with rusty nails and bits of old iron. now you are here, you may as well have your share." with that they each seized hold of a stick, and began to beat prepelicza till he was black and blue. off he went to a doctor for a certificate as to his wounds, and then to the barber, who had to write a long letter to the king in his name, complaining of the behavior of the two brothers gregorics toward one of his honest (?) subjects. "if the king is not ashamed of them as subjects, i am not ashamed of owning how i have been beaten; they were two to one!" then he hired a cart (for it was impossible for him to walk in his present state), and drove to varecska, where mrs. panyóki spent the summer, and told her the whole tale from beginning to end. the result was the lawsuit panyóki _versus_ gregorics, which furnished the neighborhood with gossip for ten years. a whole legion of witnesses had to be examined, and the deeds and papers increased to such an extent that at the end they weighed seventy-three pounds. mrs. panyóki could only prove the existence of the caldron, its having been walled in, and its appropriation later on by the two brothers, who, on their part, tried to prove that it contained nothing of value, only a number of rusty nails and odd bits of iron. as the dead man had no lawyer to defend him, _he_ lost the lawsuit, for it was certain he had played the trick on his relations, and thus brought about the lawsuit, which only ended when it was all the same which side lost or won it, for the seventy-three pounds of paper and the six lawyers had eaten up the whole of the gregorics and panyóki fortunes. by degrees all the members of the family died in poverty, and were forgotten; only pál gregorics lived in the memories of the six lawyers, who remarked from time to time: "he was a clever man!" but in spite of all researches, the dead man's fortune was still missing, not a trace of it was to be found, no one had inherited it except rumor, which did as it liked with it, decreased it, increased it, placed it here or there at pleasure. traces part iii chapter i. the umbrella again. many years passed, and things had changed very much in besztercebánya, but the thing that will interest us most is the door-plate on the house formerly inhabited by old gregorics, on which is to be read: "györgy wibra, lawyer." yes, little gyuri is now a well-known lawyer; people come to him from all sides for advice, and young girls smile at him from their windows as he passes. he is a very handsome young man, and clever. he has youth and health, and his whole life before him, what more can he want? but the narrow-minded inhabitants of the little town are at present only occupied with one question, viz., whom will he marry? why, katka krikovszky would marry him any day, and she is the prettiest girl in the town. then there is mathilda hupka, who would receive him with open arms if he came to her with a proposal, though she is very high and mighty. and even mariska biky would not refuse him, and she belongs to the nobility, and has 50,000 florins. girls are very cheap nowadays! but gyuri wibra paid no attention to any of them; he was a serious and retiring young man, and his friends soon saw that he was infinitely above them in every way. as a rule young men first take their diploma, then start an office, look out for clients who do not come, and by their absence make the place seem so large and empty, that the young lawyer feels he must have company of some kind. so he brings home a wife to cheer his solitude. but it never occurred to gyuri to marry. and once when mrs. krikovszky broached the subject to him and asked when they would hear of his engagement, he answered absently: "i am not in the habit of marrying." it certainly is a bad "habit," but one that does not seem inclined to go out of fashion. for thousands of years people have been marrying, repenting of it, and considering it madness to have done so, but they never get over the madness, and marriage is as fashionable as ever. as long as pretty young girls are growing up, they are always growing up for some one. gyuri's business was a brilliant success from the beginning; fortune smiled on him from every side, but he received it with a tolerably sour face. he worked, but only from habit, just the same as he washed himself and brushed his hair every day. his mind was elsewhere; but where? his friends thought they knew, and often asked him: "why don't you marry, old fellow?" "because i am not rich enough." "why, that is the very reason you should marry. your wife will bring the money with her." (that is the usual opinion of young men.) gyuri shook his head, a handsome, manly head, with an oval face, and large black eyes. "that is not true. it is the money brings the wife!" what sort of a wife had he set his heart on? his friends decided he must be chasing very high game. perhaps he wanted a baroness, or even a countess? he was like the virginian creeper they said, which first climbs very high and then blossoms. but if he were to marry, he could be successful later on all the same. look at the french beans; they climb and blossom at the same time. but this was all empty talk. there was nothing whatever to prevent gyuri getting on in his profession; nothing troubled him, neither a pretty girl's face, nor a wish for rank and riches, only the legend of the lost wealth disturbed him. for to others it was a legend, but to him it was truth, which danced before his eyes like a jack-o'-lantern; he could neither grasp it nor leave it alone; yet there it was by day and by night, and he heard in his dreams a voice saying: "you are a millionaire!" when he wrote out miserable little bills for ten or fifteen florins, these words seemed to dance before him on the paper: "lay down your pen, gyuri wibra, you have treasures enough already, heaven only knows how much. your father saved it up for you, so you have a right to it. you are a rich man, gyuri, and not a poor lawyer. throw away those deeds and look for your treasure. where are you to look for it? why, that is just the question that drives one mad. perhaps sometimes, when you are tired out, and throw yourself down on the ground to rest, it may be just beneath you, it is, perhaps, just beginning to get warm under your hand when you take it away to do something else, and it may be you will never find it at all. and what a life you could lead, what a lot you could do with the money. you could drive a four-in-hand, drink champagne, keep a lot of servants. a new world, a new life would be open to you. and to possess all this you only need a little luck; but as you have none at present, take up your pen again, my friend, and go on writing out deeds and bills, and squeezing a few florins out of the poor slovaks." it was a great pity he had heard anything about the missing treasure. he felt it himself, and often said he wished he knew nothing about it, and would be very glad if something were to happen which would go to prove that the treasure did not really exist; for instance, if some one would remark: "oh, yes, i met old gregorics once in monte carlo; he was losing his money as fast as he could." but no such thing happened; on the contrary, new witnesses were always turning up to assure him: "old gregorics must certainly have left an immense fortune, which he intended you to have. don't you really know anything about it?" no, he knew nothing at all about it, but his thoughts were always running on the subject, spoiling all his pleasure in life. the promising youth had really become only half a man, for he had two separate and distinct persons in him. sometimes he entirely gave himself up to the idea that he was the child of a servant, and began to feel he had attained to a really good position by means of his own work, and was happy and contented in this thought. but only a word was needed to make the lawyer a totally different man. he was now the son of rich old pál gregorics, waiting to find and take possession of his property. and from time to time he suffered all the pangs of tantalus, and left his office to look after itself for weeks at a time, while he went to vienna to look up some of his father's old acquaintances. the rich carriage-builder, who had bought gregorics's house in vienna, gave him valuable information. "your father," he said, "once told me when i paid him for the house, that he should put the money in some bank, and asked me which would be the best and safest way to set to work about it." gyuri wandered then from one bank to another, but without success. thoroughly worn out he returned to besztercebánya with the full intention of not thinking any more about the subject. "i am not going on making a fool of myself," he said. "i won't let the golden calf go on lowing in my ears forever. i will not take another step in the affair, and shall imagine i dreamed it all." but it was easier said than done. you can throw ashes on a smouldering fire--it will put it out, but not prevent it smoking. sometimes one friend referred to it, sometimes another. his mother, who now walked on crutches, often spoke of the good old times, sitting in her arm-chair by the fire. and at length she owned that old gregorics had wanted to telegraph for gyuri on his deathbed. "he seemed as though he could not die till he had seen you," she said. "but it was my fault you came too late." "and why did he so much want to see me?" "he said he wanted to give you something." a light broke in upon gyuri's brain. the vienna carriage-builder had given him to understand that his father's fortune was represented by a receipt for money placed in a bank, and from the information his mother now gave him, he concluded that the old gentleman had intended giving him the receipt before his death. so he must always have kept it by him. but what had become of it? in which bank was the money deposited? could he, knowing what he did, give up the idea of finding it? no, no, it was impossible! it could not be lost! why, a grain of wheat, if dropped in a ditch, would reappear in time, however unexpectedly. and in a case of this kind, a chance word, a sign, could clear up every doubt. he had not long to wait. one day, the dying mayor of the town, tamás krikovszky, sent for him to make his will. several people, holding high positions in the town, were assembled in the room. there lay the mayor, pale and weak, but he still seemed to retain some of the majesty of his office, in the manner in which he took leave of his inferiors in office, recommending the welfare of the town to them, and then taking from under his pillow the official seal, he put it into their hands, saying: "for twenty years i have sealed the truth with it!" then he dictated his will to gyuri, and while doing so, referred now and then to various incidents in his life. "dear me, what times those were," he said once, addressing himself to gyuri. "your father had a red umbrella, with a hollow handle, in which he used to carry valuable papers from one camp to another, in the days when he was a spy." "what!" stammered gyuri. "the red umbrella?" and his eyes shone. like a flash of lightning a thought had entered his head. the receipt was in that umbrella! his blood began to course madly in his veins, as the certitude of the truth of his suspicion grew upon him. yes, there it was, he was sure of it; and all at once he remembered the incident in szeged, how gregorics had let his umbrella fall in the water, his anxiety, and offer of a large reward for its discovery. then again, the old gentleman's words rang in his ear: "the umbrella will once belong to you, and you will find it useful to protect you from the rain." the bystanders could not imagine why gyuri seemed so much put about at the mayor's death; in their opinion it was quite right of the old man to take his departure, he had dragged on with his gouty old leg quite long enough, and should now make room for younger men; he had not lived his life for nothing, for were they not going to have his portrait painted and hung in the town hall, a grand ending to his life? if he lived for ten years longer he could have no greater honor done him, and his portrait would be even uglier than now. they were even more surprised at the strange question which gyuri, in spite of the solemnity of the occasion, put to the dying man. "and was the hole big, sir?" "what hole?" asked the mayor, who had already forgotten the subject. "the hole in the handle of the umbrella." "i really don't know, i never asked gregorics." he closed his eyes, and in a weak voice added, with that phlegma which only a hungarian displays on his deathbed: "but if you wait a bit, i'll ask him." and he probably kept his promise, for half an hour later a black flag was flying from the roof of the town hall, and the bell of the roman catholic church was tolling. gyuri wibra had hurried home, nervous and excited, and was now marching up and down his office, his heart beating wildly with joy. "i have the treasure at last!" he kept on repeating to himself, "at least, i should have it if i had the umbrella. but where is it?" he could neither eat, nor drink, nor sleep till he had settled it. he questioned his mother on the subject, and she did her best to answer him, but could only repeat: "how am i to remember that, my dear boy, after so long a time? and what do you want that ragged umbrella for?" gyuri sighed. "if i have to dig it out of the ground with my ten fingers, i will do it." "perhaps matykó will remember something about it?" matykó was soon found; he sat smoking his pipe in the anteroom of the office, for he was now gyuri's servant. but he also said he had forgotten far more important things than that in all these years; but this much he did remember, that the dead man had kept the umbrella near him till the hour of his death. "heaven only knows," he added, "why he took such care of the ragged old thing." (not only heaven knew the reason now, but gyuri too!) he got more information from the old woman who kept the grocer's shop in old gregorics's house; she had been in the house when he died, and had helped to lay him out. she swore by heaven and earth that the umbrella had been tightly clutched in the dead man's hand, and they had had the greatest difficulty in freeing it from his grasp. "yes," said the old woman, "the umbrella was certainly in his hand, may i never move from this spot if it is not true." "it is all the same," muttered gyuri; "we want to know where it is now." "i suppose it was sold with the rest of the things." that seemed very likely, so gyuri went and looked up the list of things that had been sold at the auction. all sorts of things were mentioned--tables, chairs, cupboards, coats, etc.--but there was no mention of an umbrella. he read it over ten times, but it was of no use, he could find no mention of it, unless the following could be considered as such. "various useless objects, bought for two florins by the white jew." perhaps the umbrella was one of those useless objects, and had been bought by the "white jew." well, the first thing was to find the "white jew." but who was he? for in those good old days there were not as many jews in hungary as there are now; there were perhaps one or two in the town, so it was easy to find them; for one was called "red," another "gray," another "white," a fourth "black," according to the color of their hair; and by means of these four colors the townsfolk were able to distinguish any jew who lived in their town. but now there were some hundred jewish families, and heaven had not increased the shades of their hair to such an extent that each family could be distinguished in the old way. it was not difficult to find out about the old jew, and gyuri soon knew that he was called jónás müncz, and it was very likely he had bought the things, for all the coats and vests found their way into his tiny shop in wheat street, before starting on the second chapter of their existence. many people remember the little shop in which top-boots, cloaks, and dresses hung on nails, and the following announcement was written with chalk on the door: "only the lilies of the field can dress themselves cheaper than you can in this shop!" (that was quite true, only with this difference, that the lilies of the field were more becomingly dressed than müncz's customers.) in spite of all this information gyuri was by no means satisfied, so he walked across the road to his old guardian's to see if he could find out anything more on the subject from him, for he had been the first lawyer in the town for many years, and must know every one. the young man told sztolarik the whole story, openly and frankly, adding that the receipt for the money, which was probably deposited in some foreign bank, was all but found, for it was most certainly in the handle of the red umbrella, and that had in all probability been bought by an old jew of the name of jónás müncz. all of this gyuri poured out quickly and breathlessly into the ears of his old guardian. "that much i know. now, what am i to do next?" "it is a great deal, much more than i ever hoped for. you must continue the search." "but where am i to search? we don't yet know where müncz is, and even if we had him, who knows on which dust-heap the umbrella has rotted since then?" "all the same, you must not lose the thread." "did you know the 'white jew'?" "oh, yes; he was a very honest jew, that is why he never got very rich. he often came to me; i can see him now, with his head bald at the back, and a fringe of white hair round it. 'pon my word! (and here the lawyer skipped like a young lamb) the last time i saw him he had pál gregorics's umbrella in his hand; i can swear to it, and i remember i joked him about it. 'it seems to me, jónás,' i said, 'that you wander about the next world, too, to buy "ole clo'," and bought that umbrella there of pál gregorics.' at which he smiled, and said he had not gone as far as that yet, for he only kept to the two counties of zólyom and hont, and had divided the neighboring counties among his sons; móricz had trencsin and nyitra, számi had szepes and liptó, and the youngest, kóbi, had only last week been given bars, but they none of them intended to go into the next world until they were obliged to." gyuri's eyes shone with delight. "bravo, sztolarik!" he exclaimed, "only the gods had such memories as you have." "you are a lucky fellow, gyuri. i have an impression we are on the right track at last, and that you will find the money." "i begin to think so too," answered gyuri, who was in turns optimist or pessimist, as the occasion presented itself. "but what can have become of old müncz?" "we christians have a legend about the jews which says, that on the long day every year a jew disappears from the earth and is never seen again. old jónás disappeared thus fourteen years ago (you may be sure none of the rothschilds will disappear in that way). his wife and children waited for him in vain, jónás never returned. so his sons set out to look for him, and it turned out the old fellow had got soft-headed, and had taken to wandering about in the slovak villages, where the sons now and then heard of him from people who had seen him; and then one day, they found his dead body in the garam." the young lawyer's face was clouded again. "why, in that case the umbrella will be in the garam too, probably." "perhaps not," was the answer. "he may have left it at home, and if so, it will still be among the old rags and bones of the müncz's, for i am sure no one would ever buy it. try your luck, my boy! if i were you i would get into a carriage, and drive and drive until ..." "but where am i to drive to?" "yes, of course, of course." then, after a minute's thought: "müncz's sons have gone out into the world, and the boxes of matches with which they started have probably become houses since then. but i'll tell you what; go to bábaszék, their mother lives there." "whereabouts is bábaszék?" "quite near to zólyom, among the mountains. there is a saying that all the sheep there were frozen to death once, in the dog-days." "and are you sure mrs. müncz lives there?" "quite sure. a few years ago they came and fetched her away to be the 'jewess of bábaszék.'" chapter ii. our rosália. yes, they had taken old mrs. müncz to bábaszék to be their "jew," with forty florins salary, for they had no jew there, and had to find one at any cost. this is how it came to pass (and it is difficult for an inhabitant of budapest to understand it). bábaszék was one of those small towns which in reality was only a larger village, though it rejoiced in what it called its "mayor," and on one day in the year a few miserable horses, cows, and pigs were driven in from the neighboring farms and villages, and the baker from zólyom put up a tent, in which he sold gingerbread in the shape of hearts, of soldiers, of cradles, all of which was soon bought up by the young men and fathers of families and taken home to sweethearts or children, as the case might be. in one word, there was a fair at bábaszék. and for centuries every inhabitant has divided the year and its events into two parts, one before the fair, and one after it. for instance, the death of francis deák took place just two days after the fair at bábaszék. and the reason of all this was, that the old kings of hungary who lived during the hunting season in the castles of zólyom and végles, instead of making grants to the inhabitants, raised the villages to the position of towns. well, of course, it was a privilege, for in a town everything seems grander than in a village, and is worth a good deal more, even man himself. the little straw-thatched house in which questions of moment are discussed is called the town hall, and the "hajdu" (town-servant) must know how to beat a drum (for the town has a drum of its own), the richer ones even have a small fire-engine. after all, position is position, and one must do all one can to keep it up. zólyom and tót-pelsöc were rivals. "that's not a town," said the latter of the former; "why, they have not even a chemist there!" (well, after all, not every village or town can be as big as besztercebánya or london!) pelsöc could not even leave poor little bábaszék alone. "that is no town," they said. "there is not even a single jew there. if no jew settle in a town, it cannot be considered as such; it has, in fact, no future." but it is not my intention now to write about the quarrels of two small towns, i only want to tell you how mrs. müncz came to live in bábaszék. well, they sent word to her in besztercebánya, to come and take possession of the little shop just opposite the market-place near the smithy, the best position in the town. on either side of the door was written in colored letters: "soap, whips, starch, scrubbing-brushes, nails, salt, grease, saffron, cinnamon, linseed oil;" in fact, the names of all those articles which did not grow in the neighborhood, or were not manufactured there. so that is how mrs. müncz came to live in bábaszék, where she was received with great honors, and made as comfortable as possible. it is a wonder they did not bring her into the town in triumph on their shoulders, which would have been no joke, for she weighed at least two hundredweight. some of the townsfolk were very discontented that the mayor had only brought a jewess into the town, and not a jew, for it would sound grander if they could say: "our jew says this, or our móricz or tobias did that," than if they had said: "our rosália says this, that, or the other;" it sounds so very mild. they would have liked a jew with a long beard, and hooked nose, and red hair if possible; that was the correct thing! but mr. konopka, the cleverest senator in the town, who had made the contract with mrs. müncz, and who had even gone himself to fetch her and her luggage from besztercebánya with two large carts, the horses of which had flowers and rosettes on, coldly repudiated these aspersions on their jewess, with an argument which struck as heavily as the stones in david's sling. "don't be so foolish," he said. "if a woman was once king in hungary, why should not a jewess fill the place of jew in bábaszék?" (this was a reference to the words of the nation addressed to maria theresa: "we will fight for our 'king' and our country.") of course they soon saw the truth of this, and ceased grumbling; and they were in time quite reconciled to their jewess, for every year, on the feast of tents, all mrs. müncz's sons, seven in number, came to see their mother, and walked about the market-place in their best clothes, laced boots, and top-hats. the townsfolk were glad enough then, their hearts swelled with pride as they gazed at the seven jews, and they would exclaim: "well, if this is not a town, what is?" "you won't see as many jews as that in pelsöc in ten years," answered another proudly. old mrs. müncz feasted her eyes on her sons when she sat, as she usually did, in the doorway of her shop, her knitting in her hands, her spectacles on her nose (those spectacles lent her an additional charm in the eyes of her admirers). she was a pleasant-looking old woman in her snow-white frilled cap, and seemed to suit her surroundings, the whitewashed walls of the neighboring houses, the important-looking town hall, and no one could pass her without raising their hat, just as they did before the statue of st. john nepomuk. (those were the only two things worth seeing in bábaszék.) every one felt that the little old woman would have her share in the success of the town. "good-morning, young woman. how are you?" "very well, thank you, my child." "how is business, young woman?" "thank you, my child, i get on very well." they were all glad, oh, so glad, that the "young woman" was so healthy and strong, and that she got richer day by day; they boasted of it where-ever they went. "our rosália is getting on well. it is easy to get on in bábaszék, we are good-natured people." they really made things very comfortable for rosália. she was over seventy, but they still called her "mlada pani" (young woman). as the king reserves to himself the right of conferring various titles, so the people have adopted the plan of conferring the "title of youth," and make use of it when and where they like. well, as i said before, they took great care of rosália, and when, a few years after her arrival there, she decided to build a stone house, every one who owned a cart placed it at her disposal, for the carting of stones, sand, wood, etc.; the bricklayers gave a day's work without wages; only one or two of the lazier ones did not join the rest on that day, but were sent to coventry for it. "good-for-nothing fellows," said every one, "they have no respect for any one, neither for god, the priest, nor a jew!" their respect went so far as to make them (at the mayor's instigation) set apart two pieces of ground, one for a (future) synagogue, and one for a jewish burial-ground (for the one jewess they had in the town). but what did that matter? they had the future before them, and who could tell what it held for them? and it was so nice to be able to say to strangers: "just a stone's throw from the jewish burial-ground," or "near to the foundation of the synagogue," etc. and the inhabitants of the villages round about would say when the good folks turned their backs: "poor things! their brains have been turned with the joy of having a jew in their town!" chapter iii. the traces lead to glogova. one fine spring afternoon, a light sort of dog-cart stopped before mrs. müncz's shop, and a young man sprang out of it, gyuri wibra, of course. rosália, who was just standing at her door, speaking to mr. mravucsán, the mayor, and mr. galba, one of the senators, immediately turned to the young man with the question: "what can i do for you, sir?" "are you mrs. müncz?" "yes, sir." "i want to buy an umbrella." the two gentlemen, surprised, looked up at the cloudless sky. "what the devil does he want to buy an umbrella for?" muttered mravucsán. then added aloud: "where are you from, sir?" "from besztercebánya." mravucsán was even more surprised. fancy any one coming all the way from besztercebánya to bábaszék to buy an umbrella! how proud he was it had happened under his mayorship! he nudged galba: "do you hear?" he said. "this is only a small village shop, sir," answered rosália. "we don't keep umbrellas." "pity enough!" muttered mravucsán, biting savagely at his mustache. "but i heard," went on the stranger, "that you had second-hand umbrellas to sell." second-hand umbrellas! well, what next! mravucsán, who was asthmatic, began to breathe heavily, and was just going to say something disparaging to the stranger, when some runaway horses attracted his attention, as they rushed across the market-place, dragging a handsome phaeton with them. "that will never be fit for use again," said the smith, as he stood looking on, his hands folded under his leather apron. the phaeton had probably been dashed against a wall, for the left side was smashed to bits, the shaft was broken, one of the wheels had been left somewhere on the road, and the reins were dragging on the ground between the two horses. "they are beautiful animals," said galba. "they belong to the priest of glogova," answered mravucsán. "i'm afraid some one may have been thrown out of the carriage; let us go and see." during this time the number of customers in mrs. müncz's shop had increased, and as they had to be attended to, she first turned to the stranger before serving them, and said: "there are a lot of old umbrellas somewhere on the loft, but they would not do for a fine gentleman like you." "i should like to look at them all the same." mrs. müncz had her hand on the door to let her customers in, and only answered without turning round: "i can assure you you would not take them in your hand." but the young man was not to be put off so easily; he followed her into the shop, and waited till the customers were all served, then remarked again that he would like to see the umbrellas. "but, my good sir, don't bother me about the umbrellas. i tell you they would be of no use to you. they are some that were left from the time of my poor husband; he knew how to mend umbrellas, and most of these are broken and torn, and they certainly will not have improved, lying on the dusty loft so long. besides, i cannot show you them, for my son is at the fair, the servant has a bad foot and cannot move, and when there is a fair my shop is always full, so i cannot leave it to go with you." the young lawyer took a five-florin note out of his pocket. "i don't want you to do it for nothing, mrs. müncz, but i must see the umbrellas at any price. so let me go up alone to the loft, and please take this in return for your kindness." mrs. müncz did not take the money, and her small black eyes examined the young man suspiciously. "now i shall certainly not show you the umbrellas." "and why not?" "my poor dead husband used to say: 'rosália, never do anything you don't understand the reason of,' and my husband was a very clever man." "of course, of course, you are quite right, and can't understand why i offer five florins for an old ragged umbrella." "just so; for five florins you might see something better." "well, it is very simple after all. my father had a very old umbrella, to which he was much attached, and i heard that it had come by chance into your husband's hands, and i should very much like to have it as a souvenir." "and who was your father, sir? perhaps i may have heard of him." the lawyer blushed a little. "pál gregorics," he said. "ah, gregorics! wait a bit! yes, i remember, the funny little man in whose will ..." "yes, yes. he left 2000 florins to nine ladies in besztercebánya." --"i remember, but i don't think he was ..." "yes ... no ... of course not ... i mean ..." and here he stopped in confusion. "i am gyuri wibra, lawyer." now it was mrs. müncz's turn to be confused. "of course, sir, i understand. how stupid of me! i have heard of you, sir, and i knew your poor father; dear me, how very like him you are, and yet so handsome. i knew him _very_ well," she added, smiling, "though he did not leave me 2000 florins. i was an old woman when he was still young. well, sir, please go up and look at the umbrellas. i will show you the way, and tell you just where to look for them. follow me, please, and i hope you will find the old gentleman's umbrella." "i would give you fifty florins for it, mrs. müncz." at the words "fifty florins" the old woman's eyes shone like two glowworms. "oh! what a good son!" she sighed, turning her eyes up to heaven. "there is nothing more pleasing to god than a good son, who honors the memory of his father." she got quite active and lively at the thought of the fifty florins, and shutting the door of the shop, she tripped across the yard with gyuri to the ladder of the loft, and even wanted to go up with him herself. "no, no, stay down below, mrs. müncz. what would the world say, if we two were to go up to the loft together?" said gyuri jokingly. old rosália chuckled. "oh, dear heart alive!" she said, "there's no danger with me. why, your father didn't even remember me in his will, though once upon a time ... (and here she complacently smoothed her gray hair). well, my dear, please go up." gyuri wibra searched about among the rubbish on the loft for quite half an hour, during which time the old woman came twice to the foot of the ladder to see if he were coming down. she was anxious about the fifty florins. "well?" she asked, as he appeared at last empty-handed. "i have looked through everything," he said, in a discouraged tone, "but the umbrella i want is not among the others." the old jewess looked disappointed. "what can that tiresome jónás have done with it?" she exclaimed. "fifty florins! dreadful! but he never had a reason for anything he did." "in all probability your husband used that umbrella himself. mr. sztolarik of besztercebánya says he distinctly remembers seeing him with it once." "what was it like?" "the stuff was red, with patches of all sorts on it, and it had a pale green border. the stick was of black wood, with a bone handle." "may i never go to heaven!" exclaimed rosália, "if that was not the very umbrella he took with him last time he left home! yes, i know he took that one!" "it was a great pity he took just that one." rosália felt bound to defend her husband. "how was he to know that?" she said. "he never had a reason for anything he did." "well, there's no help for it now," sighed gyuri, as he stood on the last rung of the ladder, wondering what he was to do next, and feeling like marius among the ruins of carthage, only there were not even ruins to his carthage; all hopes had returned to the clouds from which they had been taken. slowly he walked through the shop to his dog-cart, which was waiting outside, and the old woman waddled after him, like a fat goose. but once out in the street, she suddenly seemed to wake up, and seized hold of the lawyer's coat. "wait a bit. i had nearly forgotten it, but my son móricz, who is a butcher in ipolyság, was here at the time; he had come to buy oxen, i remember. my son móricz knows everything, and may i never go to heaven (rosália evidently had a strong objection to leaving this world) if he can't throw some light on the subject. go to the fair, my dear boy, to the place where the sheep stand, and speak to the handsomest man you see there, that will be my son móricz; he's handsome, very handsome, is móricz. speak to him, and promise him the fifty florins. i am sure he once told me something about that umbrella. for when my poor dear jónás died, móricz went to look for him, and when he found traces of him, he went from village to village making inquiries, till everything was clear. (here rosália gazed tearfully heavenward.) oh, jónás, jónás, why did you treat us so? if your senses had left you, why must you follow them? you had enough sons who would have taken care of you!" she would have gone on like this all day, if gyuri had not stepped into his dog-cart and driven off to the scene of the fair as she had advised him. after putting a few questions to the bystanders, he found móricz müncz, a short, stout man, his pock-marked face looking like a turkey's egg. he was as ugly as a faun. his butcher's knife and steel hung from a belt round his waist, and on his arm was tattooed the head of an ox. he was just bargaining for a cow, and its owner, a tanner, was swearing by heaven and earth that such a cow had never been seen in bábaszék before. "it will eat straw," he assured him, "and yet give fourteen pints of milk a day!" "rubbish!" answered móricz. "i'm not a calf, and don't intend to look upon this cow as my mother. i'm a butcher, and want to kill it and weigh it." "that's true," said the honest tanner; and of his own free will he lowered the price by five florins. móricz did not seem to think that enough, and began poking at the ribs of the cow. "what bones!" he exclaimed, and then pulled open its mouth to look at its teeth. "why, it has not got a tooth in its head!" "what do you want it to have teeth for?" asked the honest tanner. "i don't suppose you want to weigh its teeth too?" "but it kicks!" "well, it won't kick once it is killed; and i don't suppose you want to weigh it before it is killed?" the honest tanner laughed at his own wit, which had put him into such a good humor, that he again took five florins off the price. but móricz was not yet satisfied, for he still gazed at the cow, as though trying to find more faults in her. and just at that moment gyuri wibra called out: "mr. müncz, i should like to have a word with you." the tanner, fearing to lose his purchaser, took five florins more off the price, and móricz, being a sensible man, at once struck the bargain; he always bought of an evening from such as had not been able to sell their cattle during the day, and gave it for a low price to save their having to drive it home again. "what can i do for you, sir?" "i should like to buy something of you, which belongs neither to you nor to me." "there are plenty of things in the world answering to that description," said móricz, "and i can assure you, i will let you have it as cheap as possible." "let us move on a bit." gyuri led him out of the crowd to the village pump, near which grew an elder-tree. this tree, round which they had put some palings, was also a part of the future greatness of bábaszék, for the green, evil-smelling insects which housed in its branches, and which are used in various medicines (spanish flies), induced them to believe that they might, once upon a time, have a chemist in bábaszék. the young girls of the town used to collect the insects, and sell them to the chemist at zólyom for a few kreutzers; but that was forbidden now, for the people had decided: "near that tree there will once be a chemist's shop, so we will not have the insects taken away." they evidently considered them the foundation of the future chemist's store. gyuri told the jew what he wanted; that he was interested in his father's favorite umbrella, and would buy it if he could find it. did móricz know anything about it? "yes, i do," was the disappointed answer, for now he knew what a trifle it was, he saw the price fall in proportion. "i will give you fifty florins for any information that will lead to its discovery." móricz quickly took off his cap, which until now he had not considered it necessary to remove. fifty florins for an old umbrella! why, this young man must be the prince of coburg himself from szent-antal! now he noticed for the first time how very elegantly he was dressed. "the umbrella can be found," he said; and then added more doubtfully, "i think." "tell me all you know." "let me see, where shall i begin? it is now about fourteen years since my father disappeared, and i have forgotten most of the details, but this much i remember, that i started to look for him with my brother sámi, and in podhrágy i found the first trace of him, and following this up, i was told that when there he was still quite in his right mind, had sold a few trifles to the villagers, slept at the inn, and had bought a very old seal from a certain raksányi for two florins. he must have had all his senses about him then, for when we took him out of the garam, he had the seal in his coat pocket, and we sold it for fifty florins to an antiquary, as it turned out to be the seal of vid mohorai, of the time of king arpád." "yes, but these particulars have nothing to do with the subject in question," interrupted the young man. "you will see, sir, that they will be useful to you." "well, perhaps so; but i don't see what they have to do with the umbrella." "you will see in time, if you will listen to the rest of my tale. i heard in podhrágy that he went from there to abelova, so i went there too. from what i heard, i began to fear that my father was beginning to lose his senses, for he had always inclined toward melancholy. here they told us that he had bought a lot of 'angel kreutzers' (small coins, on which the crown of hungary is represented, held by two angels; they were issued in 1867, and many people wear them as amulets, and believe they bring luck) from the villagers for four kreutzers each; but later on i found i was mistaken in my surmise." "how was that? was he not yet mad?" "no, for a few days later, two young jews appeared in abelova, each bringing a bag of 'angel kreutzers,' which they sold to the villagers for three kreutzers each, though they are really worth four." "so it is possible ..." "not only possible, but certain, that the two young cheats had been told by the old man to buy up all the 'angel kreutzers' they could, and he thus became their confederate without knowing it. so it is very probable he may have been mad then, or he would have had nothing to do with the whole affair. from abelova he went through the viszoka hor forest to dólinka, but we could find out nothing about his doings, though he spent two days there. but in the next village, sztrecsnyó, the children ran after him, and made fun of him, like of the prophet elijah, and he, unfastening his pack (not the prophet elijah, but my poor father), began throwing the various articles he had for sale at them. in fifty years' time they will still remember that day in sztrecsnyó, when soap, penknives, and pencils fell among them like manna from heaven. since then it is a very common saying there: 'there was once a mad jew in sztrecsnyó.'" "bother sztrecsnyó, let us return to our subject." "i have nearly done now. in kobolnyik my poor old father was seen without his pack; in one hand he had his stick, in the other his umbrella, with which he drove off the dogs which barked at him. so in kobolnyik he still had his umbrella you see." tears were rolling down móricz's pock-marked face, his heart was quite softened at the remembrance of all these incidents. "after that we looked for a long time for traces of him, but only heard of him again in lehota. one stormy summer night he knocked at the door of the watchman's house, the last in the village, but when they saw he was a jew, they drove him away. they told me he had neither a hat nor an umbrella then, only the heavy, rough stick he used to beat us with when we were children." "now i begin to understand the drift of your remarks. you want to show that the umbrella was lost between kobolnyik and lehota." "yes." "but that proves nothing, for your father may have lost it in the wood, or among the rocks, and if any one found it, they would probably make use of it to put in the arms of a scarecrow." "no, that is not it, i know what happened. i heard it by chance, for i was not looking for the umbrella; what did i care for that! i wanted to find my father. well, among the kvet mountains i met a tinker walking beside his cart, a very chatty man he seemed to be. i asked him, as i did every one we met, if he had not seen an old jew about there lately. 'yes,' he answered, 'i saw him a few weeks ago in glogova during a downpour of rain; he was spreading an umbrella over a child on the veranda of a small house, and when he had done so he moved on.'" the lawyer sprang up hastily. "go on," he cried. "there is nothing more to tell, sir. but from the description the tinker gave me, i am sure it was my father, and, besides, glogova lies just between lehota and kobolnyik." "well, you have given me valuable information," exclaimed the lawyer, and, taking a fifty-florin note out of his pocketbook, he added: "accept this as a slight return for your kindness. good-by." and off he went like a hound which has just found the scent; over some palings he vaulted, in order to get to his cart as quickly as possible. on he raced, but as he passed the gingerbread stall, móricz müncz stood before him again. "excuse me for running after you," he exclaimed breathlessly, "but it suddenly occurred to me that i might give you a word of advice, which is this. there are a good many people from glogova here at the fair, so you really might get the crier to go round and find out if they know anything of the umbrella. if you would promise a reward for any information, in an hour's time you will have plenty, i am sure. in a small village like glogova, every one knows everything." "it is quite unnecessary," replied the lawyer, "for i am going to glogova myself. thanks all the same." "oh, sir, it is i who have to thank you; you have behaved in a princely fashion. fifty florins for such a trifle! why, i would have done it for one florin." the lawyer smiled. "and i would willingly have given a thousand, mr. müncz." and with that he walked away, past the stall where they were selling nuts, and onions tied up in strings. móricz stood gazing after him till he was out of sight. "a thousand florins!" he repeated, shaking his head. "if i had only known!" and off he went, driving his cow before him. chapter iv. the earring. from the inn opposite schramek's house lively sounds proceeded. i beg pardon, i ought to call it "hotel," at least, that is the name the inhabitants of bábaszék delighted in giving it, and the more aristocratic of them always patronized it in preference to the other inns. the gypsies from pelsöc were there, and the sound of their lively music could be heard far and wide through the open windows. handsome slovak brides in their picturesque dresses, with their pretty white headgear, and younger girls with red ribbons plaited into their hair, all run in to join the dance, and if the room is too full, late-comers take up their position in the street and dance there. but curiosity is even stronger than their love of dancing, and all at once the general hopping and skipping ceases, as jános fiala, the town-servant and crier, appears on the scene, his drum hung round his neck and his pipe in his mouth. he stops in front of the "hotel," and begins to beat his drum with might and main. what can have happened? perhaps the mayor's geese have strayed? ten or twelve bystanders begin to ply him with questions, but fiala would not for the world take his beloved pipe out of his mouth, nor would he divulge state secrets before the right moment came. so he first of all beat his drum the required number of times, and then with stentorian voice, shouted the following: "be it known to all whom it may interest, that a gold earring, with a green stone in it (how was he to know it was called an emerald?), has been lost, somewhere between the brickfield and the church. whoever will bring the same to the town hall will be handsomely rewarded." gyuri paused a moment at the sound of the drum, listened to the crier's words, and then smiled at the look of excitement on the peasant girls' faces. "i wouldn't give it back if i found it," said one. "i'd have a hairpin made of it," said another. "heaven grant me luck!" said a third, turning her eyes piously heavenward. "don't look at the sky, you stupid," said another; "if you want to find it look at the ground." but as chance would have it, some one found it who would rather not have done so, and that some one was gyuri wibra. he had only walked a few steps, when a green eye seemed to smile up at him from the dust under his feet. he stooped and picked it up; it was the lost earring with the emerald in it. how tiresome, when he was in such a hurry! why could not one of those hundreds of people at the fair have found it? but the green eye looked so reproachfully at him, that he felt he could not give way to his first impulse and throw it back into the dust, to be trampled on by the cattle from the fair. who wore such fine jewelry here? well, whoever it belonged to, he must take it to the town hall; it was only a few steps from there after all. he turned in at the entrance to the town hall, where some watering-cans hung from the walls, and a few old rusty implements of torture were exhibited (_sic transit gloria mundi!_), went up the staircase, and entered a room where the senators were all assembled round a green baize-covered table, discussing a serious and difficult question. a most unpleasant thing had happened. one of the watchmen in the liskovina wood (the property of the town) had arrived there breathlessly not long before, with the news that a well-dressed man had been found hanging on a tree in the wood; what was to be done with the body? this was what was troubling the worthy senators, and causing them to frown and pucker their foreheads. senator konopka declared that the correct thing to do was to bring the body to the mortuary chapel, and at the same time give notice of the fact to the magistrate, mr. mihály géry, so that he could tell the district doctor to dissect the body. galba shook his head. he was nothing if not a diplomat, as he showed in the present instance. he said he considered it would be best to say nothing about it, but to remove the body by night a little further on, to the so-called kvaka wood, which was in the travnik district, and let _them_ find the body. mravucsán was undecided which of the two propositions to accept. he hummed and hawed and shook his head, and then complained it was hot enough to stifle one, that he had gout in his hand, and that one leg of the senators' table was shorter than the others. this latter was soon remedied by putting some old deeds under the short leg. then they waited to see which side would have the majority, and as it turned out it was on galba's side. but the galba party was again subdivided into two factions. the strict galba faction wanted the dead man's body transported to the travnik district. the moderated galba faction, headed by andrás kozsehuba, would have been contented with merely taking down the body, and burying it under the tree; they wanted, at all costs, to prevent its being carried through the village to the cemetery, which would certainly be the case if the magistrate were informed of the circumstances. for if a suicide were carried through a place, that place was threatened with damage by hail! "superstitious rubbish!" burst out konopka. "of course, of course, mr. konopka, but who is to help it if the people are so superstitious?" asked senator fajka, of the kozsehuba faction. konopka wildly banged the table with his fat, be-ringed hand, upon which every one was quiet. "it is sad enough to hear a senator say such a thing! i can assure you, gentlemen, that the lord will not send his thunder-clouds in our direction just on account of that poor dead body. he will not punish a thousand just men because one unfortunate man has given himself to the devil, especially as the dead man himself would be the only one not hurt by the hail!" mravucsán breathed freely again at these wise words, which certainly raised one's opinion of the magistrates; he hastened to make use of the opportunity, and as once the tiny wren, sitting on the eagle's wings, tried to soar higher than the eagle, so did mravucsán try to rise above the senators. "what is true is true," he said, "and i herewith beg to call your attention to the fact that there is nothing to be feared from hail if we bring the body through the town." up sprang mr. fajka at these words. "that is all the same to us," he said; "if matters stand so, let us have hail by all means, for when once all the villagers are insured by the trieste insurance company, i see no difference whether there is hail or not. in fact, it would be better if there were some, for, if i know the villagers well, they will immediately go and insure the harvest far beyond its worth if the dead body is taken through the village. so the hail would not be such a great misfortune, but the carriage of the corpse through the village would be." he was a grand debater after all, that senator fajka, for he had again hit the right nail on the head, and at the same time enlightened the galba and the kozsehuba factions. "what a brain!" they exclaimed. the word brain reminded galba of the dissecting part of the business--per _associationem idearum_--and he at once began to discuss the point. "why dissect the man? we know who he is, for it is as plain as pie-crust that he is an agent for some insurance company, and has hanged himself here in our neighborhood in order to make people insure their harvest. it's as clear as day!" "you are mad, galba," said konopka crossly. upon which the senators all jumped up from their places, and then the noise broke forth, or, as fiala, the town-servant and crier, used to say, "they began to boil the town saucepan," and every eye was fixed on the mayor, the spoon which was to skim the superfluous froth. but the mayor drew his head down into the dark blue collar of his coat, and seemed quite to disappear in it; he gnawed his mustache, and stood there helplessly, wondering what he was to say and do now, when all at once the door opened, and gyuri wibra stood before them. in spite of all folks may say, the powers above always send help at the right moment. at sight of the stranger, who, an hour or two before, had wanted to buy an old umbrella of mrs. müncz, the mayor suddenly pushed back his chair and hurried toward him (let the senators think he had some important business to transact with the new arrival). "ah, sir," he said hurriedly, "you were looking for me, i suppose?" "if you are the mayor, yes." "of course, of course!" (who else could be mayor in bábaszék but mravucsán, he wondered?) "they have been crying the loss of an earring, and i have found it. here it is." the mayor's face beamed with delight. "now that is real honesty, sir. that is what i like. this is the first earring that has been lost since i have been in office, and even that is found. that's what i call order in the district." then turning to the senators, he went on: "it is only an hour since i sent the crier round the town, and here we have the earring. they couldn't manage that in budapest!" just then he noticed that the stranger was preparing to leave. "why, you surely don't mean to leave us already, sir? there is a reward offered for the finding of this earring." "i do not want the reward, thank you." "oh, come, don't talk like that, young man, don't run away from luck when it comes in your way. you know the story of the poor man who gave his luck away to the devil without knowing it, and how sorry he was for it afterward?" "yes, he was sorry for it," answered the lawyer, smiling, as he remembered the fable, "but i don't think we can compare this case with that." "i am sure you have no idea to whom the earring belongs?" "not the slightest. whose is it?" "it belongs to the sister of the glogova priest." gyuri screwed up his mouth doubtfully. "don't be too quick in your conclusions; just come here a minute; you won't repent it." "where am i to go?" "come into the next room." the mayor wanted to keep him there at any cost, so as to gain time before deciding as to the dead man's future. "but, my dear sir, i have important business to get through." "never mind, you must come in for a minute," and with that he opened the door and all but pushed the young man into the other room. "my dear young lady," he called out over gyuri's shoulder, "i have brought you your earring!" at these words a young girl turned from her occupation of putting cold-water bandages on the shoulder of an elderly lady, lying on a sofa. gyuri was not prepared for this apparition, and felt as confused and uncomfortable as though he had committed some indiscretion. the elder woman, partly undressed, was lying on a sofa, her wounded right shoulder (a remarkably bony one) was bare. the young man at the door stammered some apology, and turned to go, but mravucsán held him back. "don't go," he said, "they won't bite you!" the young girl, who had a very pretty attractive face, hastened to throw a cloak over her companion, and sprang up from her kneeling position beside the lady. what a figure she had! it seemed to gyuri as though a lily, in all its simple grandeur, had risen before him. "this gentleman has found your earring, and brought it you back, my dear." a smile broke over her face (it was as though a ray of sunlight had found its way into the mayor's dark office), she blushed a little, and then made a courtesy, a real schoolgirl courtesy, awkward, and yet with something of grace in it. "thank you, sir, for your kindness. i am doubly glad to have found it, for i had given up all idea of ever seeing it again." and taking it in her hand she gazed at it lovingly. she was a child still, you could see it in every movement. gyuri felt he ought to say something, but found no suitable words. this child disconcerted him, but there was something delightful in her artless manner which quite charmed him. there he stood, helpless and speechless, as though he were waiting for something. was it the reward he wanted? the silence was getting painful, and the position awkward. at last the girl saw that the young man did not move, so she broke the silence. "oh dear! i had nearly forgotten in my delight that i had offered ... i mean ... how am i to say it?" it now occurred to gyuri that she was offering him the reward, so he thought it time to make known his name. "i am dr. wibra," he said, "from besztercebánya." "oh, how lucky!" exclaimed the girl, clapping her hands gleefully. "we are just in want of a doctor for poor madame." this little misunderstanding was just what was wanted. gyuri smiled. "i am very sorry, my dear young lady; i am not a doctor of medicine, but a doctor of law." the young girl looked disappointed at this announcement, and blushed a little at her mistake; but mravucsán was quite excited. "what's that i hear? you are young wibra, the noted lawyer? well, that is nice! who would have thought it? now i understand. of course, you are here to try and find out particulars about one of your cases. i might have thought of it when i met you at mrs. müncz's. of course a gentleman like you must have some special reason for buying an old umbrella. well, the fates must have sent you here now, for we are discussing such a very difficult question in the next room, that our minds are too small for it. how strange, miss veronica, that your earring should be found by such a renowned lawyer." veronica stole a look at the "renowned lawyer," and noticed for the first time how handsome he was, and how gentlemanly, and her heart began to beat at the thought that she had nearly offered him the five florins reward. mravucsán hastened to offer the lawyer a chair, and cast an anxious look round his office, and remarked with horror what an untidy state it was in; deeds lying about everywhere, coats and cloaks, belonging to the senators, empty glasses and bottles, for they were in the habit of drinking a glass now and then when they had settled some particularly important business, which was quite right of them, for the truth that emanated from them must be replaced by a fresh supply, and as the hungarians say: "there is truth in wine." the sight of that office would really have discouraged mr. mravucsán if his eye had not at that moment fallen on the portrait of baron radvánszky, the lord lieutenant of the county, hanging on the wall in front of him. that, after all, lent some distinction to the room. he wished from his heart that the baron were there in person to see what an illustrious guest they were harboring. but as the baron was not present, he felt it devolved on him to express his satisfaction at the fact. "i am a poor man," he said, "but i would not accept a hundred florins in place of the honor that is done to my poor office to-day. it is worth something to have the most renowned lawyer in the county, and the prettiest young lady ..." "oh, mr. mravucsán!" exclaimed veronica, blushing furiously. "well," said mravucsán, "what's true is true. one need not be ashamed of being pretty. i was good-looking myself once, but i was never ashamed of it. besides, a pretty face is of great use to one, isn't it, mr. wibra?" "yes, it is a very lucky thing," answered gyuri quickly. mravucsán shook his head. "let us simply say it is a great help, for luck can easily turn to misfortune, and misfortune to luck, as was the case now, for if it had not been for to-day's accident, i should not now have the pleasure of seeing you all here." "what is that?" asked gyuri. "an accident?" veronica was going to answer, but that talkative mayor put in his word again. "yes, there was an accident, but in a short time there will be no traces of it, for the earring is here, madame's shoulder is here, it will be blue for some days, but what the devil does that matter, it is not the color makes the shoulder. and the carriage will be all right, too, when the smith has mended it." "so those horses that were running away with a broken carriage...?" "were ours," said veronica. "they took fright near the brickfield, the coachman lost his hold of the reins, and when he stooped to gather them up, he was thrown out of the carriage. in our fright we jumped out too. i did not hurt myself, but poor madame struck her shoulder on something. i hope it will be nothing serious. does it hurt very much, madame krisbay?" madame opened her small yellow eyes, which till then had been closed, and the first sight that met them was veronica's untidy hair. "smooth your hair," she said in french in a low voice, then groaned once or twice, and closed her eyes again. veronica, greatly alarmed, raised her hand to her head, and found that one of her plaits was partly undone. "oh, my hair!" she exclaimed. "the hairpins must have fallen out when i jumped out of the carriage. what am i to do?" "let down the other plait," advised mravucsán. "that's it, my dear; it is much prettier so, isn't it, wibra?" "much prettier," answered gyuri, casting an admiring glance at the two black, velvety plaits, with a lovely dark bluish tinge on them, which hung nearly down to the edge of her millefleurs skirt. so that was the priest's sister. he could hardly believe it, for he had imagined a fat, waddling, red-faced woman, smelling of pomade. that is what parish priests' sisters are generally like. the lawyer thought it was time to start a conversation. "i suppose you were very frightened?" "not very; in fact, i don't think i was startled at all. but now i begin to fear my brother will be anxious about me." "the priest of glogova?" "yes. he is very fond of me, and will be so anxious if we do not return. and yet i hardly know how we are to manage it." "well," said mravucsán, consolingly, "we have the horses, and we will borrow a cart from some one." veronica shuddered and shook her head. "with those horses? never again!" "but, my dear young lady, you must never take horses seriously, they have no real character. you see, this is how it was. near the brickfield there is that immense windmill, for of course every town must have one. the world is making progress, in spite of all senator fajka says. well, as i said, there is the windmill. i had it built, for every one made fun of us because we had no water in the neighborhood. so i make use of the wind. of course, the horses don't understand that; they are good mountain horses, and had never seen a beast with such enormous wings, turning in the air, so of course they were frightened and ran away. you can't wonder at it. but that is all over now, and they will take you quietly home." "no, no, i'm afraid of them. oh, how dreadful they were! if you had only seen them! i won't go a step with them. as far as i am concerned, i could walk home, but poor madame krisbay ..." "now that would be a nice sort of thing to do," remarked mravucsán. "fancy my allowing my best friend's little sister to walk all the way home with those tiny feet of hers! how she would stumble and trip over the sharp stones in the mountain paths! and his reverence would say: 'my friend mravucsán is a nice sort of fellow to let my sister walk home, after all the good dinners and suppers i have given him.' why, i would rather take you home on my own back, my dear, right into glogova parish!" veronica looked gratefully at mravucsán, and gyuri wondered, if it came to the point, would mravucsán be able to carry out his plan, or would he have to be carried himself. the mayor was an elderly man, and looked as though he were breaking up. he found himself glancing curiously at the old gentleman, measuring his strength, the breadth of his chest, and of his shoulders, as though the most important fact now were, who was to take veronica on his back. he decided that mravucsán was too weak to do it, and smiled to himself when he discovered how glad this thought made him. mravucsán's voice broke in upon his musings. "well, my dear," he was saying, "don't you worry yourself about it; take a rest first, and then we will see what is to be done. of course it would be better to have other horses, but where are we to get them from? no one in bábaszék keeps horses, we only need oxen. i myself only keep oxen. for a mountain is a mountain, and horses are of no use there, for they can, after all, only do what an ox can, namely, walk slowly. you can't make a grand show here with horses, and let them gallop and prance about, and toss their manes. this is a serious part, yes, i repeat it, a serious part. the chief thing is to pull, and that is the work of an ox. a horse gets tired of it, and when it knows the circumstances it loses all pleasure in life, and seems to say: 'i'm not such a fool as to grow for nothing, i'll be a foal all my life.' and the horses round about here are not much bigger than a dog, and are altogether wretched-looking." he would have gone on talking all night, and running the poor horses down to the ground, if gyuri had not interrupted him. "but i have my dog-cart here, miss veronica, and will take you home with pleasure." "will you really," exclaimed mravucsán. "i knew you were a gentleman. but why on earth didn't you say so before?" "because you gave me no chance to put in a word edgeways." "that is true," laughed mravucsán good-humoredly. "so you will take them?" "of course, even if i were not going to glogova myself." "are you really going there?" asked veronica, surprised. "yes." she looked at him thoughtfully for a minute, and then said: "don't try to deceive us." gyuri smiled. "on my word of honor, i intended going to glogova. shall we all go together?" veronica nodded her head, and was just going to clap her hands like the child she was, when madame began to move on the sofa, and gave a deep sigh. "oh dear," said veronica, "i had quite forgotten madame. perhaps after all i can't go with you." "and why not? the carriage is big enough, there will be plenty of room." "yes, but may i?" "go home? who is to prevent it?" "why, don't you know?" "what?" asked gyuri, surprised. "why, etiquette, of course," she said shyly. (gyuri smiled. oh, what a little simpleton she was!) "yes, yes," she assured them, seeing they were laughing at her, "it says in the book on etiquette: 'you must not accept the arm of a stranger.'" "but a carriage is not an arm," burst out mravucsán. "how could it be? if it were, i should have two carriages myself. my dear child, leave etiquette to look after itself. in bábaszék i decide what is etiquette, not the french mamselles. and _i_ say a carriage is not an arm, so there's an end of it." "of course you are right, but all the same, i must speak to madame about it." "just as you like, my dear." veronica again knelt down by the sofa, and a whispered conversation ensued, the result of which was, as gyuri understood from the few words he could hear, that madame quite shared mravucsán's view of the case, that a carriage is not an arm, and that if two people have been introduced to each other, they are not strangers, and consequently, in madame krisbay's opinion, they ought to accept the young man's offer. besides, in times of danger there is no such thing as etiquette. beautiful blanche montmorency on the occasion of a fire was saved by the marquis privadière with nothing on but her nightgown, and yet the tower of notre dame is still standing! gyuri felt as impatient as a card-player when the cards are being dealt, and a large stake has been placed on one of them, until at length veronica turned round. "we shall be very thankful if you will take us in your carriage," she said, smiling, as she was sure blanche montmorency would have done under the same conditions. gyuri received the announcement with delight. "i will go and see after the carriage," he said, taking up his hat. but mravucsán stood in his way. "oh, no, you don't," he said. "_pro primo_, even if veronica can go, i am sure madame krisbay cannot start yet; it would be a sin to make her drive now; she must rest a bit first, after her fright and her bruises. if my wife puts some of her wonderful plaster on it to-night, she'll be perfectly well in the morning. _pro secundo_, you can't go because i won't allow you to. _pro tertio_, because it is getting dark. please look out of the window." he was right; the sun had disappeared behind the dark blue lines of the zólyom hills, and the fir-trees in front of the town hall cast their long shadows down the road, right up to the mravucsán garden, where a lean cat was performing its evening ablutions among the oleanders. all the same gyuri began to plead (it was part of his business). "it will be a quiet, warm night," he said. "why should we not start? after all it can make no difference to madame whether she groans in bed or in the carriage." "but it will be dark," objected mravucsán, "and there are some very bad bits of road between here and glogova, and two or three precipices. in spite of my being mayor, i cannot order moonlight for you." "we don't need it; we can light the lamps." veronica seemed undecided, and glanced from one to the other of the gentlemen, till at length mravucsán put in the finishing touch. "there will be a storm to-night, for there is the dead body of a man hanging on a tree in the wood you have to pass through." veronica shuddered. "i would not go through that wood by night for anything," she exclaimed. that settled the question. gyuri bowed, and received a bright smile in return, and mravucsán rushed into the next room, and told konopka to take his place (oh, his delight at getting rid of his responsibility!), as he had visitors, and had no time to think of other things; and then he whispered in the ears of some of the senators (those who had on the best coats) that he would be pleased to see them to supper. then off he trotted home, to announce the arrival of visitors, and give orders for their reception. on the staircase he caught sight of fiala, and sent him to tell wibra's coachman, who was waiting with the dog-cart outside mrs. müncz's shop, to go and put up in his courtyard. after a few minutes, mrs. mravucsán appeared at the town hall to take the ladies home with her. she was a short, stout, amiable woman, whose broad, smiling face spoke of good temper and kindheartedness. she was dressed like all women of the middle class in that part, in a dark red skirt and black silk apron, and on her head she wore a black silk frilled cap. she entered the room noisily, as such simple village folks do. "well, i never!" she exclaimed. "mravucsán says you are going to be our guests. is it true? what an honor for us! but i knew it, i felt it, for last night i dreamed a white lily was growing out of my basin, and this is the fulfilment of the dream. well, my dear, get all your things together, and i'll carry them across, for i'm as strong as a bear. but i forgot to tell you the most important thing, which i really ought to have said at the beginning: i am mrs. mravucsán. oh, my dear young lady, i should never have thought you were so pretty! holy virgin! now i understand her sending down an umbrella to keep the rain off your pretty face! so the poor lady is ill, has hurt her shoulder? well, i've got a capital plaster we'll put on it; come along. don't give way, my dear, it has to be borne. why, i had a similar accident once, mravucsán was driving too. we fell into a ditch, and two of my ribs were broken, and i've had trouble with my liver ever since. such things will happen now and then. does it hurt you very much?" "the lady does not speak slovak," said veronica, "nor hungarian." "good gracious!" exclaimed mrs. mravucsán, clasping her hands. "so old, and can't even speak hungarian! how is that?" and veronica was obliged to explain that madame had come direct from munich to be her companion, and had never yet been in hungary; she was the widow of a french officer, she added, for mrs. mravucsán insisted on having full particulars. they had received a letter from her the day before yesterday, saying she was coming, and veronica had wanted to meet her at the station. "so that is how it is. and she can't even speak slovak nor hungarian! poor unhappy woman! and what am i to do with her?--whom am i to put next her at table?--how am i to offer her anything? well, it will be a nice muddle! luckily the schoolmaster can speak german, and perhaps the young gentleman can too?" "don't you worry about that, mrs. mravucsán, i'll amuse her at supper, and look after her wants," answered gyuri. with great difficulty they got ready to go, madame krisbay moaning and groaning as they tried to dress her, after having sent gyuri into the passage. mrs. mravucsán collected all the shawls, rugs, and cloaks, and hung them over her arm. "we will send the servant for the lady's box," she said. then she made madame lean on her, and they managed to get her downstairs. madame was complaining, half in french, half in german, and the mayor's wife chatted continually, sometimes to the young couple walking in front, sometimes to madame, who, with her untidy hair, looked something like a poor sick cockatoo. "this way, this way, my dear young lady. that is our house over there. only a few more steps, my dear madame. oh, the dog won't bite you. go away, garam! we shall be there directly. you will see what a good bed i will give you to sleep in to-night; such pillows, the softest you can imagine!" it made no difference to her that madame krisbay did not understand a word of what she was saying. many women talk for the sake of talking. why should they not? they are probably afraid a spider might spin its web before their mouth. "it hurts you, does it not? but it will hurt still more to-morrow; that is always the way with a bruise of that kind. why, you will feel it in two weeks' time." then, casting a sly glance at the pair walking in front: "they make a handsome couple, don't they?" it was not far to the mravucsáns' house, and it would have been nearer still if there had not been an immense pool of water just in front of the town hall, to avoid which they had to go a good bit out of their way. but this pool was a necessity, for all the geese and ducks in the village swam on it, the pigs came and wallowed in the mud round it, and last, but not least, the firemen took their water from here in case of fire. oh, i forgot to say that all the frogs from the whole neighborhood had taken up their abode in it, and gave splendid concerts to the villagers. so, as i said before, they needed the pool and gladly put up with its presence, and it was considered common property. once a civil engineer had been sent there by the county authorities, and he had called their attention to the fact that the pool ought to be filled up; but they just laughed at him, and left it as it was. so now they had to go right round the pool to the "hotel," which strangers always named the "frozen sheep," in reference to the story i mentioned before. the gypsies were still playing inside, and outside several couples were turning in time to music, and some peasants were standing about drinking their glass of "pálinka" (a kind of brandy), while a wagoner from zólyom sat alone at a table drinking as hard as he could. he was already rather drunk, and was keeping up a lively conversation all by himself, gazing now and then with loving eyes at the lean horse harnessed to his cart, and which, with drooping head, was awaiting his master's pleasure to move on. "my neighbor says," philosophized the wagoner aloud, "that my horse is not a horse. and why is it not a horse, pray? it was a horse in the time of kossuth! what? it can't draw a load? of course not, if the load is too heavy. it is thin, is it? of course it is thin, for i don't give it any oats. why don't i give it any? why, because i have none, of course. what's that you say? the other day it couldn't drag my cart? no, because the wheel was stuck in the mud. my neighbor is a great donkey, isn't he?" upon which, up he got, and stumbled over to the dancers, requesting them to give their opinion as to whether his neighbor was a donkey or not. they got out of his way, so, like a mad dog, which sees and hears nothing, the wagoner rushed upon madame krisbay. "is mine a horse, or is it not?" madame was frightened, and the smell of brandy, which emanated from the good man, made her feel faint. "_mon dieu!_" she murmured, "what a country i have come to!" but mrs. mravucsán, gentle as she was generally, could also be energetic if necessary. "i don't know if yours is a horse or not," she said, "but i can tell you you're a drunken beast!" and with that she gave him a push which sent him rolling over on his back. he lay there murmuring: "my neighbor says my horse is blind in one eye. nonsense! he can see the road just as well with one eye as with two." then up he got, and began to follow them, and madame krisbay, leaving go of mrs. mravucsán's arm, and in her fright forgetting her wounded shoulder, took to her heels and ran. the dancers seeing her went into fits of laughter at the pair of thin legs she showed. "how on earth can she run so fast with such thin legs?" they asked each other. still more surprised were veronica and gyuri (who had seen nothing of the incident with the wagoner); they could not imagine why the sick woman was running at the top of her speed. "madame! madame! what is the matter?" she gave no answer, only rushed to the mravucsáns' house, where she again had a fright at the sight of three enormous watch-dogs, who received her with furious barks. she would have fallen in a faint on the floor, but at that moment mravucsán appeared on the scene to receive his guests, so she fell into his arms instead. the good mayor just held her quietly, with astonished looks, for he had never yet seen a fainting woman, though he had heard they ought to be sprinkled with water, but how was he to go for water? then he remembered he had heard that pinching was a good remedy, that it would, in fact, wake a dead woman; but in order to pinch a person, she must have some flesh, and madame krisbay had nothing but bones. so he waited with christian patience till the others arrived on the scene, and then gave her up to their tender mercies. "phew!" he breathed, "what a relief!" intellectual society in bábaszék part iv chapter i. the supper at the mravucsáns' i am not fond of drawing things out to too great a length, so will only give a short description of the mravucsáns' supper, which was really excellent, and if any one were discontented, it could only have been madame krisbay, who burned her mouth severely when eating of the first dish, which was lamb with paprika. "oh," she exclaimed, "something is pricking my throat!" but the pudding she found still less to her taste (a plain paste rolled out very thin, and cut into squares, boiled and served up with curds and whey, and small squares of fried bacon). "_mon dieu!_" she said, "it looks like small bits of wet linen!" poor mrs. mravucsán was inconsolable at her guest's want of appetite. "it is such a disgrace for me," she said. then it occurred to her to offer her some of her preserved fruit, and to this madame seemed to take a fancy, for she finished up the dish, and in proportion as her hunger was appeased, her liking for her surroundings increased. she had the lutheran clergyman, sámuel rafanidesz, on her right, and the schoolmaster, teofil klempa, on her left, and to them was deputed the task of entertaining the unfortunate foreigner. their invitations had been put in this form: "you _must_ come, for there is to be a german lady at supper, whom you are to entertain." and they did all they could to prove to the rest of the company how much at ease they were in good german society. madame krisbay seemed very contented with her neighbors, especially when she discovered that the rev. sámuel rafanidesz was a bachelor. what! did clergymen marry there? (perhaps, after all, she had not come to such a bad country!) the schoolmaster was a much handsomer man, but he was older, and was, besides, married. he had an intelligent face, and a long, flowing black beard; he had, too, a certain amount of wit, which he dealt out in small portions. madame krisbay smiled at his sallies. poor woman! she would have liked to have laughed at them, but did not dare to, for her throat was still burning from the effects of that horrid paprika. now and then her face (which was otherwise like yellow wax) got quite red from the efforts she made to keep from coughing, which, besides being the forerunner of old age, she also considered very demeaning. "don't mind us, my dear," called out the mayor's wife, "cough away as much as you like. a cough and poverty cannot be hidden." madame began to feel more and more at home, for, as it turned out, the clergyman had been at school at munich, and could tell a lot of anecdotes of his life there, in the munich dialect, much to madame's delight. the rev. sámuel rafanidesz did not belong to the stiff, unpleasant order of clergymen, and there was a slovak sentence composed by teofil klempa, often repeated by the good people of bábaszék, which bore reference to him, and which, if read backward, gave his name: "szedi na fare, rafanidesz" ("stay in your parish, rafanidesz".) but he never took this advice, and had already been sent away from one living (somewhere in nográd) because of an entanglement with some lady in the parish. mrs. mravucsán knew the whole story, and even the lady, a certain mrs. bahó. she must have been a silly woman, for it was she herself who let the cat out of the bag, to her own husband too; and she was not a beauty either, as we can see from mrs. mravucsán's words: "rafanidesz was a fool. you should never ask a kiss from an ugly woman, nor a loan from a poor man, for they immediately go and boast of it." thus mrs. mravucsán. it is true she added: "but if any one were to call me as a witness, i should deny the whole thing." so you see, i can't stand good for the truth of it either. but that is neither here nor there. madame krisbay certainly enjoyed the company of her two neighbors, and those gentlemen soon raised the whole country in her estimation. but it was lucky she understood no slovak, and could not hear the conversation carried on by the intelligence of bábaszék. of course they were clever people too, in their way, and veronica often smiled at the jokes made, for they were all new to her, though the natives of bábaszék knew them all by heart; for instance, the rich butcher, pál kukucska, always got up when the third course was on the table, and drank to his own health, saying: "long life to my wife's husband!" it would really be waste of time to try and describe the supper, for nothing of any real importance happened. they ate, they drank, and then they went home. perhaps they spoke of important matters? not they! only a thousand trifles were discussed, which it would be a pity to put in print; and yet the incidents of that supper were the talk of bábaszék for weeks after. for instance, mr. mravucsán upset a glass of wine with the sleeve of his coat, and while they were wiping it up, and strewing salt on the stain, senator konopka, turning to the lady of the house, exclaimed: "that means a christening, madam!" of course mrs. mravucsán blushed, but veronica asked in a most innocent tone: "how can you know that?" (she was either a goose, that young girl, or she was a good actress.) now who was to answer her with a face as innocent as the blessed virgin's must have been when she was a girl in short frocks? they all looked at each other, but luckily the forester's wife, mrs. wladimir szliminszky, came to the rescue with this explanation: "you see, my dear, the stork which brings the children generally lets one know beforehand, and the knocking over a glass is one of the signs it gives." veronica thought for a bit, and then shook her head unbelievingly. "but i saw the gentleman knock the glass over himself," she objected. to this mrs. szliminszky had no answer ready, so, according to her usual custom, she turned to her husband and began worrying him. "wladin, cut the fat off that meat." wladin frowned. "but, my dear, that is just the best bit." "never mind, wladin, i can't allow it. your health is the first consideration." and wladin obediently cut off the fat bits. "why is your coat unbuttoned? don't you feel how cold it is? button it up at once, wladin." the forester did as he was told, and with the pleasant feeling of having done his duty, turned his attention to his plate again. "not another bit, wladin, you've had enough. we don't want you to dream of bulls to-night." wladin obediently put down his knife and fork, and prepared to drink a glass of water. "give it me first," cried his wife excitedly. "i want to see that it is not too cold." wladin handed over his glass of water. "you may drink a little of it, but not too much. stop, stop, that will do!" poor wladin! he was a martyr to conjugal love! for sixteen years he had suffered under this constant thoughtfulness, and though he was a strong man when he married, and had never been ill since, yet every minute of his life he expected some catastrophe; for, through constant warnings, the unfortunate pole had worked himself up to the belief that a current of air or a drop of water could be disastrous to him. he felt that nature had bad intentions toward him. "take care, wladin, or the dog will bite your foot!" one of the watch-dogs was under the table gnawing at a bone he had possessed himself of, and a little farther off the cat was looking on, longingly, as much as to say: "give me some of that superfluous food." now began the so-called "amabilis confusio." every one spoke at once, and every one about a different subject. the senators had returned to the important question of the corpse hanging in the wood; mrs. mravucsán complained that no one was eating anything, and looked as wretched as she could. each one drank to the other's health, and during the quiet moment that followed, a voice was heard: "oh, wladin, wladin!" it was mrs. szliminszky's voice; she evidently objected to her husband drinking, and her neighbor, mr. mokry, the lawyer's clerk, objected to her constant distractions, in spite of the interesting theme they were discussing. "that strong cigar will harm you, wladin; you had better put it down. well, and why did you go to besztercebánya, mr. mokry?" "i had a lot to do there, but, above all, i bought the suit i have on." he looked admiringly at his dark blue suit for about the hundredth time that evening. "it is a very nice suit. what did you pay for it?" "i had it made to measure at klener's, and went to try it on myself." "what was the price?" "it is real gács cloth, and quite impervious to rain; you should see it by daylight!" "yes, of course, but what did it cost?" asked the polish lady, her thoughts still occupied with her husband. "i saw the piece of cloth myself; this was the first length cut off it. it has a peculiar look in the sunlight." "yes, yes; but i asked the price of it." but it was difficult to bring mokry to think of other things when he was once launched on the subject of his new suit. "klener has a tailor working for him, a certain kupek, who used to work at one of the court tailors' in vienna, and he said to me: 'don't grudge the money, mr. mokry, for this is such a durable stuff that your own skin will wear out first.' please feel it." "it's as soft as silk. wladin, my dear, i think you had better change places with me. you are in a draught there each time the door is opened. what are you making such a face for? you surely don't mean to argue with me? over you come now!" the beloved martyr changed places with his wife, and now mrs. szliminszky was on the opposite side of the table, next to wibra; but he was entirely taken up with veronica, who was chattering to her heart's content. the clever young man, of whom it was said he would once be the first lawyer in besztercebánya, was listening to the girl with as much attention as though a bishop were speaking, and would not for a moment have taken his eyes off her. they spoke quietly, as though they were discussing very important questions, though they were in reality speaking of the most innocent things. what did veronica do at home? she read a good deal, and took long walks. what did she read, and where did she walk? and veronica gave the titles of some books. gyuri had read them all too, and they began exchanging notes regarding some of them, such as "elemér the eagle," "iván berend," "aranka béldi." gyuri considered pál béldi very stupid for not accepting the title of prince when it was offered him. veronica thought it was better he had not done so, for if he had, the novel would never have been written. then gyuri began to question her about glogova. was it very dull? veronica looked at him, surprised. how could glogova be dull? it was as though some ignorant person had asked if paris were dull. "is there a wood there?" "a beautiful one." "do you ever go there?" "of course." "are you not afraid?" "afraid of what?" "well, you know, woods sometimes have inhabitants one might be afraid of." "oh, but the inhabitants of our woods are more afraid of me than i of them." "can any one be afraid of you?" "oh, yes they are, because i catch them." "the robbers?" "don't be so silly, or i shall be cross!" "i should like to see what you look like when you are cross." "well, i shall be if you talk such rubbish again. i catch butterflies in the wood." "are there pretty butterflies there? i had a collection when i was a student; i believe i have it still." at this a desire for rivalry seized hold of veronica. "you should see my collection," she said. "i have all kinds. tigers, admirals, apollos; only, it is such a pity, my apollo has lost one of its wings." "have you a hebe?" "oh, yes, it is nearly as big as the palm of my hand." "and how big is that? let me see it." veronica spread out her hand on the table; it was not so very big after all, but fine and pink as a roseleaf. gyuri took a match and began to measure it, and in doing so, accidentally touched her hand with his finger, upon which she hastily drew it away and blushed furiously. "it is very hot," she said, putting up her hand to her hot face, as though she had drawn it away for that purpose. "yes, the room has got quite hot," broke in mrs. szliminszky. "unbutton your coat, wladin!" wladin heaved a sigh of relief, and undid his coat. veronica returned to the subject of the butterflies. "i think butterfly catching must be the same to me as hunting is to a man." "i am very fond of butterflies," answered gyuri, "because they only love once." "oh, i have another reason for liking them." "perhaps because of their mustaches?" veronica turned her head away impatiently. "mr. wibra, you are beginning to be unpleasant." "thank you for the compliment." "what compliment?" "you say i am beginning to be unpleasant, which is as much as to say i was pleasant till now." "i see it is dangerous to talk with you, for you put words into my mouth i never intended saying. i shall not speak again." "i'll never do it again, never, i assure you. only do talk," pleaded gyuri. "do the butterflies really interest you?" "upon my honor, they interest one more at this moment than lions and tigers." "i think butterflies are so pretty--like a beautifully dressed woman. and what tasteful combinations of color! i always look at their wings as though they were so many patterns of materials. for instance, look at a hebe, with its black and red under-wings, do not they match beautifully with the yellow and blue-top wings! and then the tiger, with its brown and yellow-spotted dress! believe me, the renowned worth might with advantage take a walk in the woods, and learn the art of combining shades from the butterflies." "gently, wladin!" called out mrs. szliminszky at this moment. "how many lungs have you? a three-kreutzer stamp is sufficient for local letters." wladin and senator fajka were wondering how matters would stand if they were both very deaf, and wladin was talking so loudly that his loving spouse felt bound to put in a word of remonstrance, and request him to have some respect for his lungs. "they are quite close to each other, and yet they shout as though they were trying to persuade some one not to put a fifteen-kreutzer stamp on a local letter. oh dear! when will people be more sensible?" at that moment, senator konopka rose and drank to the health of the host, the "regenerator" of bábaszék. he spoke in exactly the same thin, piping voice as mr. mravucsán; when the guests closed their eyes, they really believed the master of the house himself was speaking, and sounding his own praises; of course this caused great amusement. upon that up sprang the mayor, and answered the toast in konopka's voice, with just the same grimaces and movements he always made, and the merriment rose in proportion. kings do this too in another form, for at meetings and banquets they pay each other the compliment of dressing up in each other's uniforms; and yet no one thinks of laughing at them. toast succeeded toast. "you have let the dogs loose now," whispered fajka to konopka. mokry drank to the health of the lady of the house, and then mravucsán stood up a second time to return thanks in his wife's name. he remarked that, to their great disappointment, one of those invited had been unable to come, namely, mrs. müncz, who had at the last moment had an attack of gout in her foot, which was no wonder, considering the amount of standing and running about she did when there was a fair in their town. then they all emptied their glasses to the health of the old jewess. after the shouts of acclamation had died away, wladin szliminszky called out: "now it is my turn!" "wladin, don't make a speech!" cried his wife. "you know it is bad for your lungs to speak so loud." but she could do nothing now to prevent him; a henpecked husband is capable of everything; he will button or unbutton his coat, eat or drink to order, but refrain from making the speech his brain has conceived he will not; at least, it has never yet been heard of in the annals of hungarian history. "i take up my glass, gentlemen, to drink to the fairest flower of the company, beloved by god, who on one occasion sent down his servant from heaven, saying: 'go down at once, peter, with an umbrella; don't let the child get wet.' long life to miss veronica bélyi!" veronica was as red as a rose, especially when the guests all got up one after the other, and went and kissed her hand; some of them even knelt to do it, and pious mrs. mravucsán bent down and kissed the hem of her dress. gyuri thought at first on hearing wladin's peculiar speech that the good man had gone mad, and now seeing every one following his example, was more surprised than ever, and a strange feeling crept over him. "what miracle is it your husband is referring to?" he asked, turning to mrs. szliminszky. that good lady looked at him surprised. "what! don't you know the story? why, it is impossible. it is even printed in slovak verse." "what is printed?" "why, the story of the umbrella ... wladin, you are very hot, your face is the color of a boiled lobster. shall i give you my fan?" "what about the umbrella?" queried gyuri impatiently. "it is really strange you have never heard anything about it. well, the story runs, that when your fair neighbor was a little child, they once left her out on the veranda of the priest's house. her brother, the priest of glogova, was in the church praying. a storm came on, it poured in torrents, and the child would have been wet through and have got inflammation of the lungs, or something of the kind, if a miracle had not taken place. an old man appeared on the scene, no one knows from where; he seemed to have fallen from heaven, and he spread an umbrella over the child's head." "my umbrella!" burst unconsciously from the lawyer. "what did you say?" "nothing, nothing." his blood coursed more quickly through his veins, his heart beat faster, he raised his head quickly, with the result that he also knocked his glass over. "a christening, another christening!" called out every one. "my best wishes," said mr. rafanidesz, turning to mrs. szliminszky, who blushed becomingly and told him not to talk nonsense. but the young lawyer would not let her continue the conversation; he drew his chair nearer to hers, and said: "please go on." "well, the gray-haired man disappeared, no one knew how nor where, and those who saw him for a moment swore it was st. peter." "it was müncz!" "did you speak?" gyuri bit his lip, and saw that he had spoken his thoughts aloud. "nothing, nothing; please go on." "well, st. peter disappeared, and left the umbrella behind him." "and does it still exist?" "i should think it does indeed. they keep it as a relic in the church of glogova." "thank god!" he drew a deep breath, as though a great weight had fallen from him. "found!" he murmured. he thought he would have fallen from his chair in his joy. "and to whom does it belong? to the church?" asked gyuri. "it may be yours once," said mrs. szliminszky. "it will be veronica's when she marries; the priest of glogova told me so himself. 'it will belong to my sister,' he said, 'unless she makes a present of it to the church when she marries.'" "oh, no," said the lawyer, shaking his head. "at least, i mean ... what am i saying? what were we speaking about? it is fearfully warm, i'm stifling. please, mr. mravucsán, could we have the window open?" "of course," and the mayor ran to open it. "button up your coat, wladin!" a fresh spring air entered by the window, and a slight breeze put out both the candles. "kisses allowed," called out klempa. a branch of lilac was just outside the window, and spread its delicious perfume through the room, decidedly more pleasant than the fumes of tobacco smoke which had filled it a minute before. madame krisbay, startled by the sudden darkness, gave vent to a little scream, and klempa seized the opportunity to exclaim: "i assure you it was not i!" there was a general confusion in the darkness, but mrs. szliminszky, wanting to prove she was above being troubled by such trifles, quietly continued her conversation with gyuri. "it is a pretty little legend, mr. wibra. i am not easily imposed upon, and, besides, we are lutherans; but i must say it is a very pretty legend. but the umbrella is really wonderful. sick people are cured if they stand under it; a dead man rose to life again when it touched him. it is of no use your shaking your head, for it is true. i know the man himself, he is still alive. altogether the things that umbrella has done are wonderful, especially the fact that it has brought luck and riches to the priest of glogova." a dark suspicion took possession of gyuri, and when the candles were relighted, it was to be seen he was as pale as death. "is the priest rich?" he asked. "very rich," answered mrs. szliminszky. he drew nearer to her, and suddenly seized hold of her hand, pressing it convulsively. the good lady could not make out why. (if he had done so a minute sooner, she could have understood it, but the candles were alight now!) "he found something in the umbrella, did he not?" he asked, panting. mrs. szliminszky shrugged her white shoulders, half visible through the lace insertion of her dress. "why, what could he find in an umbrella? it is not a box, nor an iron case. but for the last fourteen years people have come from great distances to be married under the umbrella, and they pay generously for it. and then when a rich person is dying anywhere beyond the bjela voda, from the szitnya right as far as kriván, they send for the priest of glogova to hear their confession, and after their death, to bury them under the umbrella." veronica, to whom the mayor's wife had been showing the embroidered table-cloth, calling her attention to the fineness of the linen, now caught a few words of the conversation. "are you speaking of our umbrella?" she asked amiably, leaning toward them. gyuri and mrs. szliminszky started. "yes, my dear," answered the latter, slightly confused. gyuri smiled mischievously. "i see," said veronica, "you don't believe the story." "no, i do not." "really?" asked the girl reproachfully; "and why?" "because i never believe nonsense, and because ..." he had nearly said too much, but he kept back the words that rose to his lips when he saw how wounded the girl appeared at his incredulity. she smiled, turned her head away, and gazed silently at her plate. gyuri was silent too, though he felt inclined to cry out: "i am rich at last, for in the handle of that umbrella there are unknown treasures." it is remarkable that if good luck befalls a man, his first wish (for he still has wishes, even if they are all fulfilled) is to communicate it to others; he would like trumpets sounded, heralds to be sent round to announce it to the whole world. but then comes doubt, the everlasting "perhaps." and so it was with gyuri. "what is the umbrella like, miss veronica?" he asked. veronica closed her lips firmly, as though she considered it unnecessary to answer him, then thought better of it, and said: "it is not much to look at; it is of faded red stuff, looks a thousand years old, and is patched all over." "with a border of small green flowers?" "have you seen it?" "no, i only asked." "yes, there is a border of green flowers on it." "could i see it?" "certainly. do you wish to?" "that is what i am going to glogova for." "why, if you don't believe in it?" "just for that very reason. if i believed in it i should not go." "you are a heathen." she drew her chair away from him, at which he at once became serious. "have i hurt you?" he asked contritely. "no, but you frighten me," and her lovely oval face expressed disappointment. "i will believe anything you like, only don't be afraid of me." veronica smiled slightly. "it would be a shame not to believe it," struck in mrs. szliminszky, "for it is a fact--there is plenty to prove it. if you don't believe that, you don't believe anything. either the miracles in the bible are true, and if so, this is true too, or ..." but she could not finish her sentence, for at that moment madame krisbay rose from the table, saying she was tired, and would like to retire to her room, and mrs. mravucsán led her and veronica to two small rooms opening on to the courtyard. in the doorway gyuri bowed to veronica, who returned it with a slight nod. "shall we start early in the morning?" he asked. she bowed with mock humility. "as you like, mr. thomas," she said. gyuri understood the reference, and answered in the same strain: "it depends upon how long the saints sleep." veronica turned her head, and shook her fist playfully at him. "i will pay you out!" she said. gyuri could hardly take his eyes off her, she looked so pretty as she spoke. let the saints look like that if they could! soon after the szliminszky pair started for home, accompanied by a man carrying a lantern. mrs. szliminszky had made wladin put on a light spring coat, hung a long cloak over his shoulders, tied a big woollen scarf round his neck, and having ordered him only to breathe through his nose, once they were out, she turned to gyuri again. "yes, it is a beautiful legend, it made a great impression on me." "poor legends!" returned gyuri. "if we were to pick some of them to pieces, and take the romance out of them, their saintly odor, their mystery, what strange and simple truths would be left!" "well, they must not be picked to pieces, that is all. wladin, turn up the collar of your coat." the lawyer thought for a minute. "perhaps you are right," he said. after a short time gyuri also asked to be shown to his room. "the magnet has gone!" muttered the lawyer's clerk. hardly had the door closed when kukucska, the butcher, exclaimed: "now we are free!" he took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, thus showing the head of an ox tatooed on his left arm, then winked knowingly at mravucsán. the mayor seemed to understand the look, for he went to a cupboard and pulled out one of the drawers, from which he took a pack of cards. the knave of spades was missing, but that did not make any difference to the intelligent members of bábaszék society, for they had once before played "preference" with those cards, and the last player had simply received one card less when they were dealt out, though he was supposed to have the knave of spades, and it was called the "spirit card." if they were playing spades, the last player in imagination threw the knave on it, saying: "i play the spirit card!" so now, in spite of this small difficulty, they decided to play, and the game lasted till daylight. the senators, the butcher, and the clergyman played, the lawyer's clerk dealt, and klempa looked on, having no money to lose, and went from one player to the other, looking over their shoulders, and giving them advice what to play. but one after the other sent him away, declaring he brought them bad luck, which rather depressed him. so the poor schoolmaster wandered from one to the other, till at last he took a seat between the clergyman and the butcher, dropped his weary head on the table, and went to sleep, his long beard doubled up, and serving as a pillow. but he was to have a sad awakening, for that mischievous pál kukucska, seeing the beard on the table, conceived the idea of sealing it there; and fetching a candle and sealing-wax, they dropped some on the beard in three places, and mravucsán pressed his own signet ring on it. then they went on playing, until he should awake. other incidents, and not very pleasant ones either, were taking place in the house. madame krisbay, to whom the mayor's wife had given her own bedroom, would not go to bed with the enormous eider-down quilt over her, for she was afraid of being suffocated during the night. she asked for a "paplan" (a kind of wadded bed cover), but mrs. mravucsán did not possess such a thing, so she brought in her husband's enormous fur-lined cloak and threw it over madame, which so frightened the poor nervous woman that she was attacked by migraine, and the mayor's wife had to spend the night by her bed, putting horse-radish on her temples. an unpleasant thing happened to veronica too. as soon as she was alone in the mravucsáns' best bedroom, she locked the door, hung a cloak on the door-handle so that no one could look through the key-hole, drew the curtains across the tiny windows which opened on to the courtyard, and then began to undress. she had taken off the bodice of her dress and unfastened her skirt, when all at once she became aware of two bright eyes watching her intently from under the bed. it was a kitten, and it was gazing at her as intently and admiringly as though it had been a prince changed by some old witch into the form of a cat. veronica, alarmed, caught up her skirt and bodice, and put them on again. "go along, you tiresome kitten," she said; "don't look at me when i'm undressing." she was such an innocent child, she was ashamed to undress before the kitten. she dressed again, and tried to drive it out of the room, but it hid itself under the bed, then jumped on a cupboard, and it was quite impossible to get rid of it. mrs. mravucsán, hearing the noise from the next room, called out: "what is the matter, my dear?" "i can't drive the cat out." "never mind, she won't hurt you." "but she always watches me," answered veronica. she put her candle out, and began to undress in the dark, but that tiresome cat walked into the middle of the room again, and her eyes shone more than ever. "wait a bit, you curious little thing," said veronica. "i'll get the best of you yet." she made a barricade of chairs, then got inside it, as though she were in a fortress, and began to undo her boots. do you think that barricade made any impression on the kitten? not a bit of it. there she was again, on the top of the chairs, from there one jump took her on to the washing-stand, and another on to veronica's bed. there she was seized upon and a shawl bound round her head. "now, kitty, stare at me if you can!" and after that she managed to undress in peace. chapter ii. night brings counsel. while the two ladies were occupied with these trifles, and klempa with his beard sealed to the table slept the sleep of the just, gyuri had also retired to his bed, but found it impossible to sleep. it was not from indigestion, for mrs. mravucsán's excellent supper had not disagreed with him; it was his brain which was hard at work, going over all the incidents that had taken place that day. he seemed to have lived through years in the last few hours. what an age it seemed since he had looked for the umbrella in mrs. müncz's shop! and it was found quite unexpectedly. god had given it into the charge of an angel. from the umbrella his thoughts flew to the "angel." she was a nice little thing, he decided; not a bit unpleasant like other girls of that age he knew, who were thoughtless, useless creatures. veronica was an exception. and she seemed to have taken to him too. he passed again in revision all her words, her movements, and as he went on, he found among the smiles, the softened voice, the unwatched moments, certain signs of coldness here and there, as though she were putting a restraint upon herself. but he was so happy now, that he did not need the friendship of a silly girl. he was a rich man now, a nabob beginning from to-day. he would live like a prince henceforward, spend the winter in budapest, or on the riviera, in monaco, and the summer at ostend; in fact, he would be a grand gentleman, and not even look at poor priests' sisters. (how tiresome it was, his thoughts would always return to veronica.) sleep would not come, how could it be expected? one scheme after the other passed before his mind's eye, like the butterflies in the glogova woods. and he chased them all in turn. oh! if it were only daylight, and he could move on. his watch was ticking on the table beside his bed; he looked at it, the hands pointed to midnight. impossible! it must be later than that; his watch must be slow! somewhere in the distance a cock crew, as much as to say: "your watch is quite right, mr. wibra." he heard faint sounds of music proceeding from the "frozen sheep" in the distance, and some one on his way home was singing a slovak shepherd's song. gyuri lighted a cigar, and sat down to smoke it and think things over. how strangely the umbrella had been found--at least _he_ had not found it yet, it was not yet in his possession, and when he came to look at the facts, he found he was not much nearer to it than he had been. until now he had supposed it had been thrown away as a useless rag, and he had had little hope of finding it. and now, what had happened? things were quite different to what they had imagined them; for as it turned out, the umbrella was a treasure, a relic in a church. what was to be done about it? what was he to say to the priest to-morrow? "i have come for my umbrella"? the priest would only laugh at him, for, either he was bigoted and superstitious, in which case he would believe st. peter had brought the umbrella to his sister, or he was a pharisee, and in that case he would not be such a fool as to betray himself. the wind was rising, and the badly fitting windows and door of the little room that had been allotted to him were rattling, and the furniture cracked now and then. he could even hear the wind whistling through the liskovina wood, not far from the house. gyuri blew out the light and lay down again under the big eider-down quilt, and imagined he saw the corpse mr. mravucsán had spoken of, hanging from a tree, waving from side to side in the wind, and nodding its head at him, saying: "oh, yes, mr. wibra, you'll be well laughed at in the parish of glogova." the lawyer tossed about on the snow-white pillows, from which an odor of spring emanated (they had been out in the garden to air the day before). "never mind," thought he, "the umbrella is mine after all. i can prove it in a court of justice if necessary. i have witnesses. there are mr. sztolarik, mrs. müncz and her sons, the whole town of besztercebánya." then he laughed bitterly. "and yet, what am i thinking of? i can't prove it, for, after all, the umbrella does not belong to me, but to the müncz family, for the old man bought it. so only that which is in the handle belongs to me. but can i go to the priest and say: 'your reverence, in the handle of the umbrella is a check for 200,000 or 300,000 florins, please give it to me, for it belongs of right to me'?" then gyuri began to wonder what the priest would answer. he either believed the legend of the umbrella, and would then say: "go along, do! st. peter is not such a fool as to bring you a check on a bank from heaven!" or if he did look in the handle and find the receipt, he would say: "well, if he did bring it, he evidently meant it for me." and he would take it out and keep it. why should he give it to gyuri? how was he to prove it belonged to him? "supposing," thought our hero, "i were to tell him the whole story, about my mother, about my father, and all the circumstances attending his death. let us imagine he would believe it from alpha to omega; of what use would it be? does it prove that the treasure is mine? certainly not. and even if it did, would he give it to me? a priest is only a man after all. could i have a lawsuit, if he would not give it me? what nonsense! of course not. he might take the receipt out of the handle, and what proofs can i bring then that it was ever in it?" the perspiration stood on his forehead; he bit the bed-clothes in his helpless rage. to be so near to his inheritance, and yet not be able to seize hold of it! "black night, give counsel!" was gyuri's prayer. and it is best, after all, to turn to the night for help. gyuri was right to ask its advice, for it is a good friend to thought. among the golden rules should be written: "think over all your actions by night, even if you have decided by day what course to take!" for a man has night thoughts and day thoughts, though i do not know which are the better. i rather think neither kind is perfect. for daylight, like a weaver, works its colors into one's thoughts, and night covers them with its black wings. both of them paint, increase and decrease things--in one word, falsify them. night shows the beloved one more beautiful than he is, it strengthens one's enemies, increases one's troubles, diminishes one's joy. it is not kind of it; but night is sovereign, and is answerable to no one for its actions. take things as they come, but do not put aside serious thought when you are seeking the truth. though, of course, you do not really seek the truth; even if it comes to meet you, you get out of its way. i ought to have said, do not despise the night when you are trying to find the way out of a thing. night will show you what to do, without your even noticing it. if it can do it in no other way, it brings you gentle sleep, and gives you advice in dreams. after a time the wind dropped, the music at the "frozen sheep" ceased, and gyuri heard nothing but a rhythmic murmur, and all at once he seemed to be in the woods of glogova, chasing butterflies with veronica. as they ran on among the bushes, an old man suddenly appeared before them, with a golden crook, a glory round his head, and his hat hanging by a bit of string from his neck. "are you mr. wibra?" he inquired. "yes; and you?" "i am st. peter." "what do you want?" "i wish to sign a receipt for your happiness." "for my happiness?" "i see you cannot get your umbrella, and my friend gregorics has asked me to help you. so i am quite willing to sign a paper declaring that i did not give the umbrella to the young lady." "it is very good of you, but i have neither paper nor ink here. let us go back to the village." "i have no time for that; you know i have to be at the gates of heaven, and i can't stay away for long." "well, what am i to do, how am i to get my umbrella?" st. peter turned his back, and began to walk back the way he had come, but stood still beside a large oak-tree, and made a sign to gyuri to approach. gyuri obeyed. "i'll tell you what, my friend, don't think too long about it, but marry veronica, and then you will have the umbrella too." "come," said gyuri, catching hold of the golden crook. "come and ask her brother to give his permission." he pulled hard at the crook, but at that moment a strong hand seemed to pull him back, and he awoke. some one was knocking at the door. "come in," he said sleepily. it was the mravucsáns' farm-servant. "i've come for your boots," he announced. gyuri rubbed his eyes. it was day at last, the sun was smiling at him through the window. his thoughts were occupied with his dream, every incident of which was fresh in his mind. he thought he heard st. peter's voice again saying: "marry veronica, my friend, and then you will have the umbrella too." "what a strange dream," thought gyuri; "and how very much logic it contains! why, i might have thought of that solution myself!" * * * * * by the time gyuri was dressed, it was getting late, and every member of the mravucsán household was on foot. one was carrying a pail to the stables, another a sieve, and near the gate which last night's wind had partly lifted off its hinges, gyuri's coachman was examining the damage done. seeing his master advancing toward him, he took off his hat with its ostrich feathers (part of the livery of a hungarian coachman is a kind of round hat, with two ends of black ribbon hanging from it at the back, and some small ostrich tips in it). "shall i harness the horses, sir?" "i don't know yet. here, my good girl, are the ladies up?" "they are breakfasting in the garden," answered the maid he had accosted. "please walk this way." "well, then, you may harness, jános." gyuri found the ladies seated round a stone table under a large walnut-tree. they had finished breakfast, only madame was still nibbling a bit of toast. he was received with ironical smiles, and veronica called out: "here comes the early riser!" "that title belongs to me," said mravucsán, "for i have not been to bed at all. we played cards till daybreak. klempa is still asleep with his beard sealed to the table." "a nice sort of thing for grown-up folks to do!" remarked mrs. mravucsán. gyuri shook hands with them all, and veronica got up and made a deep courtesy. "good-morning, early riser," she said. "why are you staring at me so?" "i don't know how it is," stammered gyuri, gazing at the girl's beautiful face, "but you seem to me to have grown." "in one night?" "you were quite a little girl yesterday." "you appear to be dazed!" "i certainly am when i look at you." "you seem to be sleepy still. is this the time of day to get up?" the playful, gentle tone was delightful to gyuri, and he began to be quite talkative. "i fell asleep for a short time, and if the servant had not woke me, i should be asleep still. oh, if he had only waited five minutes longer!" "had you such a pleasant dream?" asked mrs. mravucsán. "will you take some coffee?" "if you please." "won't you tell us your dream?" "i was going to marry--in fact, had got as far as the proposal." "did she refuse you?" asked veronica, raising her head, the beauty of which was enhanced by the rich coronet of hair, in which she had stuck a lovely pink. "i don't know what would have happened, for at the critical moment the servant woke me." "what a pity, we shall never know how it would have turned out!" "you shall know some time." "how?" "i will tell you." "how can you do that? dreams cannot be continued from one night to another like novels in a periodical." gyuri drank his coffee, lit a cigar, and from out the cloud of smoke he replied in a mysterious voice, his eyes turned heavenward: "there are such dreams, as you will see. and how did you sleep?" thereupon mrs. mravucsán began to tell the story of veronica's adventure with the kitten. every one laughed, poor veronica was covered with blushes, and mrs. mravucsán, finding the opportunity a good one, launched upon a little lecture. "my dear child, exaggeration is never good, not even in modesty. you will have to get used to such things. what will you do when you are married? you will not be able to shut your husband out of your room." "oh, dear!" exclaimed veronica. "how can you say such dreadful things!" and she jumped up, blushing furiously, and ran away to the gooseberry-bushes, where her dress got caught, and in trying to move on, the gathers got torn. thereupon there was a rush for needle and thread, and the confusion was heightened when the carriage drove up, the two handsome black horses pawing the ground impatiently. (the lawyer's business must be a good one; he must have lied a lot to be able to buy such horses!) every member of the household had some task allotted to her. anka must wrap up the ham in a cloth, zsuzsa must run and fetch the fresh bread that had been baked for the occasion. some one else must bring knives and forks. would they like a little fruit packed in the basket? the foreign lady would be glad of something of the kind. and should she put a small pot of jam in too? "but, my dear mrs. mravucsán, we shall be at home by dinner-time!" "and supposing something happens to prevent it? you never can know." and off she went to her storeroom, while the mayor tried to persuade them to stay at least an hour longer; but it was of no use, the travellers had made up their minds to start; not even the possibility of seeing klempa wake up would induce them to change their plans. they got into the carriage, the two ladies on the back seat, and gyuri on the box with the coachman, but his face turned toward the ladies. whether he would hold out in that uncomfortable position till glogova remained to be seen. "to glogova," said gyuri to the coachman, and jános cracked his whip and the horses started, but hardly were they out of the yard, when the mayor's wife came tripping after them, calling out to them at the top of her voice to stop. they did so, wondering what had happened. but nothing serious was the matter, only mrs. mravucsán had unearthed a few apples in her storeroom, with which she filled their pockets, impressing upon them that the beautiful rosy-cheeked one was for veronica. then they started again, with a great amount of waving of handkerchiefs and hats, until the house, with its smoking chimneys and its large walnut-tree, was out of sight. as they passed mrs. müncz's shop she was standing at the door in her white cap, nodding to them with her gray head, which seemed cut into two parts by the broad-rimmed spectacles. at the smithy they were hammering away at the priest's broken chaise, and farther on various objects which had been left unsold at yesterday's fair were being packed in boxes, and then put in carts to be taken home again. they passed in turn all the tiny houses, with their brightly-painted doors, on which the names of the owners were printed in circles. at the last house, opposite the future jewish burial-ground, two pistol-shots were fired. the travellers turned their heads that way, and saw mr. mokry in his new suit, made by the noted tailor of besztercebánya, with his hat in one hand, and in the other the pistol he had fired as a farewell greeting. on the other side of the road was the dangerous windmill, its enormous sails throwing shadows over the flowering clover-fields. luckily it was not moving now, and looked like an enormous fly pinned on the blue sky. there was not a breath of wind, and the ears of wheat stood straight and stiff, like an army of soldiers. only the sound of the horses' hoofs was to be heard, and the woods of liskovina stretched before them like a never-ending green wall. the third devil part v chapter i. maria czobor's rose, the precipice, and the old pear-tree. madame krisbay was very much interested in the neighborhood they were driving through, and asked many questions. they passed a small chapel in the wood, and veronica explained that a rich innkeeper had once been killed there by robbers, and the bereaved widow had built this chapel on the spot. "perhaps out of gratitude?" suggested gyuri. "don't be so horrid," exclaimed veronica. the liskovina wood is quite like a park, with the exception that there is not much variety in the way of trees, the birch, the favorite tree of the slovaks, being predominant. but of flowers there were any amount. the ferns grew to a great height, the anthoxantum had flowered, and in its withered state filled the whole wood with its perfume. among plants, as among people, there are some which are only pleasant and agreeable to others after their death. what a difference there is in the various kinds of plants! there is the gladiolus, the most important part of which is the bulb it hides under the earth; whoever eats it dreams of the future. much simpler is the ox-eye daisy, for it will tell you without any ceremonies if the person you are thinking of loves you very much, a little, or not at all; you have only to pull off its snow-white petals one by one, and the last one tells you the truth. the wild pink provides food for the bee, the lily serves as a drinking-cup for the birds, the large dandelion is the see-saw of the butterflies. for the liskovina woods are generous, and provide beds for all kinds of insects, strawberries for children, nosegays for young girls, herbs for old women, and the poisonous aconite, which the peasants in that part called the "wolf-killer." whether it ever caused the death of a wolf is doubtful, for wolves have their fair share of sense, and probably, knowing something of botany, they tell their cubs: "don't touch the aconitum lycotinum, children; it is better to eat meat." it was delightful driving in the shady woods, though madame krisbay was alarmed each time a squirrel ran up a tree, and was in constant fear of the robbers who had killed the rich innkeeper. "why, that was eighty years ago, madame!" "well, and their sons?" she was restless till they had got clear of the wood and had come to a large barren plain, with here and there a small patch of oats, stunted in their growth. but after that they came to another wood, the far-famed "zelena hruska," in the shape of a pear. supposing robbers were to turn up there! and gyuri was just wishing for their appearance while madame was thinking with horror of them. as he sat face to face with the girl, he decided to marry her--because of the umbrella. the girl was certainly pretty, but even had she not been so, the umbrella was worth the sacrifice. st. peter had told him what to do, and he would follow his advice. superstition, at which he had laughed the day before, had taken possession of him, and made a place for itself among his more rational thoughts. he felt some invisible power pushing him on to take this step. what power was it? probably st. peter, who had advised him in his dream to take it. but how was he to set to work? that was what was troubling him the whole time. how convenient it would be if there were some romance nowadays, as in olden times or in novels; for instance, if robbers were now to appear on the scene, and he could shoot them down one after the other with his revolver, and so free veronica, who would then turn to him and say: "i am yours till death!" but as matters were at present, he did not dare to take any steps in the right direction; the words he had so well prepared seemed to stick in his throat. doubts arose in his mind; supposing she had not taken a fancy to him! supposing she were already in love! she must have seen other men besides himself, and if so, they _must_ have fallen in love with her. something ought to happen to help matters on a little. but no robbers came, there probably were none; it was a poor neighborhood, nothing grew there, not even a robber. after they had passed the wood, they saw an old castle among the trees, on the top of a hill. it was the castle of slatina, had formerly belonged to the czobors, and was now the property of the princes of coburg. they had to stop at an inn to feed the horses, and veronica proposed their going to look at the castle, of which an old man had charge; he would show them over it. the innkeeper assured them some of the rooms were just as the czobors had left them; in the court were a few old cannon, and in the house a collection of curious old armor, and some very interesting family portraits, among them that of a little girl, katalin czobor, who had disappeared from her home at the age of seven. veronica was very interested in the child. "and what happened to her?" she asked. "the poor child has never turned up to this day!" sighed the innkeeper. "and when was it she disappeared?" "about three hundred years ago," he answered with a smile, and then accompanied his guests up the mountain path that led to the castle. they were silent on their return, only madame krisbay remarking: "what a mouldy smell there was in there!" veronica had caught sight of a beautiful rose on a large bush near the half-ruined walls of the bastion. "what an exquisite flower!" she exclaimed. the old caretaker had a legend about that too. from this spot beautiful maria czobor had sprung from the walls, and thrown herself down the precipice, for her father wished her to marry an officer in the emperor's army, and she was in love with a shepherd. the latter had planted a rose-bush on this spot, and every year it bore one single blossom. gyuri dropped behind the others, and begged the old man to give him the rose. "my dear sir, what are you thinking of? why, the poor girl's spirit would haunt me if i were to do such a thing!" gyuri took out his purse and pressed two silver florins into the man's hand, upon which, without further ado, he took out his knife and cut the rose. "won't the young lady's spirit haunt you now?" asked gyuri, smiling. "no, because with part of the money i will have a mass said for the repose of her soul." gyuri ran after the ladies with the rose in his hand, and offered it to veronica. "here is maria czobor's rose," he said. "will you give me your pink in exchange?" but she put her hands behind her back, and said coldly: "how could you have the heart to pick it?" "i did it for your sake. will you not exchange?" "no; i would not for the world wear that flower; i should think i had stolen it from that poor girl." "will you really not accept it?" "no!" gyuri threw the rose away, and it rolled down the hillside in the dust and dirt. veronica gazed pityingly after the flower as long as it was visible, then turned angrily to gyuri. "is that the way to treat a flower? had it hurt you in any way?" "yes," answered the lawyer shortly. "did it prick you?" "it informed me of a very unpleasant fact." "what was it?" "it whispered the continuation of my last night's dream to me." "what a little chatterbox!" she turned her big eyes upon gyuri and spoke in a jesting tone. "i should have had a refusal!" veronica threw back her head, and turned her eyes toward heaven. "poor mr. wibra!" she exclaimed. "what misfortune to be refused in a dream!" "pray go on, make as much fun of it as you like," he said bitterly. "and are you sure you would have been refused?" "yes, now i am sure of it," he answered sadly. "you might guess now of whom i dreamed." "of me?" she asked surprised, and the smile died away on her lips. "of me?" she stammered again, then was silent, descending the hill quietly in madame's wake with bent head. she had lifted the skirt of her dress a little to prevent its dragging in the dust, and her little feet were partly visible as she tripped along with regular steps, treading on the grass and flowers, which, however, were not crushed by her footsteps, but rose again as she passed on. a tiny lizard crossed their path, its beautiful colors shining in the sunlight. but what a sad fate befell it! just at that moment a giant (well known in besztercebánya) came that way, murmuring: "why should it live?" and bringing down a heavy heel severed the poor lizard's head from its body. veronica just then turned round, and saw the cruel action; she felt inclined to cry over the poor lizard, but did not dare to say anything, for she herself began to be afraid of this goliath, so she only murmured under her breath: "wretch!" when they were farther down the hill she saw before her the rose he had thrown away; there it lay, dirty and dusty, among the stones by the roadside, and, obeying a sudden impulse, she bent and picked it up, blowing the dust off its rosy petals, and then she placed it in the bosom of her dress, where it seemed as though it were in its right place at last. she did not say a word, nor did she look at that dreadful goliath, but turned away her head, so that he could not see her face. but goliath was quite satisfied at seeing the rose where he had wished it to be, and out of gratitude would have liked to restore the lizard to life, but that was of course impossible. at the foot of the hill the carriage was waiting, and the travellers took their places again, this time with an uncomfortable feeling. silently they sat opposite each other, one looking to the right, the other to the left, and if their eyes happened to meet they hastily turned them away. when they spoke, their remarks were addressed to madame krisbay, who began to notice that something had happened. but what? only a few childish words to which their minds had given a more serious meaning than they were meant to have, and had increased in size as once the professor's narrow cell in hatvan, which the devil enlarged to such an extent that the whole town had place in it. well, in those few words, everything was contained. but now something else happened. i don't know how it was, but i think a pin dropped, and at the same moment veronica bent down as though to look for it. in doing so the pink fell out of her hair into gyuri's lap, and he picked it up in order to return it to her. but she made him a sign to keep it. "if it _would_ not stay in my hair, and fell into your lap, you may as well keep it." _would_ it not have stayed in her hair? was it quite an accident? thought gyuri, as he smelt the flower. what a pleasant odor it had! was it from her hair? now they were driving beside the brána, the far-famed brána, which quite shuts this part of the country off from the rest of the world, like an immense gate. that is why it is called the brána, or gate. it is no common mountain, but an aristocrat among its kind, and in fine weather it wears a hat, for its summit is hidden in clouds. several small streams make their way down its side, flowing together at the foot, and making one broad stream. "that is the bjela voda," explained veronica to madame krisbay, "we are not far from home now." they still had to drive through one wood, and then the little white cottages of glogova would be before them. but this was the worst bit of the road, crooked and curved, full of ruts and rocks, and so narrow that there was hardly room for the carriage to pass. jános turned round and said with a shake of his head: "the king himself would grow crooked here!" "take care, jános, that you don't upset us!" jános got down from his seat, and fastened one of the wheels firmly, for there was no brake to the carriage; and now the horses had to move at a funeral pace, and sometimes the road was so narrow between two hills that they could see nothing but the blue sky above them. "this place is only fit for birds," muttered jános. "don't you like this part of the country?" "it is like a pock-marked face," he replied. "it is not the sort of place one would come to to choose a wife." gyuri started. had the man discovered his intentions? "why do you think so?" "my last master, the baron (jános had been at some baron's before in sáros county), used to say to his sons, and he was a clever man too, 'never look for a wife in a place where there are neither gnats, good air, nor mineral springs!'" at this both veronica and gyuri were obliged to laugh. "that's a real sáros way of looking at things. but, you see, you have vexed this young lady." "according to your theory i shall have to be an old maid!" said veronica. but jános vigorously denied the possibility of such a thing. "why, dear me, that is not likely; why ... you ..." he wanted to say something complimentary, but could not find suitable words, and as chance would have it, his next words were nearer to swearing than to a compliment, for the shaft of the carriage broke. the ladies were alarmed, and gyuri jumped down from his seat to see the extent of the damage done. it was bad enough, for it had broken off just near the base. "what are we to do now?" exclaimed jános. "i said this place was only fit for birds, who neither walk nor drive." "oh, that is nothing serious," said gyuri, who at that moment was not to be put out by a shaft, nor by a hundred shafts. "give me your axe, and you go and hold the horses. i'll soon bring you something to fasten the shaft to, and strengthen it." he took the axe out of the tool-box under the coachman's seat, said a few words to reassure the ladies, and then jumped the ditch by the side of the road. there were some trees there, but they were as rare as the hairs on the head of an old man. first came a birch, then a hazelnut bush, then a black-thorn, then a bare piece of ground without any trees, and then again a few old trees. so it was rather difficult to find a suitable tree; one was too big, another too small; so gyuri went on and on in search of one, and got so far that soon the carriage was out of sight, and only veronica's red sunshade was to be seen in the distance, like a large mushroom. at length his eyes fell on a young birch, which grew near to a small precipice. it was too big for a seedling and too small for a tree, but well-grown and promising. all the same it must be sacrificed, and down came the axe. but hardly had two or three blows been struck, when a voice was heard, crying out: "reta! reta!" (help! help!) gyuri started and turned round. who had called? the voice seemed quite close, but no one was visible far and near. again the call for help was repeated, and now it seemed to come out of the earth, and gyuri immediately concluded it came from the precipice, and ran toward it. "here i am!" he called out. "where are you and what is the matter?" "i am down the precipice," was the answer; "help me, for god's sake!" gyuri looked down, and saw a figure there in a black coat, but he could not see much of it, for it would have been dangerous to have gone too near to the edge. "how did you manage to get down there?" "i fell in yesterday evening," answered the man in the black coat. "what! yesterday evening! and can't you get out?" "it is impossible, for there is nothing to hold on to, and if i catch hold of any projecting bits, they give way, and i fall back with them." "you are in a bad way altogether! and has no one passed here since then?" "no one comes this way. i was prepared for the worst when i heard the sound of blows in the neighborhood. thank god you came! help me if you can, good man, whoever you may be, and i will reward you!" "i will help you of course with the greatest pleasure, but i must think first how to manage it. if i let down the trunk of a small tree could you climb up it?" "i am very weak from want of sleep and from hunger," answered the man, his voice getting weaker from shouting. "poor fellow! wait a moment!" he had suddenly remembered the apples mrs. mravucsán had put in his pockets that morning. "hallo, there! lookout! i am going to throw down a few apples to go on with while i think over what i am to do." he took the apples out of his pockets, and rolled them down one after the other. all of a sudden he remembered that veronica's was among them. supposing she were vexed at his giving it away! "have you got them?" "yes, thank you." "please don't eat the red one, it is not mine." "very well, i will not eat it." "you seem to be of the better class?" "i am the parish priest of glogova." gyuri, surprised, fell a step backward. how strange! the parish priest of glogova! could anything more unexpected have happened? "i will get you out, your reverence; only wait a few minutes." back he ran to the carriage, which was waiting in the valley below. from this point the country round about looked like the inside of a poppy head cut in two. he did not go quite up to the carriage, but as soon as he was within speaking distance, shouted at the top of his voice to jános: "take the harness off the horses, and bring it here to me; but first tie the horses to a tree." jános obeyed, grumbling and shaking his head. he could not make out what his master needed the harness for. he had once heard a wonderful tale of olden times, in which a certain fatépö gábor (tree-felling gábor) had harnessed two bears to a cart in a forest. could gyuri be going to do the same? but whatever it was wanted for, he did as his master told him, and followed him to the precipice. here they fastened the various straps together, and let them down. "catch hold of them, your reverence," called out gyuri, "and we will pull you up." the priest did as gyuri said, but even then it was hard work to get him up, for the ground kept giving way under his feet; however, at length they managed it. but what a state he was in, covered with dirt and dust; on his face traces of the awful night he had passed, sleepless and despairing, suffering the pangs of hunger. he hardly looked like a human being, and we (that is, my readers and i) who knew him years before would have looked in vain for the handsome, youthful face we remember. he was an elderly man now, with streaks of gray in his chestnut hair. only the pleasant, amiable expression in his thin face was the same. he was surprised to see such a well-dressed young man before him--a rarity on the borders of the glogova woods. "how can i show you my gratitude?" he exclaimed, with a certain pathos which reminded one strongly of the pulpit. he took a few steps in the direction of the stream, intending to wash his hands and face, but he stumbled and felt a sharp pain in his back. "i must have hurt myself last night, when i fell, i cannot walk very well." "lean on me, your reverence," said gyuri. "luckily my carriage is not far off. jános, you go on cutting down that tree, while we walk slowly on." they certainly did go slowly, for the priest could hardly lift his left foot, and frequently stumbled over the roots of trees. the carriage was some way off, so they had plenty of time for conversation, and every now and then they sat down to rest on the trunk of a fallen tree. "tell me, your reverence, how did you come to be in this part of the country late at night?" and then the priest related how he had expected his sister home yesterday, who had gone to meet her governess. as time went on, and there were no signs of them, he began to feel anxious, and toward evening became so restless that he did as he had often done before, and walked to the borders of the little wood. he walked on and on, finding the way by keeping his eye on the hills on both sides, and listened for the sounds of wheels in the distance. all at once it occurred to him that they might have gone round by the pribalszky mill, which was a longer but prettier way to glogova, and veronica, his sister, was fond of the shade there. of course that was what they had done, and they must have arrived at home long ago while he was looking for them. so the best way was to turn back at once, and in order to get home as soon as possible, he unfortunately struck across a side path. in his haste he must have stepped too near to the edge of the precipice and had fallen in. "my poor little sister!" he sighed. "how anxious she must be about me!" gyuri would have liked to turn the priest's sorrow into joy. "we will soon reassure the young lady, and your reverence will feel all right after a night's rest. in two or three days it will seem like an amusing incident." "but which might have ended in a horrible death if divine providence had not sent you to help me." "it really does seem as though divine providence had something to do with it. the shaft of my carriage broke, or i should never have come near that precipice." "if i live to be a hundred i shall never forget your kindness to me, and your name will always have a place in my prayers. but how thoughtless of me! i have not even asked you your name yet." "gyuri wibra." "the well-known lawyer of besztercebánya? and so young! i am glad to make the acquaintance of such an honorable man, sir, who is beloved in the whole of besztercebánya; but i should be much more pleased if a poor man now stood before me, to whom i could give a suitable reward. but how am i to prove my gratitude to you? there is nothing i possess which you would accept." a smile played around gyuri's mouth. "i am not so sure of that. you know we lawyers are very grasping." "is there really something, or are you joking?" the lawyer did not answer immediately, but walked on a few steps toward an old wild pear-tree, which had been struck by lightning, and not far from which the carriage was standing. "well, yes," he answered then, slowly, almost in a trembling voice, "there is something i would gladly accept from you." "and what is it?" "it has just struck me that there is something in my carriage which you might give me." "in your carriage?" "yes, something you do not know of yet, and which i should be very happy to possess." the priest took him by the hand. "whatever it may be, it is yours!" in another minute they had reached the pear-tree. "there is my carriage." the priest looked that way, and saw, first a red sunshade, then a black straw hat under it, with some white daisies in it, and beneath it a sweet, girlish face. it all seemed so familiar to him, the sunshade, the hat, and the face. he rubbed his eyes as though awaking from a dream, and then exclaimed, catching hold of the lawyer's arm: "why, that is my veronica!" the lawyer smiled quietly and bowed. "that is," went on the priest in his kind, gentle voice, "for the future she is your veronica, if you wish." by this time veronica had seen and recognized her brother, had jumped out of the carriage and run to meet him, calling out: "here we are, safe and sound. how anxious you must have been! and our carriage is broken to bits; and oh! if you had only seen the horses! all sorts of things have happened, and i have brought madame krisbay." the priest embraced her, and was glad she seemed to know nothing of his accident. how sensible of gyuri not to have mentioned it! "yes, yes, my darling, you shall tell me everything in order later on." but veronica wanted to tell everything at once, the carriage accident in bábaszék, the supper at mravucsáns' (oh, yes! she had nearly forgotten, mr. mravucsán had sent his kind regards), then to-day's journey, the loss of her earring and its recovery ... the priest, who was slowly beginning to understand things, here broke in upon her recital. "and did you give the finder of it a reward?" she was silent at first at the unexpected question, then answered hurriedly: "no, of course not, how can you think of such a thing? what was i to give? besides, he would not accept anything." "i am surprised at that, for he has since then applied to me for a reward." "impossible!" said veronica, casting a side-glance at gyuri. strange doubts had arisen in her mind, and her heart began to beat. "and what does he ask for?" she asked in a low voice. "he wants a good deal. he asks for the earring he found, and with it its owner. and i have promised him both!" veronica bent her head; her face was suffused with burning blushes, her bosom heaved. "well? do you give no answer? did i do right to promise, veronica?" gyuri took a step toward her, and said, in a low, pleading voice: "only one word, miss veronica!" then stood back under the shade of the pear-tree. "oh! i am so ashamed!" said veronica trembling, and bursting into tears. a breeze came up just then across the brána, and shook the pear-tree, which shed its white petals, probably the last the old tree would bear, over veronica's dress. chapter ii. three sparks. madame sits in the carriage, and can understand nothing of what is going on. the young lady entrusted to her charge springs out of the carriage, runs up to a strange man in a long black coat, throws her arms round his neck, and then they all begin to talk with excited gestures, standing under the pear-tree. then her pupil comes back to the carriage, mild as a lamb, arm in arm with the young man who had found her earring yesterday. all of this is so unexpected, so surprising. and while they are mending the broken shaft and reharnessing the horses, the man in the black coat, who turns out to be the girl's brother, turns to her and whispers in her ear: "your pupil has just engaged herself!" good gracious! when and where? why, now, under the tree! ah, madame krisbay, you feel you ought to faint now, partly because you are a correct woman, and consequently horrified at the way the event has taken place, and partly because you have fallen among such strange people; but your bottle of eau de cologne is quite at the bottom of your travelling-bag, and so it will be better not to faint now. but it is very shocking all the same! for though a tree is suitable for flirting under, or for declarations of love, it is not the correct place to ask a parent or guardian for a girl's hand. the proper place for that (especially in novels) is a well-furnished drawing-room. if the girl is very shy she runs out of the room; if not very shy she falls on her knees and asks the blessing of her parents or guardian, as the case may be. but how is one to kneel under a tree? these were the thoughts that were troubling madame krisbay, not veronica. she, on the contrary, was thinking that one fine day she would return to this spot with her sketch-book, and draw the old tree as a souvenir. all this time the carriage was rolling along the dusty road. there was no room for the coachman, so he had to follow on foot, and gyuri took the reins into his own hands, veronica sitting on the box beside him. oh dear! she thought, what would they think of her in the village as they drove through? the road was better now, and they could drive faster, so gyuri loosened the reins, and began to think over the events that had taken place. was it a dream or not? no, it could not be, for there was veronica sitting near to him, and behind him father jános was talking to madame krisbay in the language of the gauls. no, it was simple truth, though it seemed stranger than fiction. who would have believed yesterday that before the sun set twice he would find his inheritance, and a wife into the bargain? twenty-four hours ago he had not known of the existence of miss veronica bélyi. strange! and now he was trying to imagine what the world had been like without her. it seemed impossible that he had not felt the want of her yesterday. but the wheels were making such a noise, that he found it difficult to collect his thoughts. wonders had happened. one legend, that of the umbrella, was done away with, but on its ruins another had built itself up. heaven and earth had combined to help him to his inheritance. heaven had sent a dream and earth a protector. his heart swelled as he thought of it. oh, if the girl next him only knew to what a rich man she had promised her hand! after passing the kopanyicza hills, which seem like a screen to the entrance of the valley, glogova, with its little white houses, lay before them. "we are nearly at home now," said veronica. "where is the presbytery?" asked gyuri. "at the end of the village." "tell me when to turn to the right or the left." "very well, mr. coachman! at present keep straight on." a smell of lavender pervaded the street, and the tidy little gardens were filled with all sorts of flowers. in front of the houses children were playing, and in most of the courtyards a foal was running about, with a bell tied round its neck. otherwise the village seemed quite deserted, for all who could work were out in the fields, and the women, having cooked the dinner at home, had carried it out to their husbands. only on the grass-plot in front of the school-house was there life; there the children were at play, and their greetings to those in the carriage was in hungarian. of the villagers only the "aristocratic" were at home. at the threshold of a pretty little stone house stood gongoly, much stouter than some years before. in front of the smithy sat klincsok, quietly smoking, while the smith mended a wheel. "hallo!" he called out. "so you've come back! why, we were thinking of looking out for another priest!" which showed that father jános' absence had been noticed. how glogova had changed in the last few years! there was a tower to the church, the like of which was not to be seen except in losoncz; only that on the tower of losoncz there was a weathercock. in the middle of the village was a hotel, "the miraculous umbrella," with virginian creeper climbing all over it, and near it a pretty little white house, looking as though it were made of sugar; behind it a garden with a lot of young trees in it. "whose house is that?" asked gyuri, turning round. "the owner is on the box-seat beside you." "really? is it yours, veronica?" she nodded her head. "there is a small farm belonging to it," said father jános modestly. "well, we won't take it with us, but leave it here for your brother, shall we, veronica?" then he turned to the priest again, saying: "veronica has a fortune worthy of a countess, but neither you nor she knows of it." both the priest and veronica were so surprised at this announcement, that they did not notice they were in front of the presbytery, and gyuri would have driven on if vistula, the old watch-dog, had not rushed out barking with joy; and old widow adamecz called out, with the tears rolling down her face: "holy mary! you have heard the prayers of your servant!" "stop! here we are. open the gate, mrs. adamecz." the widow wiped away her tears, dropped her book, and got up to open the gate. "is dinner ready?" asked father jános. "dinner? of course not. whom was i to cook for? we all thought your reverence was lost. i have not even lighted the fire, for my tears would only have put it out again." "never mind, mrs. adamecz. i feel sure you were anxious on my account, but now go and see about some dinner for us, for we are dying of hunger." veronica had become suspicious at the widow's words, and began to storm her brother with questions; then burst out crying and turned her back upon gyuri, declaring they were hiding something from her. so they were obliged to tell her the truth, and her poor little heart nearly broke when she thought of what her brother had gone through, and what danger he had been in. while this was going on, mrs. adamecz was bustling about in the kitchen, and giving every one plenty of work to do. both the maids were called in to help, and the farm-servant too. "come and whip this cream, hanka. and you, borbála, go and fetch some salt. is the goose plucked? now, mátyás, don't be so lazy, run and pick some parsley in the garden. dear me! how very thin the good lady is whom miss veronica has brought home with her. did you see her? i shall have hard work to feed her up and make her decently fat. give me a saucepan; not that one, the other. and, borbála, grate me some bread-crumbs. but the young man is handsome. i wonder what he wants here? what did you say? you don't know? of course you don't know, silly, if i don't. but this much is certain (between ourselves of course), there is something strange in miss veronica's eyes. something has happened, but i can't make out what." widow adamecz thought of all sorts of things, both good and bad, but her cooking was excellent, and she gave them such a dinner, that even the lovers found their appetites. after dinner, gyuri sent a man on horseback with a letter to mr. sztolarik in besztercebánya. "my dear guardian: "i have great things to communicate to you, but at present can only write the outlines. i have found the umbrella, partly through mrs. müncz, partly by chance. at present i am in glogova, at the priest's house, whose sister veronica i have asked in marriage. she is a very pretty girl; besides, there is no way of getting at the money unless i marry her. please send me by the messenger two gold rings from samuel huszák's shop, and the certificate of my birth; it must be among your papers somewhere. i should like the banns to be published the day after to-morrow. "i remain," etc. he told the messenger to hurry. "i'll hurry, but the horse won't!" "well, use your spurs." "so i would, but there are no spurs on sandals!" the horse was a wretched one, but all the same, next day they heard a carriage stop at the door, and who should get out but sztolarik himself. great man though he was, no one was glad to see him except the priest. veronica felt frightened. she hardly knew why, but it seemed as though a breath of cold air had entered with him. why had he come here just now? the old lawyer was very pleasant to her. "so this is little veronica?" he asked. "yes," answered gyuri proudly. the old gentleman took her small hand in his large one, and pinched her cheek in fatherly fashion. but no amount of pinching would bring the roses back just then. her heart was heavy with fear. why, oh, why had he come? gyuri was surprised too, for sztolarik hated to leave his home. "have you brought them?" he asked. "yes." veronica drew a breath of relief, for gyuri had mentioned that he expected the engagement rings from besztercebánya. "give them to me," he said. "later on," answered the old lawyer. "first of all i must speak to you." he must speak to him first? then he must have something to say which could not be said after they had exchanged rings! veronica again felt a weight on her heart. gyuri got up discontentedly from his place next to veronica, whose fingers began to play nervously with the work she had in her hands. "come across to my room then." gyuri's room was at the other end of the house, which was built in the shape of an l. it used to be the schoolroom before the new school was built. (widow adamecz had learnt her a b c there.) the priest who had been there before father jános had divided the room into two parts by a nicely painted wooden partition, and of one half he had made a spare bedroom, of the other a storeroom. veronica was feeling as miserable as she could, and her one wish at that moment was to hear the two gentlemen's conversation, for everything depended on that. some demon who had evidently never been to school, and had never learned that it was dishonorable to listen at doors or walls, whispered to her: "run quickly, veronica, into the storeroom, and if you press your ear to the wall, you will be able to hear what they say." off went veronica like a shot. it is incredible what an amount of honey a demon of that description can put into his words; he was capable of persuading this well-educated girl to take her place among the pickled cucumbers, basins of lard, and sacks of potatoes, in order to listen to a conversation which was not meant for her ears. not a sound was to be heard in the storeroom but the dripping of the fat from a side of bacon hanging from the rafters, and which the great heat there was causing it to melt. some of it even fell on her pretty dress, but what did she care for that just then? "so you have found out all about the umbrella," she heard sztolarik say, "but have you seen it yet?" "why should i?" asked gyuri. "i cannot touch its contents till after the wedding." "why not sooner?" "because, for various reasons, i do not wish the story of the umbrella known." "for instance?" "first of all, because father jános would be the laughing-stock of the place." "why do you trouble your head about the priest?" "secondly, because it would give veronica reason to think i am only marrying her for the sake of the umbrella." "but she will know it later on in any case." "i shall never tell her." "have you any other reasons?" "oh, yes. i dare say they would not even give me the check; it is probably not made out in any particular name; so how am i to prove to them that it is mine? it really belongs to the person who has it in his possession. and perhaps they would not even give me the girl, for if her fortune is as large as we think it, she can find as many husbands as she has fingers on her hands." veronica felt giddy. it was as though they were driving nails into her flesh. she could not quite understand all they were talking about--of umbrellas, receipts, large fortunes. what fortune? but this much she had begun to understand, that she was only the means to some end. "well, well," began sztolarik again after a short pause, "the affair seems to be pretty entangled at present, but there is still worse to come." "what more can come?" asked gyuri in an uncertain voice. "don't do anything at present. let us find out first of all whether you love the girl." poor little veronica was trembling like a leaf in her hiding-place. she shut her eyes like a criminal before his execution, with a sort of undefined feeling that the blow would be less painful so. what would he answer? "i think i love her," answered gyuri, again in that uncertain voice. "she is so pretty, don't you think so?" "of course. but the question is, would you in other circumstances have asked her to marry you? answer frankly!" "i should never have thought of such a thing." a sob was heard in the next room, and then a noise as though some pieces of furniture had been thrown down. sztolarik listened for a few moments, and then, pointing to the wall, asked: "do you know what is on the other side?" "i think it is the storeroom." "i thought i heard some one sob." "perhaps one of the servants saw a mouse!" and that is how a tragedy looks from the next room when the wall is thin. if there is a thick wall it does not even seem so bad. one of the servants had seen a mouse, or a heart had been broken; for who was to know that despair and fright only have one sound to express them? veronica, with her illusions dispersed, ran out into the open air; she wished to hear no more, only to get away from that hated place, for she felt suffocating; away, away, as far as she could go.... and this all seemed, from the next room, as though widow adamecz or hanka had seen a mouse. but, however it may have seemed to them, they had forgotten the whole thing in half a minute. "you say it would never have occurred to you to marry her. so you had better not hurry with the wedding. let us first see the umbrella and its contents, and then we shall see what is to be done next." gyuri went on quietly smoking his cigarette and thought: "sztolarik is getting old. fancy making such a fuss about it!" "i have thought it well over," he went on aloud, "and there is no other way of managing it; i must marry the girl." sztolarik got up from his chair, and came and stood in front of the young man, fixing his eyes on him. "but supposing you could get at your inheritance without marrying veronica?" gyuri could not help smiling. "why, i have just said," he exclaimed impatiently, "that it cannot be done, but even if it could, i would not do it, for i feel as though she also had a right to the fortune, as it has been in her possession so long, and providence seems to have sent it direct to her." "but supposing you could get at it through veronica?" "that seems out of the question too." "really? well, now listen to me, gyuri, for i have something to tell you." "i am listening." but his thoughts were elsewhere, as he drummed on the table with his fingers. "well," went on sztolarik, "when i went in to huszák's this morning to buy the two rings you wanted sent by the messenger (for i had no intention of coming here myself then), huszák was not in the shop, so the rabbit-mouthed young man waited on me. you know him?" yes, gyuri remembered him. "i told him to give me two rings, and he asked whom they were for. so i said they were going a good distance. then he asked where to, and i told him to glogova. 'perhaps to the priest's sister?' he asked. 'yes,' i said. 'she's a beauty,' he remarked. 'why, do you know her?' asked i. 'very well,' he answered." gyuri stopped tapping, and jumped up excitedly. "did he say anything about veronica?" "you shall hear in a minute. while he was wrapping up the rings he went on talking. how had he got to know the priest's sister? 'i was in glogova last year.' 'and what the devil were you doing in glogova?' 'why, the villagers were having a silver handle made here for a wretched-looking old umbrella, which they keep in their church, and the stupid things were afraid to send the umbrella here for fear any one should steal it, though it was not worth twopence; so i was obliged to go there in order to fasten the handle on.'" "why, this is dreadful!" exclaimed gyuri, turning pale. sztolarik smiled. "that is only why i said, my friend, that we had better wait a bit before deciding anything." "let us go at once to father jános and ask him to show us the umbrella." he could not wait a minute longer. he had been so near to his object, and now it was slipping from him again, like a fata morgana, which lures the wanderer on to look for it. it was easy to find the priest; he was feeding his pigeons in the garden. "father jános," began gyuri, "now mr. sztolarik is here he would like to look at your wonderful umbrella. can we see it?" "of course. mrs. adamecz," he called out to the old woman, who was plucking a fowl at the kitchen door, "will you bring me out the key of the church, please?" she did as she was asked, and the priest, going on in front, led his visitors through the church. "this way, gentlemen, into the sacristy." as they stepped in there it was before them! pál gregorics's old umbrella smiled at them, and seemed like an old friend, only the handle, yes, the handle was unknown to them, for it was of silver. gyuri gazed at it speechlessly, and felt that the end was near. a demon was behind him, constantly urging him on, and whispering: "go on, go on, and look for your inheritance!" a second demon ran on before him, beckoning and crying: "come along, it is this way!" but there was a third one, the liveliest of all, who followed in the wake of the second one, and each time gyuri thought he had attained his end, this demon turned round, and laughed in his face, saying: "there is nothing here!" sztolarik kept his countenance, and carefully examined the handle of the umbrella, as though he were admiring the work. "had it always this same handle?" he asked. "oh dear no, this is of real silver, and very finely chased. the jeweller in besztercebánya made it, and he is quite an artist. just look at the style, and what taste is displayed in it. my parishioners had it made last summer as a surprise for me while i was away at the baths. the old handle had been broken off, and it was almost impossible to make use of the umbrella. i expect it was klincsok's idea, for he started the collection. there are still plenty of good christian hearts to be found." then he turned to gyuri. "i will introduce you to klincsok, he is a very worthy man." gyuri wished the worthy klincsok in jericho, and he could even have found him a companion for the journey, for behind him was the first demon, again whispering: "go and look for your inheritance!" "but i suppose they kept the old handle?" he asked. "i do not think so," answered the priest. "it was only of common wood; i believe mrs. adamecz asked veronica for it." (it must have been the second demon speaking through the priest: "the handle of the umbrella is in mrs. adamecz's possession.") sztolarik now became curious too. "who is mrs. adamecz?" he asked. "my old cook, who just now brought me the keys." mr. sztolarik burst out laughing, the walls of the empty church re-echoing with the sound. when they were outside, and the priest had gone in with the keys, the old lawyer took the two rings out of the paper they were wrapped in and pressed them into gyuri's palm, saying quaintly: "according to your logic of half an hour ago, you must now marry old mrs. adamecz, so go and ask for her hand at once." gyuri gave no answer to this cruel thrust, and went into the kitchen, where the widow was frying pancakes. "i say, mrs. adamecz, where have you put the old handle of the church umbrella?" widow adamecz finished frying her pancake, put it on a wooden platter with those she had already fried, and then turned round to see who was speaking to her. "what have i done with the old handle, my dear? well, you see, this is how it was. my little grandson, matykó, got ill last year just at cabbage-cutting time--no, i believe it was earlier in the year ..." "i don't care when it was, only go on." widow adamecz quietly poured some more of the batter into the frying-pan. "let me see, what was i saying? ah, yes, i was speaking of matykó. well, it was the result of the staring." (the peasants think that if a child is much looked at and admired it pines away.) gyuri began impatiently to tap with his foot on the floor. "will you tell me where it is?" "it is there under the table." "what, the handle?" "no, the child." yes, there was matykó, sitting on a basin turned upside down, a fat-faced, blue-eyed slovak child, playing with some dried beans, its face still dirty from the pancakes it had eaten. "bother you, woman! are you deaf?" burst out the lawyer. "i asked you about the handle of the umbrella, not about the child." mrs. adamecz tossed her head. "well, that's just what i am talking about. i tell you, they persisted in admiring matykó, and the poor little angel was fading away. there is only one remedy for that; you must take a burning stick, and let three sparks fall from it into a glass of water, and of this the child must drink for three days. i did this, but it was of no use; the child went on suffering and getting thinner from day to day, and my heart nearly broke at the sight of him; for i have a very soft heart, as his reverence will tell you ..." "i don't doubt it for a minute, but for heaven's sake answer my question." "i'm coming to it in a minute, sir. just at that time they were having the silver handle made to the umbrella, and our young lady, pretty dear, gave me the old handle. why, thought i, that will be just the thing for matykó; if three sparks from that holy wood are of no use, then matykó will be entered in the ranks of god's soldiers." at the thought of little matykó as one of god's soldiers her tears began to flow. it was lucky if none of them fell into the frying-pan. "mrs. adamecz!" exclaimed gyuri, alarmed, his voice trembling. "you surely did not burn the handle?" the old woman looked at him surprised. "how was i to get the three sparks from it if i did not burn it?" gyuri fell back against the wall, the kitchen and everything in it swam before his eyes, the plates and basins seemed to be dancing a waltz together; a tongue of fire arose from the fireplace, bringing with it the third demon, who exclaimed: "there is nothing here!" but all at once he felt a hand laid on his arm. it was sztolarik. "it was, and is no more," he said. "but never mind, fate intended it to be so. for the future you will not, at all events, run after a shadow, you will be yourself again, and that is worth a good deal, after all." chapter iii. little veronica is taken away. but it was of no use sztolarik preaching about the uselessness of worldly goods, for those worldly goods are very pleasant to have. when a favorite child dies, the members of the family always pronounce very wise words, which are supposed to comfort one another, such as: "who knows how the child would have turned out? it might have come to the gallows in time; perhaps it was better it had died now," etc. but for all that, wisdom has never yet dried our tears. sztolarik said all he could think of to console gyuri, but the young lawyer was quite cast down at the thought that his dreams would never now be realized; his whole life was before him, dark and threatening. but the world was the same as of old, and everything went just the same as though widow adamecz had never burned the handle of the umbrella. the hands of the parish clock pointed to the roman figure ii., and the chimes rang out on the air; the servants laid the table for dinner, mrs. adamecz brought in the soup, and his reverence led his guests into the dining-room, and placed them right and left of madame krisbay, when all at once they noticed that veronica was missing. "i was just going to ask," said madame krisbay, "if she had been with the gentlemen?" "i thought she was with you," said the priest. "i have not seen her for two hours." "nor i." "nor we." "perhaps she is in the kitchen?" madame krisbay looked vexed, got up from her seat, and went into the kitchen to call her pupil, but returned at once with the remark that she had not been seen there either. "where can she be?" exclaimed the priest, and ran out to look for her, sending the servants to some of her favorite seats in the garden, thinking she might have gone there to read, and have forgotten the time. mrs. adamecz grumbled in the kitchen, for the dinner was spoiling. "well, serve the dinner," said father jános, for, of course, he could not keep his guests waiting, especially as sztolarik wanted to return home as soon as possible. so the dishes were brought in one after the other, but still there was no sign of veronica; and hanka had returned with the news that no one had seen her. gyuri sat in his place, pale and quiet. "perhaps she is in the apiary," suggested her brother, "or perhaps" (here he hesitated a minute, not knowing how to continue), "perhaps something unpleasant has taken place between you?" gyuri looked up surprised. "nothing has taken place between us," he said coldly. "then, hanka, run across to the new house and look in the apiary. please excuse her, gentlemen, she is such a child still, and follows her own whims. she is probably chasing a butterfly. take some more wine, mr. sztolarik." he was trying to reassure himself, not his guests, as he sat there listening to every sound, paying scant attention to the conversation, and giving many wrong answers. sztolarik asked if the bad weather this year had made much difference to the harvest. "one or two," answered the priest. "have you any other brothers or sisters?" "i don't know." his answers showed the perturbed state of his mind, and it was with difficulty he kept his seat at table. at length the old lawyer said: "perhaps it would be better if your reverence were to go and look for miss veronica yourself; and i should be glad if you would send word to my coachman that i wish to start as soon as possible, for it is a long drive to besztercebánya." the priest seized the opportunity, and begging madame krisbay to excuse him, hurried away, for he found veronica's absence very strange, and was beginning to get anxious. so, madame krisbay having retired, the two gentlemen were left alone, and a painful silence ensued. gyuri was gazing with melancholy eyes at the canary, which was also silent now. "you had better order your carriage, too," said sztolarik, breaking the silence at last. "we could leave at the same time." gyuri murmured some unintelligible answer, and shook his head. "but you will have to leave soon, for our part here is played out." "i tell you it is impossible." "why?" "don't you see that veronica is lost?" "what does that matter to you? the umbrella handle is lost too." gyuri made an impatient gesture. "what do i care about the umbrella?" "so it is the girl you want? you told me a different tale before dinner." gyuri turned round. "i did not know then." "and now you know?" "yes, now i know," he answered shortly. "and may i ask," said sztolarik, "when did amor light this flaming fire? for you did not seem to take much interest in the girl before her disappearance." "and yet it is causing me at the present moment all the tortures of hell. believe me, my dear guardian, the loss of my inheritance seems to me a trifle beside the loss of veronica." sztolarik was impressed by the apparent sincerity of gyuri's sorrow. "that's quite another thing," he said. "if that is how you feel i will stay here with you. let us go and look for the girl ourselves, and find out what she thinks on the subject." when they went out, they found great confusion reigning in the courtyard, but mrs. adamecz was loudest in her lamentations. "i knew this would be the end of it. a legend should never be tampered with by a mortal's hand, or it will fall to pieces. oh, our dear young lady! she was god's bride, and they wanted to make her the bride of a mortal, so god has taken her to himself." sztolarik sprang toward her, and caught hold of her hand. "what is that you say? have you heard anything?" "gundros, the cowherd, has just told us that he saw our young lady this morning running straight toward the bjela voda, across the meadows, and her eyes were red, as though she had been crying. there is only one conclusion to be drawn from that." a lot of women and children were gathered round the kitchen door, and one of them had also seen veronica earlier than gundros had. "did she look sad?" asked gyuri. "she was crying." "oh dear!" exclaimed gyuri despairingly. "we will look for her," sztolarik assured him. "where?" "out in the meadows or in the village, for it is certain she must be somewhere about, and we shall soon know where." "that will not be so easy," sighed gyuri, "for we have no glass to show us things, as they have in fairy-tales." "i'll have the whole village round us in a few minutes." gyuri shook his head doubtfully. had sztolarik gone mad to think he could call all the people together from the fields, from the woods, from everywhere round about? but the old lawyer was as good as his word. veronica must be found at any cost. "where is his reverence?" he asked of the bystanders. "he has gone to the pond where the hemp is soaked, to see if the young lady has fallen in there." "where is the bell-ringer?" "here i am, sir." "go up at once into the tower, and ring the big bell." "but there is no fire!" "that does not matter. if i order it to be done, you must do it. do you know me?" of course he knew mr. sztolarik, who had often been to glogova since he had been made president of the courts. so off ran pál kvapka, and in a few minutes the big fire-bell was tolling. there was no wind, and the sound was carried for miles around over the meadows, into the woods, over the mountains, and soon the people came running up from every side. it was astonishing how soon the villagers were assembled round the presbytery. those who saw it will never see its like again, until the archangel gabriel sounds his trumpet at the last day. sztolarik gazed placidly at the crowd assembled around him. "now," he said, "i have only to stand up in their midst and ask them if any of them have seen veronica. but it will be quite unnecessary, for veronica herself will soon be here. look out of the window," he called up to the bell-ringer, "and tell me if you can see the young lady." "yes, i can see her, she is running through the srankós' maize-field." "she lives!" exclaimed gyuri ecstatically, but his joy was soon at an end, for he thought: "if there is nothing the matter with her she must have run away from me." and he began to wonder if it would not have been better if she were dead, for then he could have believed she loved him, and could have loved her and sorrowed for her. the bell-ringer still went on tolling the bell, so sztolarik called up to him: "stop tolling, you fool, can't you? show us which way the srankós' maize-field lies." the bell-ringer pointed to the right. "you run on in front, gyuri, and try and get out of her what is the matter with her." but gyuri was already gone, through the priest's garden, across magát's clover-field, and his heart began to beat, for from there he could see veronica in her green dress, without a hat, only a little red silk shawl round her shoulders. across szlávik's corn-field, then into gongoly's meadow, and they were face to face. the girl drew a sobbing breath when she saw him, and began to tremble violently. "where is the fire?" she asked. "don't be frightened, there is no fire. my guardian had the bell rung so as to make you return home. why did you run away?" the girl turned pale, and bit her lip. "it is enough if i know the reason," she said in a low voice. "please leave me alone." and she turned round as though to return to the woods. "veronica, for heaven's sake don't torture me; what have i done?" the girl looked at him coldly, her eyes were like two bits of ice. "leave me alone," she said, "what do you want with me?" the young man caught hold of her hand, and veronica did her best to free herself from his grasp, but he would not let go her hand till he had forced a ring on to her finger. "that is what i want," he said. "that is what you want, is it?" laughed the girl bitterly. "and this is what i want!" and she tore off the ring and threw it away, across the meadow, into the grass. poor gyuri fell back a few steps. "oh!" he exclaimed, "why did you do it? why?" "do not try to deceive me any longer, mr. wibra. you should not put a ring on my finger, but on the umbrella, for that is what you really want to marry." gyuri began to understand what had taken place. "good heavens! you listened to our conversation!" "yes, i know all!" said veronica, blushing slightly. "it is no good your denying it." "i don't wish to deny anything. but listen to me, please." they walked quietly through the meadow, gyuri talking, the girl listening, while the thousands of insects which peopled the fields flew away before their feet. gyuri related the story of his life, and of his father's, of the supposed inheritance, of his search for it, and how he had gathered the threads together till they led him to bábaszék. the girl listened to him, first with reproach in her eyes, then as judge, trying to find out the truth, and as the story began to interest her more and more, she became quite excited. now she was neither plaintiff nor judge, only an interested listener, surprised that the threads led nearer and nearer to herself. now gyuri is speaking of mrs. müncz's son, now móricz is telling his story, which shows that the umbrella must be in glogova. then the forester's wife tells the tale of st. peter's bringing the umbrella to the orphan child. a few more words and the story was complete. veronica knew all, and her eyes were swimming in tears. "oh, dear, how dreadful! mrs. adamecz burned the handle!" "god bless her for it!" said gyuri brightly, seeing the girl's depression, "for now at least i can prove to you that i love you for yourself alone." veronica had taken off the small red shawl and was swinging it in her hand. suddenly she caught hold of gyuri's arm, and smiled at him through her tears. "do you really mean that you still want to marry me?" "of course. what do you say to it?" "i say that ..." she ceased speaking, for there was a queer feeling in her throat. "well?" "that you are very volatile, and ..." "and?" "and that ... let us run back and look for my ring." with that she turned, and ran as fast as she could to the part of the meadow in which they had been standing when she threw the ring away. gyuri could hardly keep up with her. they looked for the ring a long time, but it was not to be found. and soon father jános appeared on the scene. "i say, gyuri, don't say anything about the umbrella to my brother." "no, my darling, i will never mention it." his reverence gave veronica a good scolding. "you naughty girl! is that the way to behave? how you frightened us! of course you were chasing a butterfly?" "no, i was running away from one, but it caught me." "what, the butterfly?" "yes, that ugly, big butterfly standing beside you." his reverence understood as much as he was meant to, and set to work, too, to look for the ring. but they might have looked for it till doomsday if mr. gongoly had not passed that way. veronica had quite despaired of finding the ring. "well, well, my dear," said the nabob of glogova, shaking back his long gray hair, "never mind, trust in gongoly, he will find it for you. there is only one way to do it, so in an hour's time they will be making hay in this field." * * * * * though the grass was not two inches high (it had only been cut a fortnight before), mr. gongoly sent his men there to mow it, with the result that next day the ring was safely resting on veronica's finger. and for years the people spoke of the wonderful fact that in that year mr. gongoly's meadow gave two crops of hay, and it was always mentioned if any one spoke disparagingly of the glogova fields. what more am i to say? i think i have told my story conscientiously. all the same there are some things that will never be known for certain; for instance, what really became of pál gregorics' fortune, for there is no sign of it to this day. was the supposed receipt in the handle of the umbrella or not? no one will ever know, not even little matykó, who drank the water with three sparks in it. no king drinks such precious liquid as he did--if the story be true. the legend of the holy umbrella is still believed in in those parts. mr. sztolarik, who was fond of a gossip, certainly told his version of the story, how old müncz the jew had made a present to christianity of a holy relic, and so on; but the old belief was strongly rooted, and he was only laughed at when he told his tale. and after all, there was something mystic and strange in the whole affair, and the umbrella had brought worldly goods to every one, gyuri included, for it had given him the dearest little wife in the world. they were married very soon and never had such a wedding taken place in glogova before. according to veronica's special wish, every one who had been at the mravucsáns' supper was invited to the wedding, for she wanted all those who had been present at their first meeting to take part in their happiness. there were a lot of guests from besztercebánya too, among them the mother of the bridegroom, in a black silk dress, the president of the courts, the mayor, and lots of others. then there were the urszinyis from kopanyica, two young ladies from lehota in pink dresses, and mrs. müncz from bábaszék, with lovely golden earrings on. there were so many different kinds of conveyances in glogova that day, it would have taken a week to look at them all. dear me, what a lovely procession it was too; the peasants stood and gazed open-mouthed at all the people in their beautiful dresses, but most of all at the bride, who walked at the head of the procession in a lovely white dress with a long veil and a wreath of orange-blossoms. oh, how pretty she was! but the bridegroom was splendid too, in the same kind of dress in which the king has his portrait painted sometimes. his sword, in a velvet sheath mounted in gold, clattered on the pavement as he walked up the church. they stood in a semicircle round the altar, each lady with a nosegay of flowers in her hand, and perfumed to such an extent that the church smelled like a perfumer's shop. it was a little cool in the church, and the young ladies from lehota were seen to shiver now and then in their thin pink dresses; but everything went off very well. the bridegroom spoke his "yes" in a loud, firm voice, the walls seemed to re-echo it, but the bride spoke it almost in a whisper, it sounded like the buzzing of a fly. poor child! she got so nervous toward the end of the ceremony that she began to cry. then she looked for her handkerchief, but was there ever a pocket in a wedding dress? she could not find it, so some one from behind offered her one, then turned and said: "button up your coat, wladin!" the end. transcriber's note: the following typographical errors and spelling inconsistencies present in the original edition have been corrected. in the table of contents, "maria czóbor's rose" was changed to "maria czobor's rose". in the introduction, "strong satrical bent" was changed to "strong satirical bent". in part ii, chapter i, "believe me, rosalia" was changed to "believe me, rosália", and a missing quotation mark was added after "something in the writing business". in part ii, chapter iii, "pal gregorics's death and will" was changed to "pál gregorics's death and will". in part ii, chapter iv, "appeared at gáspar's house" was changed to "appeared at gáspár's house". in part iii, chapter ii, "our rosalia" was changed to "our rosália". in part iii, chapter iv, an extraneous quotation mark was removed after "threatened with damage by hail!" at the head of part iv, "intellectual society in babaszek" was changed to "intellectual society in bábaszék". in part iv, chapter i, "the supper at the mravucsans'" was changed to "the supper at the mravucsáns'", and a missing parenthesis was added after "stay in your parish, rafanidesz". in part iv, chapter ii, extraneous quotation marks were removed after "seize hold of it!" and "a small pot of jam in too?" in part v, chapter ii, "visztula, the old watch-dog" was changed to "vistula, the old watch-dog". 'neath the hoof of the tartar [illustration: portrait of jósika] 'neath the hoof of the tartar or _the scourge of god_ by baron nicolas jósika abridged from the hungarian by selina gaye _with preface by r. nisbet bain_ sans peur et sans reproche [illustration] second edition _and photogravure portrait of the author_ london jarrold & sons, 10 & 11, warwick lane, e.c. [_all rights reserved_] 1904 contents. chapter page introduction 7 i. rumours 15 ii. good news or bad? 35 iii. master stephen's page 50 iv. mistake the first 69 v. as the king wills 89 vi. mistake the second 104 vii. at the very doors 120 viii. the better part of valour 133 ix. "i wash my hands" 146 x. libor climbs the cucumber-tree 167 xi. "next time we meet" 181 xii. defending the castle 199 xiii. camp fires 216 xiv. a fatal day 228 xv. dora's resolve 240 xvi. through the snow 253 xvii. a stampede 274 xviii. aunt orsolya's cavern 288 xix. father roger's story 297 xx. like the phoenix 312 introduction. baron miklós jósika, the walter scott of hungary, was born at torda, in transylvania, on april 28th, 1796. while quite a child, he lost both his parents, and was brought up at the house and under the care of his grandmother, anna bornemissza, a descendant of jókai's heroine of the same name in "'midst the wild carpathians." of the young nobleman's many instructors, the most remarkable seems to have been an _emigré_ french colonel, who gave him a liking for the literature of france, which was not without influence on his future development. after studying law for a time at klausenberg to please his friends, he became a soldier to please himself, and in his seventeenth year accompanied the savoy dragoon regiment to italy. during the campaign of the mincio in 1814, he so distinguished himself by his valour that he was created a first lieutenant on the field of battle, and was already a captain when he entered paris with the allies in the following year. in 1818, at the very beginning of his career, he ruined his happiness by his unfortunate marriage with elizabeth kalláy. according to jósika's biographer, luiza szaák,[1] young jósika was inveigled into this union by a designing mother-in-law, and any chance of happiness the young couple might have had, if left to themselves, was speedily dashed by the interference of the father of the bride, who defended all his daughter's caprices against the much-suffering husband. even the coming of children could not cement this woeful wedding, which terminated in the practical separation of spouses who were never meant to be consorts. [footnote 1: baró jósika miklós élete és munkai.] jósika further offended his noble kinsmen by devoting himself to literature. it may seem a paradox to say so, yet it is perfectly true, that in the early part of the present century, with some very few honourable exceptions, the upper classes in hungary addressed only their _servants_ in hungarian. latin was the official language of the diet, while polite circles conversed in barbarous french. these were the days when, as jókai has reminded us, the greatest insult you could offer to an hungarian lady was to address her in her native tongue. it required some courage, therefore, in the young baron to break away from the feudal traditions of his privileged caste and use the plebeian magyar dialect as a literary vehicle. his first published book, "abafi" (1836), an historical romance written under the direct influence of sir walter scott, whom jósika notoriously took for his model, made a great stir in the literary world of hungary. "hats off, gentlemen," was how szontagh, the editor of the _figyelmezö_, the leading hungarian newspaper of the day, began his review of this noble romance. jósika was over forty when he first seriously began to write, but the grace and elegance of his style, the maturity of his judgment, the skilfulness of his characterization--all pointed to a long apprenticeship in letters. absolute originality cannot indeed be claimed for him. unlike jókai, he owed very much to his contemporaries. he began as an imitator of scott, as we have seen, and he was to end as an imitator of dickens, as we shall see presently. but he was no slavish copyist. he gave nearly as much as he took. moreover, he was the first to naturalize the historical romance in hungary, and if, as a novelist, he is inferior to walter scott, he is inferior to him alone. in hungary, at any rate, his rare merits were instantly recognised and rewarded. two years after the publication of "abafi," he was elected a member of the hungarian academy, four years later he became the president of the kisfaludy társaság, the leading magyar literary society. all classes, without exception, were attracted and delighted by the books of this new novelist, which followed one another with bewildering rapidity. "zolyomi," written two years before "abafi," was published a few months later, together with "könnyelmüek." shortly afterwards came the two great books which are generally regarded as his masterpieces, "az utolsó bátory" and "csehek magyarországon," and a delightful volume of fairy tales, "élet és tündérhón," in three volumes. in 1843 was published "zrinyi a költö," in which some critics saw a declension, but which jókai regards as by far the greatest of jósika's historical romances. finally may be mentioned as also belonging to the pre-revolutionary period, "jósika istván," an historical romance in five volumes, largely based upon the family archives; "egy kétemeletes ház," a social romance in six volumes; and "ifju békesi ferencz kalandjai," a very close and most clever imitation of the "pickwick papers," both in style and matter, written under the pseudonym of moric alt. it is a clever skit of the peccadilloes and absurdities of the good folks of budapest of all classes, full of genuine humour, and was welcomed with enthusiasm. on the outbreak of the war of independence in 1848, baron jósika magnanimously took the popular side, though he was now an elderly man, and had much to lose and little to gain from the revolution. he was elected a member of the honvéd government; countenanced all its acts; followed it from place to place till the final collapse, and then fled to poland. ultimately he settled at brussels, where for the next twelve years he lived entirely by his pen, for his estates were confiscated, and he himself was condemned to death by the triumphant and vindictive austrian government, which had to be satisfied, however, with burning him in effigy. jósika was to die an exile from his beloved country, but the bitterness of banishment was somewhat tempered by the touching devotion of his second wife, the baroness julia podmaniczky, who also became his amanuensis and translator. the first novel of the exilic period was "eszter," written anonymously for fear his works might be prohibited in hungary, in which case the unhappy author would have run the risk of actual want. for the same reason all the novels written between 1850 and 1860 (when he resumed his own name on his title-pages) are "by the author of 'eszter.'" in 1864, by the doctor's advice, jósika moved to dresden, and there, on february 27th, 1865, he died, worn out by labour and sorrow. he seems, at times, to have had a hard struggle for an honourable subsistence, and critics, latterly, seem to have been neglectful or unkind. ultimately his ashes were brought home to his native land and deposited reverently in the family vault at klausenberg; statues were raised in his honour at the hungarian capital, and the greatest of hungarian novelists, maurus jókai, delivered an impassioned funeral oration over the remains of the man who did yeoman's service for the magyar literature, and created and popularized the historical novel in hungary. for it is as the hungarian historical romancer _par excellence_ that jósika will always be remembered, and inasmuch as the history of no other european country is so stirring and so dramatic as that of hungary, and jósika was always at infinite pains to go direct to original documents for his facts and local colouring, he will always be sure of an audience in an age, like our own, when the historical novel generally (witness the immense success of sienkiewicz) is once more the favourite form of fiction. among the numerous romances "by the author of 'eszter,'" the work, entitled "jö a tatár" ("the tartar is coming"), now presented to the english public under the title of "'neath the hoof of the tartar," has long been recognised by hungarian critics as "the most pathetic" of jósika's historical romances. the groundwork of the tale is the terrible tartar invasion of hungary during the reign of béla iv. (1235-1270), when the mongol hordes devastated magyarland from end to end. two love episodes, however, relieve the gloom of this terrific picture, "and the historical imagination" of the great hungarian romancer has painted the heroism and the horrors of those far distant times every whit as vividly as sienkiewicz has painted the secular struggle between the red cross knights and the semi-barbarous heroes of old lithuania. r. nisbet bain. 'neath the hoof of the tartar. chapter i. rumours. "well, talabor, my boy, what is it? anything amiss?" asked master peter, as the page entered the hall, where he and his daughter were at breakfast. it was a bare, barn-like apartment, but the plates and dishes were of silver. "nothing amiss, sir," was the answer, "only a guest has just arrived, who would like to pay his respects, but--he is on foot!" it was this last circumstance, evidently, which was perplexing talabor. "a guest?--on foot?" repeated master peter, as if he too were puzzled. "yes, sir; abbot roger, he calls himself, and says you know him!" "what! good father roger! know him? of course i do!" cried peter, springing from his chair. "where is he? why didn't you bring him in at once? i am not his grace of esztergom to keep a good man like him waiting in the entry!" "the servants are just brushing the dust off him, sir," replied the page, "and he wants to wash his feet, but he will be ready to wait upon you directly, sir, if you please!" "by all means! but he is no 'abbot,' talabor; he is private chaplain to master stephen, my brother!" talabor had not long been in master peter's service, and knew no more of master stephen than he did of father roger, so he said nothing and left the room with a bow. "blessed be the name of the lord jesus, father roger!" cried master peter, hurrying forward to meet his guest, as he entered the dining-hall. "for ever and ever!" responded the father, while dora raised his hand to her lips, delighted to see her old friend again. "but how is this, father roger?" peter asked in high good humour, after some inquiry as to his brother's welfare; "how is this? talabor, _deák_ announced you as 'abbot.' what is the meaning of it?" "quite true, sir! thanks to his holiness and the king, i have been 'abbot' the last month or two; but just now i am on my way to pest by command of his majesty." "what! an abbot travel in this fashion, on foot! why, our abbots make as much show as the magnates, some of them. too modest, too modest, father! besides, you'll never get there! is the king's business urgent?" "hardly that, i think; though--but, after all, why prophesy evil before one must!" "prophesy evil?" repeated dora. "prophecies are in the hands of the lord!" interposed her father quickly. "good or bad, it rests with him whether they shall be fulfilled. so, father roger, let us have it, whatever it is." "the king's commands were that i should be at pest by the end of the month," answered roger, "so i shall be in time, even if i do travel somewhat slowly. as for the prophesying--without any gift of prophecy i can tell you so much as this, that _something_ is coming! true, it is far off as yet, but to be forewarned is to be forearmed, and i fancy the king is one who likes to look well ahead." "but what is it, father roger? do tell us!" cried dora anxiously. "nothing but rumours so far, dear child, but they are serious, and it behoves us to be on our guard." "oktai and his brethren, eh?" said master peter, with some scorn. "oh, those tartars! the tartars are coming! the tartars are coming! why, they have been coming for years! when did we first hear that cry? i declare i can't remember," and he laughed. "i am afraid it is no laughing matter, though," said father roger. "i daresay you have not forgotten brother julian, who returned home only two or three years ago." but here dora interposed. she remembered father roger telling her a story of the dominican brothers, who had gone to try and find the "old home" of the magyars and convert to christianity those who had stayed behind, and she wanted to hear it again, if her father did not mind. father roger accordingly told how, of the first four brothers, only one had returned home, and he had died soon after, but not before he had described how, while travelling as a merchant, he had fallen in with men who spoke hungarian and told him where their home, "ugria," was to be found.[2] four more brothers had been despatched on the same quest by king béla, who was desirous of increasing the population of his country, and particularly wished to secure "kinsmen" if he could. two only of the brothers persevered through the many perils and privations which beset their way. one of these died, and julian, the survivor, entering the service of a wealthy mohammedan, travelled with him to a land of many rich towns, densely populated.[3] here he met a woman who had actually come from the "old home," and still farther north he had found the "brothers of the magyars," who could understand him and whom he could understand. [footnote 2: ugria extended from the north sea to the rivers kama, irtisch, and tobol, west and east of the ural mountains. the ugrians had come in more ancient times from the high lands of the altai mountains. hungarian was still spoken in ugria, then called juharia, as late as the beginning of the sixteenth century.] [footnote 3: great bulgaria, lying on both sides of the volga, at its junction with the kama.] they were, of course, heathen, but not idolaters; they were nomads, wandering from place to place, living on flesh and mare's milk, and knowing nothing of agriculture. they were greatly interested in all that julian told them, for they knew from old traditions that some of their race had migrated westwards. but at the time of his visit they were much perturbed by news brought to them by their neighbours on the east. these were tartar, or turkish, tribes, who, having several times attacked them and been repulsed, had finally entered into an alliance with them. a messenger from the tartar khan had just arrived to announce, not only that the tartar tribes were themselves on the move and but five days' journey away, but that they were moving to escape from a "thick-headed" race, numerous as the sands of the sea which was behind them, on their very heels, and threatening to overwhelm all the kingdoms of the world, as it had already overwhelmed great part of asia. brother julian hastened home to report his discoveries and warn his country, which he had reached between two and three years before our story begins; but nothing more had come of his pilgrimage, no more had been heard of the "magyar[4] brothers." [footnote 4: europeans called them ugrians-hungarians, but they called themselves "magyars"--"children of the land," as some think to be the meaning of the word.] "but why, father roger?" asked dora, with wide eyes. "because the 'thick-headed people' have not only overrun nearly the whole of central asia as far as pekin, covering it with ruins and reducing it to a desert, but have streamed westward like a flood, a torrent, and have submerged nearly the whole of eastern europe." "then they are not tartars?" "no, mongolians[5]; but they have swallowed up many tartar tribes and have forced them to join their host. tartars we have known before, but mongols are new to us, so most people keep to the name familiar to them, which seems appropriate too--tátars, tartari, you know, denizens of tartarus, the inferno, as we italians call it; and their deeds are 'infernal' enough, heaven knows!" [footnote 5: temudschin was but thirteen when he became chief (in a. d. 1175) of one horde, consisting of thirty to forty thousand families. after some vicissitudes, he entered upon a career of conquest, and, between 1204 and 1206, he summoned the chiefs of all the hordes and tribes who owned his sway to an assembly, at which he caused it to be proclaimed that "heaven had decreed to him the title of 'dschingiz' (highest), for he was to be ruler of the whole world." from this time he was known as dschingiz, or zenghiz khan.] "and are they coming, really?" "as to whether they will come here, god alone knows; but oktai, son of dschingiz, who is now chief khan, has sent a vast host westward, and, as i said, they have overrun great part of russia; it is reported that they have burnt moscow." "come, come, father," interrupted peter, who had been growing more and more restless, "you are not going to compare us magyars with the russians, i hope, or with the chinese and indians either. if they show their ugly dog's-heads here, they will find us more than a match for such a rabble." "i hope so!" said father roger. but he spoke gravely, and added, "you have heard, of course, of the cumani, kunok, you call them, i think." "to be sure! peaceable enough when they are let alone, but brave, splendid fellows when they are attacked, as oktai has found, for i know they have twice defeated him," said master peter triumphantly. "yes, there was no want of valour on their part; but you know the proverb: 'geese may be the death of swine, if only there be enough of them!' and so, according to the last accounts, the brave king has been entirely overwhelmed by oktai's myriads, and he, with 40,000 families of kunok, are now in the moldavian mountains on the very borders of erdély" (transylvania). "ah, indeed," said master peter, a little more gravely, "that i had not heard! but if it is true, i must tell you that my chief object would be to prevent the report from spreading and being exaggerated. if it does, the whole country will be in a state of commotion, and all for nothing! there is hardly any nation which needs peace more than ours does, and we have quite enough to do with sweeping before our own door, without going and mixing ourselves up in other people's quarrels." but father roger went on to say that the rumour had spread already, and that was why the king was wishing to call his nobles, and, in fact, the whole nation, together to take measures of defence in good time. "defence!" cried peter; "defence against whom? why, we have no enemies on any of our borders, unless you mean the kunok, and they are far enough off at present; besides, we don't look on them as foes. it is always the way, father roger! always the way! we go conjuring up spectres! and though i am his majesty's loyal and devoted subject, i may say here, just between ourselves, that i do think him too quick to take alarm." "you think so, sir?" returned the abbot; "well, of course, it is a mere opinion, but to my mind the king is not far wrong." and then the good father reminded his host that oktai had already overthrown the russians, great numbers of whom had been forced to join his army; and now that he had driven out the kunok was it to be supposed that he would stop short? dschingiz khan, his father, had been a conqueror; conquest was his sole object in life, and he would have conquered the whole world if he had lived. his sons, especially oktai, took after him; they, too, considered themselves destined to conquer the world, and now that kuthen had shown him the way into transylvania he would be forcing a passage across the frontier before they knew where they were. his rapidity was something marvellous, unheard of! again master peter only laughed. where was the use of alarming the country? and would not a call to arms look as if they were afraid, and actually tempt the mongols to come and attack them? father roger shook his head, as he replied in latin: "if you wish for peace, prepare for war, as the old romans used to say, and it is wise not to despise your foe." the two went on arguing. master peter, like many another noble in those days, would not see danger. though valiant enough, he was always an easy-going man, and, again like many another, he was quite confident that hungary would be able to beat any enemy who might come against her, without worrying herself beforehand. father roger did not know the hungarians, though he had lived so long among them! "well, well," he concluded, "you go to pest, mr. abbot; but think it well over by the way, and when you see the king, you tell him plainly that peter szirmay advises his majesty not to give the alarm before it is necessary." roger shook his head but said nothing. italian though he was, he understood the hungarian nobility very well. he knew how they disliked being turned out of their ordinary course; but he knew too that once roused, they would not hesitate to confront any enemy who threatened them, and that though they might be hot-headed, foolhardy, over-confident, they were certainly not cowards! "well," thought the abbot, "you are no wiser, i am afraid, than others; but when the king does succeed in routing you out of your old fastness and getting you down into the plain, you will give as good an account of yourself as the rest!" master peter was glad to drop the subject, and to feel that there was at all events no immediate prospect of his being disturbed; yet he was so far an exception to the majority of his fellow-nobles that he determined to ascertain the truth about these rumours, and, if necessary, not to delay placing himself and his daughter beyond the reach of danger. father roger's gravity had impressed dora much, but she was young, and she had such entire confidence in her father, that she could not feel any actual anxiety. "what do you think, father roger?" she said presently, "if oktai khan really should want to fight us, about how long would it take him to get here?" "that no one can say, dear child," answered the italian. "he might reach the frontier in three years, or it might be in two, or--it might be in one!" "in one year!" dora repeated in a startled tone. "it is impossible to say for certain, my dear. it all depends upon how long our neighbours can keep back the flood. one thing is certain, that, as they retreat in our direction, they will draw the enemy after them, and what is more, unless we are wise and prudent we may make enemies of the fugitives themselves; that is if we give them reason to suppose us not strong enough, or not trustworthy enough, to be their friends. well, god is good, and we must hope that the danger will be averted." "come, come, father roger," said master peter, "that is enough, that's enough! let us eat, drink, and sleep upon it, and time will show! there is not the least reason for worrying at present at all events, and if this disorderly crew does pour across our frontiers at last, well, we shall be there to meet them! and it won't be the first time that we have done such a thing." and then, by way of entertaining his guest, he proposed to take him all over the house, stables, and courtyard. master peter was not wealthy as his brother stephen was, but for all that he was sufficiently well off. stephen, the younger brother, had had a large fortune with his wife; peter, a much smaller one with his. the family mansion, or castle,[6] belonged equally to both; and, being both widowers, and much devoted to one another, they had agreed to share it, and had done so most amicably for several years. [footnote 6: any country house was a castle, or château, as the french would say.] without being covetous, stephen had a warm appreciation of this world's goods; and of all the forty male members of the szirmay family living at this time, he was certainly the most wealthy. he was devoted to his children, and gave them the best education possible at the time of which we are speaking, the first half of the thirteenth century. his son, akos, now one of the king's pages, had learnt to read and write; he had, too, a certain knowledge of latin, and sometimes in conversation he would use a latin word or two, with hungarian terminations. in fact, he knew somewhat more than most of his class, and, needless to say, he was a good horseman and a good marksman, and well-skilled in the use of arms and in all manly exercises. stephen's daughter and niece, jolánta and dora, were as good scholars as his son; and all three owed their secular as well as religious knowledge to father roger, in later years the famous author of the "carmen miserabile," and already known as one of the most cultivated men of the day. he was making his home with the szirmays, and acting as chaplain, merely for the time being; and stephen was glad to secure his services for the children, who loved the gentle father, as all did who came in contact with him. learning was held in such high honour in hungary in these days, that many a man coveted, and had accorded to him, the title of "magister"--master--(borne by the king's notary and chancellor) if he had but a little more scholarship than his neighbours, though that often of the slenderest description, and sometimes but few degrees removed from ignorance itself. a man such as roger was not likely therefore to be overlooked by a king such as béla; and his advancement was certain to come in time, notwithstanding the fact that he was an italian. it was when dora was about eighteen that her father had resolved to go and live on his own property, in one of the northernmost counties of hungary. now peter had never been a good landlord; from his youth up his pursuits and interests had not been such as to make him take pleasure in agriculture. accounts and calculations were not at all in his way either, and accordingly, no one was more imposed upon and plundered by his stewards than himself. he was generous in everything, open-handed, a true gentleman, delighted to help or oblige anyone, and much more thoughtlessly profuse than many who were far richer than himself. the dwelling-house on that one of his estates to which he had decided to go, was, it is hardly needful to say, very much out of repair, almost a ruin in fact. it had never been handsome, being, in truth, but a great shapeless barn, or store-house, which consisted merely of a ground floor nearly as broad as it was long. the original building had been of stone, built in the shape of a tent, and, of course, open to the roof; for ceilings, except in churches, were long looked upon as luxuries. the first inhabitants had slept and cooked, lived and died, all in this one great hall, or barn; and their successors, as they found more space needed, had made many additions, each with its own separate roof of split fir-poles, straw, or reeds. by degrees the original building had been surrounded by a whole colony of such roofs, with broad wooden troughs between them to carry off the rain water. most of these additions had open roofs, and were as much like barns as the first; but some were covered in with great shapeless beams; and in a few there were even fireplaces, built up of logs thickly coated with plaster. various alterations and improvements had been made before master peter's arrival, the most important of which was that the openings in the walls which had hitherto done duty as windows, had been filled in with bladder-skin, and provided with wooden lattices. the floors were not boarded, but the earth had been carefully levelled, and was concealed by coarse reed-mats, while the walls had been plastered and whitened. altogether, the place was not uncomfortable, according to the ideas of the time, and dora was not at all disgusted with its appearance, even coming from her uncle's house, where she was accustomed to a good deal of splendour of a certain kind. hungarians, even in those days, could make a splendid appearance upon occasion, as they did at the king's wedding, when all the guests wore scarlet, richly embroidered with gold. but their chief luxuries at home took the form of such articles as could be easily converted into money in case of need. they had, for instance, plates and dishes of gold and silver, precious stones, court-dresses, not embroidered and braided in the present fashion, but adorned with pearls and stones of great value, as well as with plates of beaten gold and silver. master peter's great dining-hall contained many valuables of this description. huge, much-carved oak chests were ranged along the bare walls, some open, some closed, these latter being laden with silver plates and dishes, gold and silver cups, tankards and numberless other articles required at table. here and there, the statue of a saint, a piece of grecian or roman armour, and various antique curiosities were to be seen. seats had not been forgotten, and the high-backed chairs and broad benches were supplied with comfortable cushions of bright colours. similar gay cushions were in use throughout that part of the house inhabited by peter and his daughter; and whatever deficiencies there were, everything at least was now in good order and scrupulously clean. as for dora's own room, her father had done all that he could think of to make it pleasant and comfortable; and though many a village maiden in these days would look on it with disdain, dora was well satisfied. there were even a few pictures on the bare white walls, though of course they were not in oil; but the special luxury of her little apartment was that the window was filled with horn, which was almost as transparent as glass, and was, moreover, decorated with flowers and designs, painted in bright colours. window glass was not unknown at this date, but it was too precious to be commonly used, and was reserved for churches and the palaces of kings and magnates. bladders and thin skins were in ordinary use, or, where people were very wealthy, plates of horn; but there were plenty of gentlemen's houses in which the inhabitants had no light at all in winter but such as came from the great open hearths and fireplaces, for the windows were entirely closed up with reeds or rush mats. one of the additions made to the original building had been what was called a "far-view" or "pigeon tower," much higher than the house itself, and the top of which could not be reached without the help of a ladder. this tower, which was more like a misshapen obelisk in shape, was roofed in with rough boards. in the lower storey there was a good-sized room, with a door opening from it into the large hall. it contained a wooden, four-post bedstead, clean and warm, and a small table; and all along the walls were clothes-pegs and shelves, such necessaries as we call "furniture" being very uncommon in the days we are speaking of. dora's chests had been placed here, and served the purpose of seats, and there were also a few chairs, a praying-desk, and a few other little things. the walls were covered with thick stuff hangings, and the lower part of them was also protected by coarse grey frieze to keep out the cold and damp. this was dora's own room. like all gentlemen of the time, even if they were reduced in means, peter had a considerable train of servants, and these were lodged in the very airy, barn-like buildings already mentioned. the courtyard was enclosed by a wall, high and massive, provided with loopholes, parapet, bastions, and breastwork; and the great gate, which had not yet been many weeks in its place, was so heavy that it was as much as four men could do to open and close it. master peter had been anxious to have his horses as well lodged as they had been at his brother's; but, after all, the stables, which were just opposite the house, were not such as horses in these days would consider stables at all. they were, in fact, mere sheds with open sides, such as are now put up to shelter the wild horses of the plains. when all this was done there still remained the digging of a broad, deep ditch or moat, in which the master himself and all his servants took part, assisted by some of the neighbouring peasants; and in about three months' time all was finished, and the curious assemblage of irregular buildings was more or less fortified, and capable of being defended if attacked by any wandering band of brigands. it merely remains to add that master peter's castle stood in a contracted highland valley, and was surrounded by pine-woods and mountains. behind it was the village, of which some few straggling cottages, or rather huts, had wandered away beyond it into the woods. the inhabitants were not hungarians, except in so far as that they lived in hungary; they were not magyars, that is, but slovacks, remnants of the great moravian kingdom, who had retired, or been driven, into the mountains, when the magyars occupied the land. the magyars loved the green plains, the lakes--full of fish, and frequented by innumerable wild fowl--to which they had been accustomed in asia; the slovacks, whether from choice or necessity, loved the mountains. these latter were an industrious, honest people, no trouble to anyone, and able to make a living in spite of the hard climate. they had suffered in more ways than one by the absence of the family; for the gentry at the great house had as a rule been good to them; and when they were away, or coming but seldom, and then only for sport with the bears, boars, and wolves which abounded, the poor people were treated with contempt and tyranny by those in charge of the property. they no doubt were glad when master peter came to live among them, and as for their landlord, time had passed pleasantly enough with him in spite of his being so far out of the world. what with looking after the estate, in his own fashion, hunting, riding, sometimes going on a visit or having friends to stay, he had found enough to occupy him; but being a hospitable soul, he was always delighted to welcome the rare guests whom chance brought into the neighbourhood, and considered that he had a right to keep them three days--if they could be induced to stay longer, so much the better for him! as for companionship, besides dora, who could ride and shoot too, as well as any of her contemporaries, he had talabor the page, who had come to him a pale, delicate-looking youth, but had gained so much in health and strength since he had been in service that his master often pitied him for not having parents better able to advance his prospects in life. they were gentry, originally "noble," as every free-born magyar was, but they were poor gentry, and had been glad to place their son with master peter to complete his education, as was the custom of the time. the great nobles sent their sons to the king's court to be instructed in all manly and courtly accomplishments; the lower nobility and poor gentlefolk sent theirs to the great nobles, who often had in their households several pages. these occupied a position as much above that of the servants as beneath that of the "family," though they themselves were addressed as "servant," until they were thought worthy the title of "_deák_," which, though meaning literally "latinist," answered pretty much to "clerk" or "scholar," and implied the possession of some little education. master peter was so well satisfied with talabor that he now always addressed him as "clerk" in the presence of strangers. he was growing indeed quite fond of him, and was pleased to see how much he had gained in strength and good looks, and how well able he was to take part in all the various forms of exercise, the long hunting excursions, the feats of arms, to which he was himself devoted. chapter ii. good news or bad? father roger had been shown all over the house, had seen all the additions and improvements, inside and out, and now felt as much at home in master peter's castle as he had done in master stephen's. it had been finally settled that he should start for pest the next morning, and master peter insisted on supplying him with a horse and an armed escort. "and then," said he, unconsciously betraying the curiosity which was devouring him, in spite of his assumed indifference, "then, when you send the horses back, you know, you can just write a few lines and tell me what the king wants to see you about." peter was quite anxious for him to be off that he might hear the sooner; but it struck him that, as father roger would be in pest long before the end of the month if he made the journey on horse-back, and yet could not present himself at court until the time appointed, he might perhaps be glad of a lodging of his own, though, of course, there were monasteries which would have received him. he offered him, therefore, the use of an old house of his own (in much the same condition, he confessed, as his present dwelling had been in), but in which he knew there were two habitable rooms, for he had lived in them himself on the occasion of his last visit to the capital. all was settled before supper-time, and master peter was just beginning to wonder when that meal would make its appearance, when the sharp, shrill sound of a horn gave him something else to think of. "someone is coming! they are letting down the drawbridge," he exclaimed, with much satisfaction at the prospect of another guest; and shortly after, ushered in by talabor, there entered the hall a young man, somewhat dusty, but daintily apparelled. his black hair had been curled and was shining from a recent application of oil, and in his whole appearance and demeanour there was the indescribable something which tells of the "rising man." "ah, clerk, it is you, is it?" said peter, without rising from his seat. "my brother is well, i hope?" "master stephen was quite well, sir, when i left him three days ago," returned the youth, as he made an elaborate bow to the master, another less low, but delivered with an amiable smile to dora, and bestowed a careless third upon father roger. "well, and what is the news?" "both good and bad, mr. szirmay," was the answer, with another bow. "out with the bad first then, boy," said master peter quickly, knitting his brows as he spoke. "let us have the good last, and keep the taste of it longest! now then!" "you have heard, no doubt, sir, what rumours the land is ringing with?" began the clerk with an air of much importance. "we have!" said peter, shrugging his shoulders; "let them ring till they are tired! if that is all you have jogged here about, gossip, you might as well have stayed quietly at home." "matters are more serious than you are perhaps aware, sir," said the clerk; and with that he drew from his breast a packet done up in cloth, out of which he produced a piece of parchment about the size of his first finger. this he handed proudly to master peter, who snatched it from his hand and passed it on to father roger, saying: "here, father, do you take it and read it! i declare if it does not look like a summons to the diet! there, there! blowing the trumpet, beating the drum in pest already, i suppose!" "quite true, sir, it is a summons to the diet," said libor. "his majesty, or his excellency the palatine, i am not certain which of the two, was under the impression that you were still with us, and so sent both summonses to master stephen." "with _you_!" laughed master peter. "all right, _kinsman_, we shall obey his majesty's commands, and i hope it may not all prove to be much ado about nothing." with kindly consideration for his host's imperfect latin, father roger proceeded to translate the summons into hungarian. the king never made many words about things, and his order was plain and direct. the diet was to be held on such a date, at such a place, and it was master peter's bounden duty to be present; that was all! "ah, didn't i tell you so, father?" said he gravely; "we shall be lighting our fires before the cold sets in, and pitching our tents before there is any camp! people are mad! and they are hurrying on that good king of ours too fast. well, _kinsman_," he went on sarcastically, "tell us all you know, and if there is any more bad news let us have it at once." "bad news? it depends upon how you take it, sir; many call it good, and more call it bad," returned libor, a trifle abashed by master peter's mode of address. "and pray what is it that is neither good nor bad? i don't like riddles, let me tell you, and if you can't speak plainly you had better not speak at all!" "sir," said libor, "i am only telling you what other people say----" and then, as master peter made a gesture of impatience, he went on, "kuthen, king of the kunok, has sent an embassy to his majesty asking for a settlement for his people----" "ah! that's something," interrupted peter, "and i hope his majesty sent them to the right-about at once?" "his majesty received the ambassadors with particular favour, and in view of the danger which threatens us, declared himself ready to welcome such an heroic people." "danger! don't let me hear that word again, clerk!" "it is not my word," protested libor, with an appealing glance at dora, intended to call attention to master peter's injustice. "it's a bad word, whosesoever it is," insisted peter. "well, what more? are we to be saddled with this horde of pagans then?" "pagans no longer! at least they won't be when they come to settle. they are all going to be baptized, the king and his family and all his people. the ambassadors promised and were baptized themselves before they went back." "what!" cried father roger, his face lighting up, "forty thousand families converted to the faith! why, it is divine, and the king is almost an apostle!" the good father quite forgot all further fear of danger from the kunok, and from this moment took their part. he could see nothing but good in this large accession of numbers to the church. "new christians!" said peter, shaking his head doubtfully, as he saw the impression made upon roger. "are such people christians just because the holy water has been poured upon their faces? they are far enough from christianity to my mind. who can trust such folk? and then, to admit them without consulting the nation, by a word of command--i don't like the whole thing, and so far as the country is concerned, i see no manner of use in it." "you see, mr. szirmay," said libor, with a little accession of boldness, "i was quite right. there are two of you here, and while one thinks the news bad, the other calls it 'divine.'" "silence, gossip!" said peter haughtily, "you are not in your own house, remember. be so good as to wait till your opinion is asked before you give it." then, turning to roger, he went on: "well, if it is so, it is, and we can't alter it; but there will be a fine piece of work when the diet does meet. it must be as his majesty wills, but i for one shall not give my consent, not though the danube and tisza both were poured upon them. one thing is clear, we are called to the diet and we must go, and as for the rest it is in god's hands." so saying, master peter began to pace up and down the room, and no one ventured to interrupt him. but presently he came to a standstill in front of the clerk, and said gloomily, "you have told us ill news enough to last a good many years; so, unless there is more to come, you may go on to the next part, and tell us any good news you have." "i can oblige you with that, too," said the clerk, who evidently felt injured by peter's contemptuous way of speaking; "at least," he added, "i hope i shall not have to pay for it as i have done for my other news, though i am sure i am not responsible, for i neither invited the kunok nor summoned your honour to the diet." "stop there!" said peter, with some little irritation. "it seems to me, young man, that you have opened your eyes considerably since you left my brother; you talk a great deal and very mysteriously. now then, let us have any good news you can tell us!" "his majesty has appointed father roger to be one of the canons of nagyvárad (grosswardein), and master peter's long suit has terminated in a favourable judgment. the land in dispute is given back, with the proceeds for the last nine years." "that is good news, if you will," cried peter, both surprised and pleased; and without heeding a remark from libor that he was glad he had been able to say something which was to his mind at last, he went on: "now, dora, my dear, we shall be able to be a little more comfortable, and we will spend part of the winter in pest. young ladies want a little amusement, and you, my poor girl, have had to live buried in the woods, where there is nothing going on." "the hédervárys are in pest too," the clerk chimed in, "and you will have a delightful visit, my dear young mistress. his majesty's court was never more brilliant than it is now; the queen likes to see noble young dames about her." dora and peter both looked at the clerk in amazement. he had been four years in master stephen's house, without ever once venturing to make dora such a long speech as this. "what has come to this man?" and "how very odd!" were the thoughts which passed through the minds of peter and his daughter. but, forward as she thought him, dora would not quite ignore the young man's remark, so she turned to father roger, saying, "i know it is a very gay life in pest, and no doubt there is plenty of amusement at the court, but i am not at all anxious to leave this place. it is not like a convent after all, and we have several nice people not far off who are glad to see us." but having made a beginning, libor had a great desire to prolong the conversation. roger and peter were now both walking up and down the room, while dora was standing at one of the windows, so the opportunity seemed to be a favourable one, and he proceeded to say gallantly that dora was wronging the world as well as herself by shutting herself out from amusement--that there was more than one person who was only waiting for a little encouragement--that her many admirers were frightened away--and so on, and so on, until dora cut him short, saying that she was sorry he should oblige her to remind him of what master peter had just said about not giving his opinion until it was asked for; and with that she left him and joined her father. "what a haughty little thing it is for a forest flower, to be sure," said libor to himself; but he felt just a little ashamed nevertheless, as he was well aware that he had taken an unheard-of liberty. conversation of any sort between the pages and the daughters of the house was not "the thing" in those old days; and, quite apart from the turn which libor had been so little respectful as to give to his remarks, dora had felt uncomfortable at being forced into what she considered unbecoming behaviour. "ah! well," libor reflected, "if she never moves from here she will find herself left on the shelf, and then--why then she won't be likely to get a better castle offered her than _mine_!" and thereupon libor (whose eyes had certainly been "opened," as master peter said) walked up to the two gentlemen, as if he were quite one of the company, and joined in their conversation at the first pause. "thunder and lightning! something has certainly come to this fellow. let us find out what it is," was master peter's inward comment. he was beginning to be as much amused as irritated by the young gentleman's newly acquired audacity; but it annoyed him to have him walking beside him, so he came to a standstill and said, "well, libor, you have talked a good deal about one thing and another, according to your lights; now tell us something about your worthy self. are you still in my brother's service and intending to remain permanently? or have you other and more brilliant prospects? a youth such as you, clerk, may do and be anything if he sets about it in the right way. let us hear something about yourself." "sir," replied libor, "it is true that i have been so fortunate as to share with many noble youths the privilege of living in mr. stephen's household, and of winning his confidence; also i have enjoyed your own favour in times past, master peter. 'service' you call it, and rightly too; but to-day i have discharged the last of mr. stephen's commissions. he has treated me with a fatherly kindness and marked consideration beyond my deserts, but i am now on my way to pest to see mr. paul héderváry, who has offered me the post of governor of one of his castles." "governor! at four or five and twenty! that is remarkable, mr. libor," said peter, with evident surprise. "a governor in the service of the hédervárys is a very important person! i can only offer my best congratulations--to yourself, i mean." libor was no fool, and he perfectly understood; but he made answer, with his nose well in the air, "i can only thank you, sir, but i hope the time may come when mr. héderváry also will be able to congratulate himself on the choice which does me so much honour." "ah! i hope so, i hope so," laughed master peter cheerily. he was pleased with himself for finding out how the clerk had been promoted, and he reflected that true, indeed, was the old latin proverb: _honores mutant mores._ as for libor, though he felt injured, as much by master peter's manner as by his words, he lost nothing of his self-complacency. self-confidence, self-esteem, his new title, and his brilliant prospects were enough to prevent his being put out of countenance for more than a moment by the snubs he had received both from father and daughter. as for canon roger, he, good man, was just as humble now as before his advancement, and either did not, or would not, see the young man's bumptiousness; he continued to treat him, therefore, in the same friendly way as when they were house-mates. "and so you are on your way to pest," said peter; "father roger is also on his way thither. it is always safer to travel in company when there are so many ruffians about, so i hope you will attend him." "i shall be very willing if father roger has no objection; we can travel together." "the canon of grosswardein, remember," said peter a little sharply. "and mr. héderváry's governor," concluded libor boldly and without blinking. "well, mr. governor, in the meantime you may like to look round the place a little before it is too dark; i may perhaps ask you to do a commission or two for myself by-and-by, but for the present will you leave us to ourselves?" this was such an unmistakable dismissal that libor actually lost his self-possession. hesitatingly, and with a bad grace enough, he advanced towards the door, but there he stopped, recovered himself, and exclaimed: "dear me! how forgetful i am! but perhaps the reception i have met with may account for it." "reception!" burst forth peter, whose gathering wrath now boiled over at this last piece of insolence. "i don't know, gossip, or rather mr. governor, i don't know what sort of reception you expected other than that which you have always found here! hold your greyhounds in, clerk. if mr. stephen and mr. héderváry are pleased to make much of you, that is their affair. for my own part i value people according to their worth, and the only worth i have as yet discovered in you, let me tell you, is that at which you rate yourself." master peter was not the man to be trifled with, and for a moment libor felt something of the old awe and deference usual with him in the presence of his superiors. but a deep sense of injury speedily overcame his fear, and after a short pause he made answer: "as you will, sir. since you assign héderváry's governor a place among the dogs, i have nothing further to do save to take my leave." with that he again turned to the door. "if there is any message which you have forgotten, boy, you don't stir from here until you have given it. that done, you may go when you like, and where you like, and no one will detain you." master peter spoke as one who intended to be obeyed, and libor was impressed, not to say cowed. he was very well aware that, as they would say in these days, it was "not well to eat cherries from the same dish" as the szirmay nobles. (at the time of which we are writing a dish of cherries was a sight rarely to be seen.) he held it, therefore, wiser to yield, and mastering himself as well as he could, he said: "mr. stephen wished me to inform you that bishop wáncsa has been inquiring whether you would be disposed to let your house in pest to his majesty." "the king? let it? is mr. wáncsa out of his mind? do their majesties want to hire a great heap of stone like that, where even i have never been comfortable!" "that is my message, but i can explain it. his majesty wants the house prepared for the king of the kunok and his family. you are at liberty to agree or not, but in any case mr. stephen will expect your answer by messenger, unless you are pleased to send it direct to the bishop by myself, or the canon, as we shall find him in pest and it will reach him the sooner." "what! matters have gone so far that they are getting quarters ready for kuthen, and the nation is still left in ignorance." libor merely shrugged his shoulders and said nothing, as the question was not particularly addressed to himself. "hem!" said peter thoughtfully. "i should have liked to spend part of the winter in my own house in pest, but it is in a bad state, very bad, and if the king is willing to repair and put it in order, he shall have it free for three years. it will be time enough to talk about rent after that." "may i take the answer to mr. wáncsa?" inquired libor, who was still standing at the open door. "yes, governor, you may!" answered peter, really at heart one of the best-natured men, who was always and almost instantly sorry when he had lost his temper and "pulled anyone's nose." "you may, libor, and we will not let the sun go down upon our wrath, so you will remain here, if you please, sup well and sleep well. talabor will see that you have all you want, and then you will travel on with the good father and some of my men-at-arms." then turning, and giving his hand to roger, he added: "i am sorry, father, that as things are you see i can't give you quarters in my house; but the king comes before all." as for libor, he chose to consider that peter had made him some sort of amends by his last speech; it pleased him much to play the part of an injured person who has accepted an apology, and he therefore at once resumed his polite manners, and bowing and smiling he replied with all due deference: "as far as i am concerned, sir, nothing can give me greater pleasure, and since you permit me to do so, i will remain." with another bow he left the room, not the house, which indeed he had never intended to leave, if he could help himself. chapter iii. master stephen's page. libor, as already remarked, had never had the least intention of leaving master peter's house so soon after his arrival as he had threatened to do, if he could by any possibility avoid doing so. the fact was he had a little business of his own on hand, as anyone observant might have found out from his air of mystery, and the fact that, if he was on his way to pest, he had had to come so far out of it, that master stephen would certainly have employed another messenger had libor not particularly desired to come. master peter was not very observant, but even he wondered in himself once or twice what the fellow wanted, and came to the conclusion that his new dignity had turned his head. dora wondered a little also, and felt that the young man had been impertinent, not only in his remarks, but in the way in which he had followed her about with his eyes throughout the interview. he was not a person of much consequence, however, and both father and daughter quickly dismissed him from their thoughts. and here, by way of explaining matters, we must mention that many years ago, when dora was quite a tiny child, it had been settled between her father and héderváry the palatine, that she should marry the latter's son paul. héderváry was master peter's oldest and closest friend, one to whom he was much attached; and dora, though no heiress, was a daughter of one of the proudest and noblest houses in hungary. the match was considered perfectly suitable, therefore, and the hédervárys were much attached to their "little daughter," as they constantly called her. paul himself admired and liked the bride chosen for him quite as much as was necessary, and it is needless to say that dora's father thought him extremely fortunate in having a girl so sweet, so clever, so well-educated, so good-looking, so altogether charming, for his wife. dora herself no one thought of consulting. as a good, dutiful daughter, she would, of course, accept without question the husband approved by her father; and there was no denying that paul was calculated to win any girl's admiration, for he was an imposing, gallant-looking personage, and accomplished withal. they would certainly make a handsome, even a striking pair. every time paul came to stay he found dora more attractive; and though he had never in any way alluded to his hopes, of which she was quite ignorant, he could not help feeling that she was the very bride he would choose, or rather, would have chosen for himself, but for one unfortunate defect--her small dowry! it was a very serious defect in his eyes, though his parents thought little of it, for he was ambitious. his great desire was to make a fine figure in the eyes of the world, to be admired, courted, looked up to; and though the hédervárys were wealthy, more wealth never comes amiss to those who wish to shine in society. was it any wonder therefore that paul should presently begin to reflect that dora's cousin jolánta would suit him better than herself? not that he liked her as well, for, though a pretty, gentle girl, she had not much character, and she was not nearly so clever and amusing; but she was an heiress, a considerable heiress, and paul was convinced that he liked her quite well enough to make her his wife. dora was now nearly eighteen, and very soon he would be expected to ask her father's consent to their marriage. to dora herself he would of course not say a word until he had her father's leave. he was in a most difficult position, poor fellow! he was fond of dora; and he was fond of his parents, who would be greatly vexed if he disappointed them in this matter. it was a serious thing to vex one's parents, especially when they had it in their power to disinherit one! his father was a generous, hot-tempered soldier; he would warmly resent any insult put upon his old friend's daughter; master peter might resent it too, though no word had yet passed between himself and his intended son-in-law. truly a difficult position! but for all that, he meant to please himself, if he could safely do so. paul was turning these things over in his mind, and was pitying himself and racking his brains to discover some way by which his parents might be induced to take a reasonable view of things, when it occurred to him that two heads were better than one. he was staying just now with the szirmays at their castle, where he was always made much of, and master stephen was constantly arranging hunting parties and other country amusements in his honour. somehow, he never quite knew how it was, he found himself, during a moment of leisure, near the room occupied by one of the pages; and just for the sake of talking to somebody he went in, and was received with obsequious delight by libor, who murmured his thanks for the great honour done him by the visit of so high and mighty a gentleman. the little room was of the plainest description, and not too light, but the unglazed windows were at least filled in with bladder-skin, and the bare walls were painted white; the furniture consisted of a small open stove of earthenware, a roughly-made, unpainted bedstead, a primitive wooden table, and two or three stools. it was bare enough for a monk's cell, and it was unceiled, open to the roof, which appeared to consist of old boards and lattice-work of a rough description. libor was attired in a pair of red trousers, rather the worse for wear, and fastened round his waist by a leather strap, a waistcoat of the same colour, and a coarse shirt with wide, hanging sleeves. he was wearing neither coat nor jacket, and he had a slender reed pen stuck behind his ear. there were writing materials and a book or two on the table, and the page was busy with his pen, when, to his immense surprise, there entered the haughty young noble, a tall handsome personage clad in a "dolmány" of bright blue woollen stuff which reached down to his ankles, and was not unlike a close-fitting dressing-gown. libor started to his feet, and bowed almost to the ground as he expressed his sense of the great man's condescension, while he wondered in his own mind to what it was due, and what was wanted of him--something, he felt pretty confident, and he was quite ready to serve such an one as paul, who would be sure to make it worth his while. but what could it be? after a little beating about the bush, and a little judicious flattery, which drew forth many humble thanks for his good opinion from libor, coupled with an expression of his hope that mr. héderváry would find that opinion justified if ever he should need his services, paul at once proceeded to business. some men would have been disgusted to see a fellow-man, bowing, bending, and cringeing before them, as libor was doing, but to paul it was merely natural, and it pleased him, as showing that the clerk had a proper respect for his "betters." "i am going to tell you something, clerk, which i have not told to another soul," began paul, and libor bowed again and felt as if he were on hot coals. "you have guessed, i daresay, that i don't come here merely to pay an ordinary visit?" libor said nothing, judging it more prudent not to mention any surmises if he had them. "well, the fact is that i am here this time by desire of my parents to ask the hand of master peter's daughter." libor smiled. "yes, libor, _deák_, but--well, i have the deepest respect for my parents, and i would not willingly cross their wishes, but for all that, i am of age, i am four-and-twenty, and such matters as this i should prefer to manage in my own way." "most natural, sir, i am sure," said libor, with another deep bow; "marriage is an affair which--which----" "which needs careful deliberation, you mean; just so! and the more i consider and weigh matters, the more i feel that it is master stephen's daughter jolánta who is the one for me." "a most charming young lady! and i quite understand mr. héderváry's choice; and, if i might hazard the remark, i would suggest, with all possible deference, that the fair mistress dora is not nearly as well provided for as mr. stephen's daughter; though her father has a quantity of gold and silver plate, his property is not large, and he cannot give her much." "say 'nothing,' libor, and you will be nearer the mark! i know it, and i am glad to see you don't try to hide anything from me. well, of course, property never comes amiss even to the wealthiest, and 'if the master provides dinner, it is well for the mistress to provide supper,' as they say. but i had rather take jolánta empty-handed than dora with all the wealth of the world. i like property, i don't deny it, who does not? but i don't care a straw for dora, and i do for jolánta." "ah, then of course that settles it! but suppose master peter should have suspected your intentions?" "there is just the rub! he is an old friend of my father's, and i should be sorry to hurt him; but i have made up my mind to ask for jolánta." "h-m, h-m," murmured the page thoughtfully. "rather an awkward state of things, sir." "of course it is! but look you here, libor, if you can help me out of it, i will make it worth your while. i know how modest and unselfish you are, but i shall be able to find you something, something which will set you up for life." libor's eyes sparkled. this was even more than he had looked for. but paul was growing rather impatient; this long interview with a person so far beneath him was distasteful to him, and he cut short the page's servile protestations of devotion and gratitude. what was to be done? that was the question. "first make sure of mistress jolánta herself, before anything was said to her father," suggested libor, "and then finish his visit and take his leave without proposing for either. visits were not always bound to end with a proposal, and master peter could not possibly be hurt therefore. as for mr. stephen, when the time should come to ask his consent, he would certainly not refuse such a son-in-law as the son of the palatine. mr. héderváry's parents"--libor hesitated a little--"they could not blame him if--suppose--disappointed they might be, but they could not blame him--if he were able to say that dora had another suitor, and one whom she preferred to himself, though master peter was not aware of the fact." "h-m!" said paul, "that would settle it, of course; but--there is none." "no, there is not," said the clerk thoughtfully, with one of his deferential laughs, "but--we might find or invent someone." "find someone! who is there?" "well, let us see--if--if we can invent no one else, there is myself!" "you!" cried paul, with evident and intense disgust, "you! but how? in what way?" and he broke into a laugh. "that is my affair, sir; and if you have confidence in me----" "hush! i hear footsteps. not another word now, i will contrive to see you again privately before i go from here. just one thing more. i wonder whether you would undertake to do me a small service without telling the mr. szirmays, and without leaving this house." "what am i to understand, sir?" asked the page, with marked attention. and paul explained that if he succeeded in arranging matters with mistress jolánta, he should want someone on whom he could depend, to keep him informed of all that went on in the house, in case, for instance, master stephen should be thinking of another match for his daughter, and--in fact, there might be many things which he ought to know; and then if he came again himself during the winter, he should want someone to see that he had comfortable quarters prepared for him on the road, and so on. libor was only too delighted to serve such a magnificent gentleman, a gentleman who was so open-handed and so condescending moreover, and the bargain was struck. paul handed the page a well filled purse, telling him to keep a fourth part of the contents for himself, and to use the remainder to cover any expenses to which he might be put in sending messengers, etc. "and look you here, libor, from to-day you are in my service, remember--one of my honourable pages; and if ever you should wish to try your fortune elsewhere, there will be a place ready for you in my establishment." libor bowed himself to the ground as he answered, "with heart and soul, sir." meantime the footsteps had drawn nearer, and a tap at the door put a stop to the conversation. "the gentlemen are waiting, sir," said the governor, or seneschal, of the castle, a dignified-looking man clad in a black gown, and wearing at his girdle a huge bunch of keys; for the governor of such a castle as that of the szirmays, was keeper, steward, seneschal, as well as captain of the men-at-arms. "in a moment," replied paul, and as soon as the old man's back was turned, he whispered hurriedly, "if anyone should happen to ask what i came to your room for, you can say that i wanted a letter written." paul stayed yet a few days longer, and was so well entertained with hunting, horse-races, foot-races, feats of arms, and banquets that he could hardly tear himself away from the cordial hospitality of his hosts. he and libor met but once again in private; but when he was gone libor held his head higher than he had ever done before. up to this time he had been the least well off of the pages, and had been deferential to his companions, but now all this was changed. to the szirmays, on the other hand, and especially to master peter, he was more deferential, more attentive, than ever before. weeks, months passed, and if master peter was somewhat surprised that his old friend's son had not yet declared himself, he was much too proud to show it. and he was far too proud also to show how much hurt he was when he presently learnt that paul was a suitor for the hand of his niece, and had been accepted by her father and herself. master peter was deeply hurt indeed, and he felt too that his brother had not behaved well to him, knowing, as he did, the arrangement between himself and his friend. stephen also felt guilty; and the end of it was, that, though the brothers were sincerely attached to one another, and though no word on the subject passed between them, both felt a sort of constraint. the old happy intercourse was impossible; and for this reason master peter came reluctantly to the conclusion that he should be wiser to set up a home of his own again, and leave his brother in possession of the family-dwelling. paul had had considerable trouble with his parents, however. they would not hear a word in depreciation of dora, and at the first insinuation of anything to her actual discredit, héderváry had flown into a rage, denounced it as idle, shameless gossip, and declared hotly that paul ought to be ashamed of himself for giving a moment's heed to such lying rumours. when paul went a step further and obstinately asserted his belief that dora was carrying on a secret flirtation with libor the page, the old warrior's fury was great, and he vowed that he would ride off instantly and tell his friend everything. yet, after all, he did nothing of the sort! (paul and libor perhaps could have told why.) so far from taking any step of the kind, he held his peace altogether, and finally acquiesced in his son's choice. he gave his consent, very unwillingly, it is true, but he gave it! master peter came to him on a visit not long after, and was so far from betraying any annoyance that he joked and congratulated his friend on having a rich daughter-in-law instead of a poor one, and was full of praise of jolánta, whom he declared to be a dear girl whom no one could help loving. if dora's father did not care, why should paul's? all difficulties in paul's way seemed to have been removed; but it would be necessary, as he reminded libor, to keep up the fiction of dora's attachment for some little time to come, or he would be found out, and his father's anger in that case would be something not easily appeased. it hurt his pride to employ the clerk in such a matter, and to have it supposed that a girl who might have married his honourable self could possibly look with favour upon such a young man as libor, but there seemed to be no help for it. he was already in libor's power. and libor was more than willing to play the part assigned to him. he had as keen an eye to the main chance as paul, and paul had not only been liberal in money for the present, but had held out brilliant hopes for the future. if he stayed on with master stephen, argued libor with himself, he would be called "clerk" all the days of his life, and end by marrying some little village girl. if, on the other hand, he obliged young héderváry, made himself necessary to him, and, above all, entered into a partnership with him of such a nature as héderváry would not on any account wish to have betrayed--why then he might kill two birds with one stone! he had already had a few acres of land promised him; if, in addition to this, he could obtain some gentlemanly situation such as that of keeper, or governor, or perhaps even marry a distant connection of the family, an active, sensible man such as himself might rise to almost anything! young héderváry might be to him a mine of wealth. this settled the matter, and no sooner had master peter left his brother's house than libor found reasons without end for going to see him. there were various articles to be sent after him in the first place; then there were settlements, arrangements to be made, letters or messages from jolánta to be carried; and libor was always ready and eager to be the messenger. the other pages had not a chance now, for he was always beforehand with them; so much so indeed that both they, the servants, and at last even master stephen, could not help noticing that, whereas formerly libor had been a stay-at-home, now he seemed never to be so well pleased as when he was on the move. master stephen wondered what he could want with his brother peter, and the young pages, and sometimes the servants, joked him and tried to find out what made him so ready to undertake these more or less adventurous journeys. libor said nothing, but looked volumes; and they noticed, too, that the old red trousers and waistcoat had quite disappeared, and that the page now thought much of his appearance and came out quite a dandy whenever he was going on his travels. master stephen held it beneath his dignity to joke with his inferiors, but jolánta had been more condescending to libor of late than she had ever been before; and naturally so, as he was in paul's confidence, and every now and then had news of him, or even a message from him to give her. it brought them nearer together, and, innocently enough, jolánta once asked him merrily what it was that made him like to go on such long-expeditions, when it would have been just as easy to send someone else. whereupon libor assumed such an expression of shamefaced modesty that jolánta, who had spoken in the merest jest, began to fancy that perhaps the page really had a reason, and might be courting one of dora's maids. that it could possibly be dora herself, never crossed her mind for a moment. but others saw matters in a different light. the servants had their gossip and their suspicions; the young pages jested, and looked on libor with eyes of envy; and libor, though careful not to commit himself, managed somehow to encourage the idea that he and dora were deeply attached to one another. of course, neither servants nor pages held their tongues, and soon people were whispering about dora szirmay in a way that would have horrified herself and all her family had they known it. but those chiefly concerned are the last to be reached by such rumours. whether in any shape they had reached paul's parents it is impossible to say; but, at all events, he had married jolánta with their consent, and libor had continued his visits to master peter whenever he could find or devise a pretext. on the occasion of his present visit, when he had been the bearer of the summons to the diet, "on his way to pest," he availed himself of master peter's suggestion that he should take a look round the place, to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the ins and outs of the court-yard, stables, and other out-buildings; for, as he reflected, such knowledge never came amiss, and one could never tell when it might be useful. he even noticed absently that one part of the outer wall had not been repaired. more than this, while prowling about in the dusk, he had accidentally fallen in, not for the first time, with dora's maid, borka, whose favour he had won long ago by a few pretty speeches, not unaccompanied by some more solid token of his goodwill. it was always well to have a friend at court. but just as he turned away from borka, he came face to face with talabor; and talabor actually had the impudence to cross-question him as to what he was about. he was not to be shaken off, moreover, and at last, apparently making a virtue of necessity, libor confessed that he had given the maid a note for mistress dora; but he begged and implored talabor not to betray him, for it would be the utter ruin of him if he did. of course he knew that it was most presumptuous that a poor young man like himself could ever aspire to the hand of a daughter of the szirmays; they both knew that their attachment was hopeless, but--well, they had spent several years under the same roof, and had had opportunities of meeting, and--could not mr. talabor understand? mr. talabor understood perfectly, inasmuch as his own admiration of miss dora had been growing ever since the first day he saw her. he had worshipped her as something far above him, as all that was good, upright, and honourable, and it was a shock to have it even suggested that she could condescend to underhand dealings with anyone. it was odd, too, if she really cared for libor, that she should have received and behaved to him as she had done, and though libor might protest that master peter had always shown him marked favour, talabor was of opinion that he shared his own dislike to the young man, and had shown it pretty plainly. "master peter ought to know what is going on," he said sturdily; but libor thereupon became frantic in his entreaties. he implored, he positively writhed in his anguish, not for himself, oh no! what did it matter about a poor, insignificant fellow like him? it might ruin all his prospects with the hédervárys, probably would, and he should not even be able to return to master stephen; he should be a vagabond, and beggar--but that was no matter of course compared with mistress dora! she would be ruined in the eyes of the world if it came abroad that she had stooped to care for such as he, and it was certain to get about if talabor betrayed them. whereas now no one but themselves and borka knew anything about it; and she was faithful, she would not open her lips, for he had made it worth her while to keep silence. "an odd sort of fidelity," it seemed to talabor; but he was not quite clear as to whether it were his business to interfere; and, if it were, to injure mistress dora---libor saw his advantage and pressed it. he reminded talabor that master peter was hasty, and so incautious when his wrath was aroused that some one would be sure to hear of it; he would certainly tell his brother, master stephen would dismiss himself, and--well, the whole thing would come out. dora would be scorned by the world, and--besides, this was probably his last visit; he was going to a distance, and what was more, they had both realised that their attachment must be given up--it was hopeless. "if it can't be, it can't!" said libor, with a deep-drawn sigh. he threw himself upon talabor's mercy, and talabor promised. "but remember," said he, "it is only because speaking might do more harm than good, as you are not coming again, but if ever you do, and i catch you tampering with borka, i go straight to master peter." "if i come, and if you catch me, so you may!" said libor, with a sneer. "i understand all about it," he added to himself, as he turned away with the announcement that he was going to see moses _deák_, the governor. "i understand! you would give your eyes to be in my shoes, mr. talabor, or what you suppose to be mine! and why shouldn't they be? the ball has been set rolling, and the farther it rolls the bigger it will grow. borka will do her part with the servants, and they won't keep their mouths shut! so! my scornful little beauty, you are not likely to get many suitors whom master peter will favour, and who knows? next time we meet--next time we meet--we may both sing a different song." chapter iv. mistake the first. father roger was gone, and libor the clerk was gone, but dora and her father were not long left alone. more acquaintances than usual found it convenient to take the mountain castle "on the way to pest," or elsewhere. but what was more remarkable than this sudden influx of guests was the fact that so many of them made polite inquiry after libor the clerk, "keeper," or "governor," as they began to call him. "what on earth is the matter with the folk!" said master peter more than once. "what makes them so interested all at once in that raw, long-eared, ink-stained youth! they ask questions and seem to expect me to know as much about him as if he and i were twin-brethren!" "i can't think!" returned dora with a merry laugh, which might have re-assured talabor had he heard it. "it is very odd, but they ask me too, and really i quite forgot the good man's existence from one time to another." "well," said master peter, "i suppose one ought not to dislike a man without cause, and i have nothing positively against the jackanapes, but i don't trust him, for all his deferential ways, and i fancy that when once he "gets hold of the cucumber-tree" we shall see a change in him. your uncle has been kind to him, but not because he liked him, i know! i'll tell you what it must be! he has been boasting, and exaggerating what we have done for him," master peter went on in his simplicity, "making himself out a favourite, and counting up the number of visits he has paid us here, until he has made people think we have adopted him, and they will be taking him for my son and heir next, faugh! ha! ha! a pushing young man! i never could think why he wanted to be coming here, but no doubt it gave him importance, and very likely paul thought we had special confidence in him, otherwise i don't see what made him give such an appointment to a youth of his age. that must be it!" and yet, while he said the words, peter had a vague feeling that there was something behind which he could neither define nor fathom. delighted as he was to welcome guests, he had not enjoyed their society of late so much as was usual with him. sometimes he told himself that it was all fancy, and then at another he would be annoyed by a something not quite to his taste in their manner to dora, while the frequent reference to libor was so irritating that he had more than once almost lost his temper, and he had actually told some inquiries with haughty dignity that if they wanted to know what the young man was doing they had better ask the servants. this had had the desired effect; so far, at least, that master peter was not troubled again; but people talked all the same, and even more than before, for his evident annoyance and the proud way in which he had repelled them made the busy-bodies put two and two together and conclude that he really had some secret trouble which he wanted to hide from the world. and so, by way of helping him, they naturally confided their suspicions one to the other, and to their friends. gossip about people of such importance as the szirmays naturally had a peculiar zest, and the fact that dora was first cousin to jolánta, one of the queen's favourite attendants and wife of paul héderváry, of course gave it additional flavour. maids who came with their mistresses questioned borka, who answered them as she had been instructed to do, with earnest injunctions as to secrecy. talabor, being sent out with a message to master stephen, heard similar gossip from the pages of his household, gossip which distressed him greatly, though he vowed that he did not believe a word of it. he could not get it out of his head during his lonely ride home, but as he thought over all that he had heard, it suddenly struck him that, supposing it to be true, borka was not as "faithful" as libor fancied. the story must have come abroad through her, unless--an idea suddenly flashed across his mind--libor might have trumped the whole thing up by way of increasing his own importance. but then he had actually caught him with borka! talabor resolved to have a word with miss borka at the first opportunity. in due time master peter set out for pest, and thither we must now follow him. oktai, the great khan, found himself on the death of dschingis at the head of a million and a half of fighting men, and at once determined to carry out his father's plans of conquest by sending his nephew batu westward to attack the peaceful kunok, the "black kunok," as the chronicles call them, who dwelt between the volga and dnieper in great or black cumania. twice the mongols had been beaten back, but in the end numbers had prevailed, and to save what remained of this people, their king had led them into moldavia, then occupied in part by the little, or white kunok. meanwhile, alarming rumours of what had occurred had reached hungary, but were credited by few, and as to being themselves in any real, still less immediate danger, that the hungarians would not bring themselves to believe. their king, béla (albert) took a very different view of the situation. one of the most energetic kings hungary had ever had, and brave in meeting every difficulty, though he did not fear danger, he did not despise it, and while the great nobles spent their time in amusing themselves, he was following with the most careful attention all that was going on among his neighbours. he was kept well informed, and nothing of that which oktai was doing escaped him. he knew how russia had been conquered, how the kunok had been hunted, and how the countless mongol hordes were gaining ground day by day. he knew, but he could not make others see with his eyes. more than once he appealed to the great nobles, urging them to make ready, while he himself strove gradually to raise troops and take measures for the defence of the kingdom. but it was all in vain; they heard, but they heeded not. and then one day they were quite surprised, when, after many perils and dangers, kuthen's messengers appeared in buda, having come, as they said, from the forests of moldavia. they were no brilliant train, but men who had fought and suffered, and endured many hardships; and they had come, as libor told master peter, to ask for an asylum. hungary was but thinly populated at this time, and the king was always glad to welcome useful immigrants. knowing which, they asked him confidently, in their own king's name, to say where they might settle, promising on his part that he and his people would be ever faithful subjects, and more than this, that they would all become christians. béla felt that he must make up his mind at once. he could not send the messengers away without a decided answer; he thought the kuns would be valuable, especially just now, as they were men who knew what war was, and could fight well. but in bidding them welcome to hungary without consulting the diet, béla made a mistake--a pardonable mistake, perhaps, for he knew as well as anybody that diets were sometimes stormy affairs, and not without dangerous consequences; and he knew too that the majority of those who would assemble either did not know of the peril which was so close at hand, or were so obstinate in their apathy that they did not wish to know of it; nevertheless it was a mistake. as for kuthen, he had two alternatives before him. either he might submit to oktai and join him in his career of conquest; or, he might offer his services and faithful devotion to a king who was well known to be both wise, chivalrous, and honourable. kuthen made the better choice; but if his offer were refused, or if béla did not make speed to help him, why, then, it was plain that the country would be inundated by 40,000 fighting men. the king could not wait, and kuthen's messengers were at once sent back to moldavia, laden with presents, and bearing the welcome news that king béla was willing to receive the black kunok on the terms offered. the white kunok of moldavia already acknowledged the hungarian king as their sovereign. kuthen lost no time in setting out with his people, and béla, in the warmth of his heart, determined to give him a magnificent reception. he would receive him as a king should be received, whose power and dominions had been till lately at least equal to his own; he would receive him as if he were one of his most powerful neighbours; he would receive him as a brother. béla cared little for pomp and show on his own account, and the splendour of his train on this occasion was all the more striking. never had such a sight been seen in hungary before as when, one morning in early summer, the king rode out to the wide plain where he was to receive his guests. before him went sixty men on horseback, clad in scarlet, all ablaze with gold and silver, wearing caps of bearskin or wolfskin, and producing wild and wonderful music from trumpets, pipes, and copper drums. after them came the king in a purple mantle over a long white "dolmány," which sparkled with precious stones and was covered in front by a silver breast-plate. right and left of him rode a bishop in full canonicals and bearing each his crozier. these were followed by some two hundred of the more prominent nobles, among whom were paul héderváry, master peter, and his brother stephen, and the latter's son akos, who, as already mentioned, was attached to the king's household. the rear was brought up by soldiers armed with bows, all mounted like the rest. truly it was an imposing spectacle, as master peter admitted when he afterwards described it to dora; but it afforded him little satisfaction. no sooner was the army of bowmen drawn up in order than the war-song of the advancing kunok was to be heard. on they came, kuthen and all his family on horseback, his retinue, and his army which followed him at a respectful distance, part mounted, part on foot, and behind these again a long thick cloud of dust. the pilgrims did not present a grand appearance. they looked as those look who have come through many toils and dangers; but the king was not without a certain pathetic dignity of his own, in spite of his somewhat mongolian features, slanting eyes, low, retreating forehead, and long beard, already slightly touched with grey. he looked like a man who had suffered, was suffering rather, and who could not forget his old home, with its boundless plains, its vast flocks and herds, and its free open-air life; but he looked also like a man who knew what it was to be strong and powerful. kuthen's followers came to a halt, while he and his family rode forward, preceded by a horseman, not far short of a hundred years old, who carried a double cross in token of the submission of his people both to christianity and to the sovereignty of the hungarian king. the king and queen, their two sons, and two daughters, all wore loose garments of white woollen, fastened round the waist by unpolished belts of some sort of metal; and on their heads were pointed fur caps, such as are still worn by the persians. the king and his sons had heavy swords of a peculiar shape, while the queen and princesses carried feather fans decorated with countless rows of red beads and bits of metal. what trust kuthen felt in king béla was shown by the fact that his bodyguard numbered no more than two or three hundred men armed for the most part with spears. master peter had much to tell when he returned home of the beautiful horses covered with the skins of wild beasts, on which kuthen and his family were mounted, and which naturally excited the admiration of such horse-lovers as the hungarians; also he told of the band of singers who preceded the chiefs, and marked the pauses between their songs by wild cries and the beating of long narrow drums; of the servants, women, and children, who journeyed in the rear of the army, those of the latter too small to walk being carried in fur skins slung on their mothers' backs; and of the immense flocks and herds reaching far away into the distance, whose herdmen, mounted on small, rough horses, drove their charges forward with long whips and the wildest of shouts. he told her, too, how king béla had galloped forward to welcome his guest with outstretched hand, and had made the most gracious and friendly of speeches. "much too gracious!" grunted peter with a shrug of his shoulders. "all very fine, but the country will have to pay for it!" "oh, yes, and when all sorts of compliments had been exchanged (through the interpreters of course, for they can't speak decent hungarian) then up came the baggage-horses, and the tents were pitched in a twinkling side by side. they sprang up like mushrooms, and before long there was a regular camp, such a camp as you never saw!" béla's tent was of bright colours without, and sparkled with silver and gold within; but kuthen's, which was larger (for it accommodated his whole family), was meant not for show, but for use, and to be a defence against wind and rain, and was composed of wild-beast skins. there was a banquet in the royal tent in the evening, and the haughty hungarian nobles saw, to their astonishment and relief, that, though their dress was simple, not very different in fact from that in which they had travelled, the king and queen and their family actually knew how to behave with the dignity befitting their exalted rank. the kunok performed one of their war dances in front of the tent while dinner was going on; and at the close of the entertainment, béla presented kuthen, his family, and the principal chiefs, with such gifts as betokened the generous hospitality of the hungarian and the lavish munificence of the king. but master peter, though at other times he could be as lavish and generous as anyone, was not over well pleased to see this "extravagance," as he considered it; and his feelings were shared not only by his brother and nephew, but by many another in the king's retinue. "no good will come of it," muttered they to themselves. and the kun chiefs, "barbarians" though they were in the eyes of the hungarian nobles, were, some of them at least, shrewd enough to notice their want of cordiality, and sensitive enough to be hurt by their proud bearing and the brilliant display they made. * * * * * the whole camp was early afoot, and the two bishops in their vestments, attended by many of the lower clergy in white robes, appeared before the royal tents, in one of which stood béla and his courtiers all fully accoutred, with helmets on their heads and richly ornamented swords at their sides, while in the other were assembled kuthen and his family, bare-headed and unarmed. béla's own body-guard, mounted and carrying their lances, battle-axes, clubs, and swords, were stationed on each side of the royal tents, while their officers rode up and down, or stopped now and again to exchange a few words with one another in a low tone. a number of kunok, bare-headed and unarmed like their sovereign, stood round in a semicircle. far away in the distance might be heard every now and then the deep-mouthed bay of the great sheep-dogs, and the shrill neigh of the horses, but otherwise there seemed to be a hush over all. presently, a camp-table was brought forward covered with a white cloth and having a silver crucifix in the midst, with golden vessels on each side, and then, all being ready, a solemn mass was said by one of the bishops, interspersed with singing and chanting, by the choir, all of which evidently impressed the kunok, who had never seen the like, or anything at all resembling it, before. by the expression of their wild faces it was plain to see that while utterly surprised, and, in spite of themselves, awed and subdued, some were doubtful, some more or less rebellious, and many full of wonder as to what it all meant and whether it portended good or evil. but there was yet more to follow. the service over, two of the younger white-robed clergy took up a large silver basin, another pair carried silver ewers, while the remainder, with lighted torches, formed up in two lines and all followed the bishops to kuthen's tent, in front of which he, his family and retinue, were now standing with king béla beside them. if the kunok had looked doubtful and uneasy before, they looked yet more disturbed now by the mysterious ceremony which followed. it was all utterly unintelligible to them; they heard words in a strange tongue uttered over their king and queen, over the princes and princesses, and they saw water poured upon the faces of each in turn, and no doubt concluded that they were witnessing some magic rite, which might have the effect of bringing their sovereign completely under the influence of the hungarians. and not only the royal family, but their attendants, the chiefs, and last of all themselves had to submit to the same ceremony, without having the least conception of what the faith was into which they had been thus hastily baptized. the main body of the kunok arrived a few weeks later, and they, too, were baptized in batches, with an equal absence of all instruction and preparation, and in equal ignorance of what was being done for them. that was the way in which the heathen were "converted" in too many instances in bygone times. is it wonderful that they remained pagans at heart, or that traces of pagan superstition are to be found in christian lands even to the present day? well, the kunok were now "christians," and within a few months settlements were allotted to them in those thinly populated districts which the king was desirous of seeing occupied by inhabitants of kin to his own people. meanwhile, kuthen and his train had reached pest, and he had made his entry with much pomp and state, béla being determined that his guest should be received with all respect. the two kings therefore rode side by side, wearing their crowns and long flowing mantles, and the narrow, crooked streets were thronged with people, all curious to see, if not animated by any very friendly feeling towards the new arrivals. some of the more prominent chiefs béla determined to keep about himself that he might win their confidence and attachment by kindness. but kuthen and his family were conducted at once to master peter's old mansion near the danube, béla promising that he would have a proper residence built for them as soon as he could find a site. peter's house was of an original description, and consisted, in fact, of six moderate-sized houses, connected one with the other by doors and passages added by his father; but it had at least been made habitable and provided with present necessaries, and afforded better shelter, as well as more peace, than their tents, and the caves and woods of moldavia, where they had dwelt in perpetual fear of their enemies. all this master peter duly reported to dora, with comments of his own, and many a shake of the head, and still her curiosity was not satisfied. "what more did she want? he had emptied his wallet so far as he knew." "you have hardly said a word about the queen and the princesses," returned dora. whereupon master peter gave a short laugh. "h-m! you had better ask your cousin akos what he thinks of them the next time you see him," said he. "why, does he see much of them? i thought he was as much against their coming as you were." "so he was! so he was! as strongly as any one! but--well, you know a page must go where he is sent, and his majesty seems to want a good many messages taken. at all events, akos is often with the kun folk, and what is more, one never hears a word against them from him now! bright eyes, dora, bright eyes! and a deal of mischief they do." "but can akos understand them?" "it seems so; he has picked the language up pretty quickly, hasn't he? it is all jargon to me, but then i have not had his practice! father roger says their tongue is something like our magyar, a sort of uncouth relation, but i don't see the likeness myself." "and the princesses are really pretty?" dora asked again. "prettier than their parents by a good deal! yes, they are pretty girls enough, i suppose," said peter grudgingly, "some people admire them much, particularly the younger one, mária, as she is now. she used to be marána, but that's the name they gave her at her baptism, and the other they called erzsébet (elizabeth). the king and queen and their sons all have magyar names now. but they will bring no good to the country," master peter added, after a pause, "no good, that i am sure of! why, there have been quarrels already where they have settled them. everybody hates the sight of them and their felt tents, and the king has had to divide them. what have they been doing? why, plundering their neighbours to be sure, as anyone might have known they would. mere barbarians, that's what they are, and we shall have a pretty piece of work with them before we have done." "and jolánta, you saw her?" dora interposed, by way of diverting her father's attention from a topic which invariably excited him. "yes, i saw jolánta," was the answer, given with such a grave shake of the head that dora asked whether there were anything amiss with her. "amiss? h-m! dora, my girl," said master peter, laying his hand affectionately on her shoulder, "i am glad that _you_ did not marry him!" "i?" laughed dora, "why should i?" "ah, you have forgotten how they used to call you 'paul's little wife,' when you were only a baby, and you did not know, of course, that your old father was fool enough to be disappointed when he chose your cousin instead." "but isn't he kind to her? isn't she happy?" inquired dora. "that is a question i did not ask, child, so i can't say. but she is just a shadow of what she was." "selfish scoundrel!" burst forth master peter the next moment, unable to keep down his indignation, which was not solely on jolánta's account. he had heard a good deal in pest. honest friends had not been wanting to tell him of the reports about his daughter, and his pride had been deeply wounded by the half pitying tone in which some of his acquaintances had inquired for her, as also by the fact that the queen had _not_ asked for her, though she was on quite intimate terms with jolánta, and in the natural course of things would have wished to see dora also at court. peter had longed to "have it out" with somebody, and make all who had repeated gossip about his dora eat their own words. but for once he was prudent, and bethought himself in time that some matters are not bettered by being talked about. if he blurted out his wrath there would be those who would say that "there must be something in it, or he would not fly into such a rage," as he knew he should do, if once he let himself go. besides, although he had convinced himself that paul was at the bottom of all the gossip, and was burning to go and take him by the throat and make him own it on his knees, yet, after all, where was the use of making a charge which he could not actually prove? accordingly, master peter held his tongue, but he determined that nothing should induce him to take dora to pest while there was any risk of her being slighted and made uncomfortable. if he could have looked forward only a few months perhaps he would have recognised that slights were not the worst evils to be encountered in the world. "selfish scoundrel!" he repeated vehemently, "from what i hear, he has been driving the poor girl about from morning till night, and from night till morning! paul héderváry's wife must be seen everywhere, at all the court functions, all the entertainments in pest, and even in the country there is no rest for her, but she must be dragged to hunting parties, which you know she never cared for. she never had much spirit you know, poor jolánta! and now she is like a shadow, all the flesh worn off her bones! could you fancy jolánta killing a bear?" "a bear! why, she was terrified whenever there were bears about!" "ay, but of course paul's wife must be something to be proud of, something unlike the rest of the world, an amazon! well, he made her go out bear-hunting, for i'll never believe she went of her own free will; she killed a bear, they say, with her own hand, looked on more likely, while he did it! but any way, there's the skin, and it's called 'jolánta's bear,' and she had a swoon or a fit or something after, and has never been herself since, so i was told. she sent you a number of messages, poor girl, and wished you were coming back with me to pest." "poor jolánta," murmured dora, "i should like to see her, but not in pest." "ah! and you remember that young jackanapes, libor?" said master peter. "paul héderváry's governor? oh, yes, isn't he gone to his castle yet?" "not he! he is 'climbing the cucumber-tree' as fast as he can! i can't think what made paul take him up; can't do without him now it seems, looks to him for everything, and has him constantly at his elbow; and yet there is not a prouder man 'on the back of this earth' than paul." "but the mongols, father?" asked dora, who cared little for paul and less for his governor, but who could not shake off the impression made upon her by father roger. "my dear child, they have been coming for years! and if they come at last it will be thanks to the kunok. but they will go back quicker than they came, you may be sure, so don't you trouble your little head about them!" master peter spoke with the confidence he felt; and when he returned to pest, where his presence was required by the king, he returned alone, a circumstance which set the gossips' tongues wagging anew, for surely he must have some strong reason for not bringing dora with him. his stay was likely to be a long one this time, and he had never been away from her hitherto for more than a few days together. chapter v. as the king wills. kuthen had no idea that he should occupy master peter's town-house for long, nor indeed had he any wish to do so; but still he had done his best to make it home-like. it was he who, as father of the family, had apportioned to each of the household his place and duties. to the serving men was assigned a large hall, with the greater part of the roof taken off that they might not miss the airiness of their tents, and with the wooden flooring replaced by stone slabs, that they might keep a fire burning without danger. here they lived, and cooked, and slept, sharing their beds--rough skins spread upon the floor--with their faithful companions, the large dogs brought with them from the steppes. the king's own apartments, with their reed mats, coarse, gaudy carpets, bladder-skin windows, and rough furniture, were not altogether comfortless or tasteless, for king béla had presented the royal family with sundry articles of a better description, and some of the bishops had followed his example. as for the exterior of the house, kuthen had introduced a few changes there also. leaving a good space all round, he had had the whole block of buildings enclosed by strong, thick walls; and as he had employed a large number of workmen and paid well, the fortifications were ready in a few weeks. they were further strengthened by the digging of a broad moat, whose drawbridge led to the gateway which formed the sole entrance. kuthen had many visitors, among whom akos szirmay was certainly the most frequent; but king béla also came from time to time, besides often inviting the whole family to the palace. some of the nobles also came--because the king did. akos was a sympathetic listener, and kuthen, who had taken a great liking to him, enjoyed telling him his adventures and experiences. but it was quite evident to all that akos was drawn to the house by someone more attractive than kuthen, and also that marána, or, as she must now be called mária, was well aware of the impression she had made, and was by no means displeased. the whole family were out riding one day, a few months after their arrival. this was the recreation which they loved best, and akos, as usual, was in attendance upon mária. the two were somewhat in advance of the rest of the party, sufficiently so to be out of hearing, when akos presently asked his companion whether she were beginning to be accustomed to her new home, and whether she thought she could ever learn to forget the steppes and magic woods of her native land. "could anyone in the world forget his own home, do you think?" she answered simply, and then added, "oh, it is all so different! you live in stone houses, which you can't move about. one might almost as well be in prison. and the walls are so thick that one can't hear anything of what is going on outside, or even in the next room; but when we lived in our open tents, far away from here, i knew in a moment who was in trouble, and who was laughing for joy. and then our family is one; what pains one, grieves the rest, and all share one another's joys and sorrows, fears and wishes." "and isn't it so here?" said akos; "and if we have towns and castles, don't we live much in the open air too? have we no family-life, and are we not all united in our love for our country?" "i don't know; maybe it is so, but i am a stranger here, and one thing strikes me--there is no unity among you! your proud, overbearing nobles despise the people, and the people look on them with fear and envy. you are of one race, one family--at least you magyars are, and yet there are hardly any true friends among you, or any who are ready to make great sacrifices for their country." "you don't know us," returned akos quickly, though he knew how much truth there was in what the girl said. "you judge from what you see around you; here in the capital there is so much gaiety, and everyone wants to be first; but it is not so in our mountains and valleys, and on the great plains. there we know what it is to love and sympathise with one another, and to be of one mind; and we are not bad neighbours. there are several different races dwelling in our beautiful land, and they all live at peace one with the other." "well, i don't know, but--i am afraid! i don't understand books, but i do understand faces, and there is no need for people to open their lips--i might not understand them if they did--but they speak plainly enough to me without uttering a word. _you don't love us!_ oh! that we had stayed among the mountains, in the cool caves, or in our tents, not knowing what the morning might bring us, but with our own people all about us, ready at a word for anything! there was a sort of pleasure even in living in a state of fear, always on our guard, listening to the very rustling of the leaves. ah! how can i make you understand?" mária's thoughts went back to the old times, and she saw herself once again living the old tent life in the forest shades. perhaps her companion's thought for a moment followed hers, and he tried to picture himself as also living in those far-off regions, sharing a tent with the sweet-looking girl at his side. something he said to her in a low tone, to which she answered with a smile, "oh, you, akos, that is different! if they were all like you, one might perhaps forget all but the things which are never to be forgotten, and the graves of our ancestors. but you, don't you know that it annoys your friends and relations to see you liking to spend so much time with us?" "why should my friends and relations mind? my rivals, perhaps yes!" "there are no rivals!" "none? not a single one?" "not one, akos, for you are good; you honour my poor father in his misfortune, you honour my mother; and my brothers and erzsébet are fond of you. how should you have any rival?" "marána!" said akos gently; and when the girl turned to look at him, he saw that, though she was smiling, her eyes had filled with tears at the sound of her old name, coming from his lips. it was an evening in autumn, and king kuthen and all his family were gathered together in their largest apartment, where a fire was burning on the hearth, and the table was spread for their evening meal. all looked grave; and indeed, since the time of his first arrival in pest, in spite of all the festivities, and in spite of béla's unfeigned kindness, kuthen had always looked like a man who had something on his mind, something which oppressed him, and which refused to be shaken off. as chief of an untamed, lawless people, far surpassing his followers in sense and understanding, he was the first to see that the polite attentions shown him by others than the king and his family, were all more or less forced. all was not gold that glittered, and his pride was wounded by the sort of condescension he met with from the magyar nobles, when he remembered that not so long ago he had ruled a kingdom larger than the whole of hungary. something, perhaps, was due to the change in his mode of life, something to the fact that he did not feel at ease when he took part in the court ceremonials and festivities, that he felt as if he were caged, and sighed for the freedom of the mountains and steppes. however it was, kuthen had become quite grey during the comparatively short time he had spent in hungary, and was already showing signs of age. his family did not fully share his anxieties, for they were not as far-sighted as he; but the queen and her sons and daughters were shrewd enough to see that their visitors were not all as sincere as they seemed, or wished to seem; though they ascribed this chiefly to the fact that they themselves were foreigners; and, as both sons and daughters were well-looking, and the latter something more, they had little reason to complain of any want of attention or courtesy. just now the king was seated at table, with the queen and his daughters on his right hand, and his sons on his left. they were all at supper; but it was evident that kuthen ate rather from habit than because he had any appetite. as we have said, the dwelling was surrounded by a wide moat, and the only entrance was by the drawbridge. whenever anyone wanted to come in, the kunok sentinel posted at the bridge-head always blew a short blast on his horn, and this evening, just as supper was coming to an end, the horn was heard. whereupon the king made a sign to one of the many servants to go and see who was there, for he kept strict order in his household, and never allowed the drawbridge to be lowered, or anyone to be admitted without his permission. on this occasion, however, it seemed that his permission was not waited for, as only a few moments passed before akos szirmay walked into the room, and was received with evident pleasure by the king and all his family. it was clear enough that marána's parents quite understood the state of affairs, and already looked on the young man as one of the family; for, with the exception of king béla, he was the only person ever admitted without question, on his merely giving the password. akos came in hurriedly, his face flushed, and with something in his manner which showed plainly that he had not come on a mere ordinary visit. kuthen welcomed the young man with a smile, but quickly relapsed into gravity, and akos himself, when he had taken the seat placed for him, next to mária, glanced at the servants and held his peace. "what is it, akos?" kuthen asked after a short pause, during which his visitor's manifest embarrassment had not escaped him. "i would rather speak when there are fewer to hear me, your highness," answered akos. all eyes were at once turned upon him, for the rising feeling against the kunok was well known; and as the people of pest had noticed, kuthen had lately doubled the guards round his house. whatever the news akos had brought, they at once concluded that it must be something unpleasant. "if there is any hurry," said kuthen, who had regained his composure as soon as he scented danger, "let us go into the next room." "no need for that, your highness," returned akos, also recovering himself. "in fact, if you will allow me, i will share your supper. there is no need for immediate action, but we must be prepared," he added in a low tone. "ah," sighed the queen, "our soothsayers had good reason to warn us against coming here! we are in a state of constant unrest, and i am weary of it. for my part, i can't think why we did not leave this gilded prison long ago, and join our people in their new settlements, where we should at least be among those who love and honour us." "you are right there, wife, and you all know it is what i have long wished," said kuthen. "where is the good of being called 'king,' when one has no kingdom? my people are being ruled by foreigners, and, though i sit at the king's council, nothing that i say has any weight. no, what i want is to be the father of my large family again, as i used to be, until i go and join my ancestors. no, i will stay here no longer! the king has always been kind to us, and i will open his eyes to what is going on unknown to him." but here a sign from akos made the king hold his peace, and the subject was dropped for the present. it was not kuthen's way to betray anything like fear; and now when, to his imagination at least, the storm was already beginning to blow about his ears, he would not on any account that the servants should have so much as an inkling of that which filled his own mind. he remained at table exactly as long as usual, and, when they all rose, he repeated as usual the lord's prayer, the only one he had learnt. he recited it in latin, in an uncouth accent, and with sundry mistakes, but he said it calmly and collectedly as usual, and the rest followed his example. then, passing between a double row of servants, he led the way through an adjoining room to the spacious hall in which he and his family usually passed their evenings and received their guests. the queen and her daughters took up some sort of needle-work, and kuthen signed to his sons to bring him one of the many dog-wood bows which hung on the wall. this he proceeded with their help to fit with a string stout enough to deserve the name of rope, for it was as big round as an ordinary finger. the making of these unusually long and powerful bows, the chief weapon of the kunok, and the sharpening and feathering of the arrows, was the king's favourite occupation, and one in which he displayed no little skill. the string also was of home manufacture, and, as the work went on, the young men moistened it from time to time with water. many a time akos had joined them in their evening work, but to-night, as they sat round the blazing fire, his hands were idle. "akos, my son, we are alone now," began kuthen composedly, "speak out, and keep back nothing. you need not be afraid, for this grey head of mine has weathered many a storm before now." "your highness--father! if i may call you so"--said akos, giving his hand to mária, "there is a storm coming without doubt, for the wind is blowing from two quarters at once, and we are caught between the two." "i don't understand," said kuthen, twanging the bowstring, while one son took a second bow down from the wall, and the other got a fresh string ready. "you will directly, sir; the mongols are coming nearer and nearer, burning and destroying everything before them--that's the last news!" "haven't i told the king a hundred times how it would be?" "you have, and he knows! but there are certain persons who seem to be expecting miracles; and meantime, to excuse themselves for sitting still, they have been whispering suspicions of other people. a few hours ago they went to the king and told him plainly what was in their minds." "suspicions! whom do they suspect?" "_you_, your highness! you and your people." "shame!" cried kuthen, starting from his seat, and looking akos straight in the face. at that moment kuthen was every inch a king, and it was easy to understand how, though he had lost his kingdom, lost his crown, nevertheless his word had been enough to induce 40,000 families to follow him to a new home. "and why do they suspect me?" he asked with angry resentment. "why?" repeated akos, who had also risen to his feet, and now stood erect facing the king, "because there is not a creature in this world so strong as to be able to stand up against panic!" "is that the way you speak of your nation? and you a magyar!" said kuthen. "my nation!" shouted akos, all aflame in a moment. "i should like to hear anyone dare to speak ill of my nation! no! but father, you who own such vast flocks and herds, you know that in every fold there are sure to be a few sickly sheep; and if they are scared, no matter by what, and make a rush, you know what happens, the rest of the flock follow them; not that they are frightened themselves, but because they see the others running. a dog, or the crack of a whip is enough." "and pray, what are these sick sheep bleating about to the king?" "well, to be plain, they say that the kunok are nothing but oktai's vanguard. that you have come in the guise of guests to spy out the land for those who sent you--for the tartars!" "what! i prepare the way for the robbers, who have driven us from the graves of our ancestors! who have slain our people by the thousand and made miserable slaves of others! we in league with the tartars, our hateful foes! it is a cowardly lie! the king is too noble-hearted ever to believe such a thing! it is the talk of madmen!" "and the king does not believe it; quite the contrary, for he spoke warmly in defence of you and----" "ah! that is like himself," interposed kuthen. "yes; but, my good king, you have many enemies, and they have taken it into their stupid heads that, as i said before, the kunok are the forerunners of the tartars. they are saying, shouting, that half the danger would be done away if we had not enemies in our midst, who would turn upon us at the first signal from the mongols." "that is what is said by magyars? that those whom they have received as guests, with whom they have shared their bread and their wine, will betray them! have i spent my days among lions and tigers, that anyone dares to say such a thing of kuthen? oh! the cowards! let batu khan come, and the king shall soon see what our arrows will do." "i believe you!" said akos warmly, "and so does the king, but he cannot do all that he would, and so it is for your own safety's sake, in your own interest, as he said, and to prevent greater danger--he is going to station a guard outside." "put me and my family under guard! imprison me! in return for my trust, and because i have brought hither through countless dangers, 40,000 families to do and die for the king, and the nation who have received me----" kuthen broke off suddenly here to bid his sons go and see to the horses. late as it was, he and they would go at once to the king, unarmed, and unprotected, to learn how much a sovereign's word was worth. in a few moments they were all three on horseback, and in court dress, for kuthen had already adopted the hungarian usage in this respect, as he had also learnt the language, and done all else he could to accommodate himself to the manners and customs of his new home, by way of making himself more acceptable to his hosts. but no sooner was the drawbridge lowered than kuthen saw himself face to face with a party of hungarian soldiers on horseback, under the command of one of his most bitter enemies, jonas agha, who told the king, in curt and not the most respectful terms, that he could not be allowed to leave his dwelling. "then i am a prisoner! and without so much as a hearing!" exclaimed kuthen. "be it so then. i am the king's guest, and my friend will explain things to me. back now, my sons! let us set an example of submission!" as he uttered the words, he found akos at his side, akos, who, though he had heard from one of the courtiers that such an order was in contemplation, had never suspected that it was already an accomplished fact. and indeed, knowing that both the king and queen, as well as duke kálmán, the king's brother, were doing all in their power to defeat the intentions of the hostile party, he suspected that the present action had been taken by some over-zealous official in a subordinate position, and he now hastened forward to set right any misunderstanding. "what is the meaning of this?" he asked, standing erect in his stirrups and looking like a statue. "the king's orders," replied agha haughtily. akos was about to make some fiery reply, but kuthen interrupted him, saying quietly, "let it be as the king wills!" and with that he turned his horse's head from the gate. chapter vi. mistake the second. the day had closed gloomily, ominously, for the refugees; and to understand how it was that a king so chivalrous as béla could consent to make a prisoner of his guest, we must go back and see what had taken place a few hours earlier. béla, as already said, was fully alive to the danger which threatened his land and people, and at the first news of the advance of the mongols, he had sent héderváry the palatine to block all the roads and passes between transylvania and wallachia, and make full arrangements for their defence. but even this prudent step was not approved by every one. the wiseacres, and the sort of people who always see farther than their fellows, attributed the king's orders to fear, and said so too, openly and unreservedly. there were others who simply refused to believe any alarming reports, alleging that they were all got up by the bishops and chief clergy, that they might have an excuse for staying at home at ease, instead of attending the pope's council in rome. others accused the king, the kunok, and other foreign guests who had lately arrived at the court of pest. some of these, the most timorous, actually wanted to force the king to send an embassy to the great khan, offering him an annual tribute and other shameful conditions. béla was a courageous man, and a true magyar and king in the best sense of the words. he was calm, brave, and energetic. he saw through the cowards and despised their accusations; for it is the poltroon who is ever the first to accuse others of cowardice, and there is, moreover, one thing which he can never pardon--the being discovered trembling by men braver than himself. king béla paid no heed to the wagging of these many tongues, and himself went all round the eastern frontiers of the kingdom, to see personally to the defences. his plans were well considered and well adapted to the object in view. they failed in one point only, but that a fatal one--they were never carried out! on the king's return to pest, he found the capital given up to festivity. nearly every noble in the place must be giving entertainments. if there was a banquet at one house to-day, there was one at another to-morrow. there was no trace of any preparations for war or defence, though there was plenty of nervous alarm. shortly after his arrival, the king called a council, and the heads of church and state met in a spacious hall often used for court balls and assemblies, now presenting a very different appearance, and with its walls draped in sober green cloth. the king was seated in a canopied armchair raised above the rest, and he wore a white silk mantle, with a clasp something like the ancient roman fibula, but set with precious stones. on his head was a crown, simple but brilliant, in his hand he held a golden war-club, and from the plain leather belt which confined his white dolmány at the waist, there hung a long, straight sword, with a hilt in the form of a large cross. the council consisted of about sixty members, some wearing their ecclesiastical vestments, and others the long hungarian dolmány. of all those present no one looked so entirely calm as the king, and those who knew him best could read firm resolve in his face. béla knew hungary and the strength of its various races, and he was never afraid of dangers from without. what he did fear was the spirit of obstinacy and envy, and at last of blindness, which has so often shown itself, just when clear sight and absolute unity were especially needed to enable the country to confront the most serious difficulties. he knew that he must prove the existence of danger by facts, if he wanted to silence the contentious tongues of those who did not wish to believe; and he had determined to lay convincing proofs before them on this particular day. when all were assembled and in their places, the king made a sign to paul héderváry, who at once left the hall, the door of which was shortly after again thrown open for the entrance of two gloomy-looking men, with swords and daggers at their belts, whom paul ushered up to the king's throne. their robes, trimmed with costly furs, showed that they were persons of importance; and what with the richness of their attire, and their manly deportment, they did not fail to make an impression upon the assembly, though one of the younger members muttered to his neighbour, "hem! flat noses and glittering eyes! who may these be?" the two bowed low before the king, and then one of them, románovics by name, said: "your majesty, we are both russian dukes, and have been driven from the broad lands of our ancestors, by batu khan, one of oktai's chiefs. we have now come to your footstool, to entreat your hospitality, and to offer you our services." "more guests!" whispered the same young man who had spoken before. "kunok, russians, and next, of course, the tartars, not a doubt of it!" the broad smile on his face showed that he was highly pleased with his own wit. "honourable guests will always find the door open in hungary," said the king, when the short speech had been interpreted to him; "and all who are oppressed shall have whatever protection we are able to afford them." "more too! oh, what generous fellows we are!" muttered another still younger man at the table. the king went on to say that he had heard of the russian disasters, but that as the news which had reached him might have lost or gained something on the way, he should be glad if they would tell him and the council just what had really happened. whereupon, the duke who had spoken before gave a short account of all that had taken place since the death of dschingis, and the partition of his vast dominions. and then the younger duke, wsewolodovics, took up the tale. "lord king!" he began, "these mongols don't carry on warfare in an honourable, chivalrous way. they fight only to destroy, they are bloodthirsty, merciless; their only object is to plunder, slay, murder, and burn, not even to make any use of what lands they conquer. they are like a swarm of locusts. they stay till everything is eaten up, till all are plundered, and what they can't carry off, that they kill, or reduce to ashes. they are utterly faithless; their words and promises are not in the least to be trusted, and those who do make friends with them are the first upon whom they wreak their vengeance if anything goes wrong. we are telling you no fairy tales! we know to our own cost what they are, we tell you what we have seen with our own eyes. and let me tell you this, my lord king, their lust of conquest and devastation knows _no bounds_! if it is our turn to-day, it will be yours to-morrow! and, therefore, while we seek a refuge in your land, we at the same time warn you to be prepared! for the storm is coming, and may sweep across your frontiers sooner than you think for." "we will meet it, if it comes," said the king coolly. "but i bid you both heartily welcome as our guests for the present, and as our companions in arms, if the enemy ventures to come hither." the dukes found nothing to complain of in the king's reception of them. he had been cordial and encouraging, and he had heard them out; though, what with their own long speeches, and the interpreting of them, the interview had lasted a considerable time. but if the king had listened attentively and courteously, so had not the council; and the contrast was marked. some listened coldly and without interest, some even wore a contemptuous smile, and there was a restless shrugging of shoulders, a making of signs one to the other, and at times an interchange of whispers among the members, which showed plainly enough that they thought the greater part of what the russians said ridiculously exaggerated. councils, even those held in the king's presence, were by no means orderly in those days. everyone present wanted to put in his word, and that, too, just as and when he pleased, so the duke had hardly finished speaking, when up rose one of the elder and more important-looking nobles, exclaiming impatiently, "your majesty! these foreign lords have told us very fully to what we owe their present kind visit; and they have told us, too, that our country is threatened by ruffianly, contemptible brigands and incendiaries. there is but one thing they have forgotten. i should like to know whether this horde of would-be conquerors have any courage, discipline, or knowledge of war among them. it seems to me important that they should tell us this in their own interests, for it needs no great preparation to scatter a disorderly rabble, but valiant warriors are, of course, another thing." "very true, master tibörcs," said the king calmly, patiently. but when the matter was explained to the russian duke, he exclaimed, with an expression of the utmost horror and contempt, "valiant! disciplined! military knowledge! why, my lord king, who could expect anything of the sort from such thieves and robbers! but, despicable as they are as soldiers, they are dangerous for all that! they are cowards! they are as wild as cattle, as senseless as stones, but--they have numbers, countless numbers, on their side. they fall in thousands, and they use the dead and wounded to bridge the rivers! and they are swift as the very wind." several at the table here exclaimed that the duke must be magnifying, or at least that he had heard exaggerated reports; and one of the most timorous added that to a man who was terrified danger always looked greater than it did to anyone else in the world. that man, at all events, knew what he was talking about! "we are not afraid, gentlemen," said románovics, turning at once towards those seated at the table. "we are exhausted with fighting ourselves, and their blood, too, has flowed in torrents; ten of them have fallen to every one of our men, but then their numbers are ten times ours." "afraid of them?" continued the other, "no! who would be afraid of such cowardly robbers? why, ten will run before one man, if he meets them face to face! we don't say they are invincible, quite the contrary. we come here in the belief that the heroic nation from whom we seek assistance is quite strong enough to be a match even for such a torrent as this! nevertheless, there is one thing which must not be forgotten. though there is no military knowledge among them, though they are not trained soldiers, they are extremely clever with their war-machines. nothing can stand against them! and there is another thing. those who are conquered are forced into their army; what is more, they are put in the forefront of the battle, in the place of greatest danger, and they are driven forward, or murdered if they attempt to escape! so, with danger before and behind, the miserable wretches fight with all the strength of despair; the victors share the spoil, and those who are defeated have nothing to expect but death any way, and sometimes a death of fearful torture too. this, together with their extraordinary rapidity of movement, their cunning, and powers of endurance, is the secret of their strength." so spoke the russian dukes, and their words made a certain impression, though even now some of the council were hardly convinced of the importance of the danger. many were scornful of the new-comers, and various contrary opinions were being expressed, when all at once there was a roar outside as if a battle were already going on in the streets, and some of the palace guards rushed into the council chamber. all leapt to their feet. swords all flashed simultaneously from their scabbards, and in a moment, béla was surrounded, and over his head there was a canopy of iron blades. to do them justice, their first thought was for the safety of the king. "what has happened?" he asked of the guards, when the hubbub around him had subsided. "the people have risen! they are asking for the head of kuthen," was the answer. there was a shout of "treachery, treachery, treachery!" without, and the next instant the mob burst into the hall. "gentlemen! to your places! put up your swords," said the king, in such a peremptory tone that his command was at once obeyed. then rising from his chair and turning to the intruders with perfect calm and dignity, he bade them come forward. "the king is always ready to hear the complaints of his people! what is it you want, children? but let one speak at a time, that will be the wiser way, for if you all clamour together, my sons, i shall not be able to understand any one of you. ah! you are there, i see barkó _deák_; come here, you are a sensible man, i know; you tell me what is the matter." barkó was a notable man in his own set, and his sobriquet of _deák_ showed that he possessed some learning, at least to the extent of being able to write, and having some knowledge of the scriptures, as well as of the laws, called "customs." he was a man whose judgment was respected, and when first suspicion fell upon the kunok, he was besieged by those who wanted his advice as to how they ought to act in these dangerous circumstances. now, on the days when barkó got out of bed right foot foremost, he would calm his inquirers by saying wisely enough that until kuthen himself was detected in some suspicious act, the time had not come for accusing him. but, unfortunately, barkó was not without his domestic troubles in the shape of a wife, who would always have the last word, and so sometimes it happened that he got up left foot foremost. it was on one of these unlucky days that the people of pest and the neighbourhood, having somehow heard, as people always do hear, that the king was holding a council for the purpose of taking measures of defence against the mongols, "tartars," as they called them, came with one consent to barkó's house, and swarmed into it in such numbers that he leapt out of the window to escape them. but no sooner had his feet touched the ground than they were at once taken off it again, and he was caught up and raised on high, amid loud shouts from the crowd that he must be their leader and spokesman. "what am i to do? what do you want?" he cried. "let's go to the king! treachery! the kunok are bringing the tartars upon us! we want the head of kuthen!" such were the cries which assailed him on all sides, and barkó let them shout till they were tired. "very well, children," he said, as soon as there was a chance of making himself heard. "very well, we will go to his majesty. he will listen to his faithful people and find some way of putting an end to the mischief." "we will go now!" they shouted. "no! let's wait!" roared a grey-beard, with a shake of his shaggy head, using his broad shoulders and sharp elbows to force a way through the crowd. "we won't go to the king! we'll go straight to the other king, the vagabond and traitor kuthen. we will take his treacherous head to our own good king!" "good! good!" cried the mob. "it is not good!" shouted barkó. "it is for the king to command, it is for us to ask. if i am to be your leader, trust the matter to me." "let us trust it to mr. barkó," cried some voices again. "so then, i am the leader, and if we want to go before the king's majesty, let us do it respectfully, not as if we were a rabble going to a tavern. here! make room for me! put me down!" and barkó puffed and panted, and shook himself, as if he had swum across the danube. then he called three or four of the crowd to him to help in forming up some sort of procession. "there! i go in the middle, as the leader, and you, the army, will march in two files after me." "but we are here, too, mr. barkó!" cried some shriller voices. "the petticoats will bring up the rear!" said mr. barkó authoritatively. and in this order the crowd proceeded on its way; but, notwithstanding all barkó's precautions, it was a very tumultuous crowd which burst into the king's presence. barkó had made the journey bare-headed; and now, being called upon to speak, he bowed low before the king, saying: "your majesty! grace be upon my head. since the devil is bringing the tartars upon us, the people humbly beg the head of the traitor kuthen! and we will bring it to you, if you will only give us the command, your majesty!" "it shall be here directly, and the heads of all his brood, too!" cried barkó's followers. barkó, seeing that the king did not speak, turned to them, saying in a tone of command, "silence! i will speak, asking the king's grace upon my head." and turning again to the king he added, "if we don't root them out, my lord king, the tartars will find the banquet all made ready for them when they come. the vagabonds in the country-districts are already laying hands on property not their own, and behaving just as if they were at home." one or two voices from among the crowd echoed these complaints, and added others as to the disrespect shown to the magyar women. "silence," interrupted barkó. "let us hear his majesty, our lord the king. what he commands that we will do, and we must not do anything else," he added, by way of showing that he could read writing, and was acquainted with the style in which the royal commands were expressed. the king heard all without appearing in the least disturbed, while those at the table kept their hands all the time on their swords, and it was by no means without emotion that the two russian dukes looked on at this, to them, very novel kind of council, and at this unconventional way of approaching the king's presence. at last there was silence. barkó had said his say, and the cries and exclamations of his followers having subsided, the king addressed them and him. first he praised him for his discretion in coming to seek counsel of the king, and then he reminded him that a good king was also a just judge. but a just judge always heard both sides of a question before he gave judgment. if, therefore, he were now to give his consent to what his faithful children wished, and were to deliver king kuthen, who was both his guest and theirs, into their hands, and that without hearing him as he had heard them, why, then he would be a bad judge, and therefore not a good king. moreover, if he were unjust in one case he might be so in another. "if, for instance," said he, "paul came to me with a complaint against peter, we might have mr. peter's head cut off; and if peter accused paul, we might have paul beheaded. for, my children, others have as much right to justice as ourselves; therefore, hear our commands, and as my faithful servant, the honourable mr. barkó has said, observe them and do nothing else." all eyes were fixed upon the king, and they listened with wrapt attention and in perfect silence as he proceeded: "strict inquiry shall be made as to whether there be any real ground of suspicion against king kuthen; and if there is, he and his people shall be punished! but we must let the law take its course, and my dear citizens of pest may wait quietly and confidently while it does. from this day forth the kun king will not leave his residence, a guard shall be placed at his gate, and we will have the matter regularly investigated without delay." there was a burst of "eljens" (vivas) as the king concluded. the people appeared to be thoroughly satisfied, and when barkó, after a low reverence, turned to leave the hall, his followers made a way for him through their midst, and cleared out after him, quickly at all events, if not with much dignity. history tells us that the king's council was satisfied also, no less than the people, who had, indeed, been purposely excited by some of the nobles, and used more or less as a cat's paw. the order that kuthen should be guarded was, as we have seen, given and executed forthwith. béla had given it most unwillingly, only, in fact, to appease the excitement, and in the hope of avoiding still worse evils; and though some were still dissatisfied, this was the case with but few of the cooler heads. and the russian dukes, when they were able to speak to the king in private, admitted that numbers of kunok had indeed been forced by batu khan to serve in his army; but they added that these recruits were only waiting the first favourable opportunity to desert and join with their kinsmen, and with the hungarians, in exterminating the common enemy. and what they feared was that, if the kunok heard that their king, whom they worshipped, was being kept under restraint, they would actually do what the majority and so many of the chief nobles now without reason suspected them of. béla understood human nature, and to him it seemed that to throw some sort of sop to cerberus was wiser than to risk the exciting of greater discontent. but again the king made a mistake! chapter vii. at the very doors. the time of which we are writing was a critical one in hungary's history. "she was sick, very sick, and the remedy for her disease was bitter in proportion to the gravity of her condition." (jókai mór.) the power and prestige of the sovereign had lost much under béla's predecessors, first his uncle and then his father; for the latter had rebelled against his brother, and the civil war had increased the importance of the magnates, while it diminished that of the sovereign. béla's father andrás had succeeded his brother, and had shown himself as weak, as vain, and as untrustworthy, as king, as he had done as subject. béla had inherited many difficulties, and in his eagerness to set matters right, had been over-hasty, over-arbitrary, and had made enemies of many of the great nobles by curtailing their extorted privileges. andrás, always in need of money, had given and pawned crown property, until there was little left. béla, succeeding to an almost empty treasury, had recalled some of those donations which never ought to have been made; and also, by way of instilling respect for the king's majesty, had withdrawn from the great nobles certain privileges, which they bitterly resented, for some of them had attained such a pitch of might and wealth as rendered them independent of the king and the law. there were two classes of nobles, the magnates and the lesser nobility, the latter being more and more oppressed by the former. all who owned a piece of land were "noble," but as their possessions differed greatly in amount, so some were rich and others very much the reverse. the nobles of both classes, and the clergy attended the diets; but the mass of the people were as yet unrepresented. standing army there was hardly any, and when the king wanted troops he had to raise them, and pay them as he could. those who held crown-fiefs were bound to obey the king's call to arms, but at his cost, and not their own, and all nobles of whatever degree were bound to join his standard if the country was attacked, not otherwise. if the king wanted them to cross the frontier, he must bear the expense; and if they did not choose to go, he was helpless and could not punish them. but, to be first in the field is often half the battle. to wait until the enemy is actually in the country may spell disaster and even ruin. béla was well aware of the danger which threatened. he had heard much from kuthen, and he had other sources of information as well, men who kept him well posted in all that was going on. troops he must have if the country was to be saved; and as the kunok were always ready for war he felt obliged to favour them; and, to raise money for the pay of others, he was obliged to pledge the crown revenues and to debase the coinage. if hungary had been of one mind in those days, if all had been ready to rise in her defence as once they would have done, she would have had little difficulty in driving back the mongols; but some of the magnates secretly hoped for a reverse, if so be the king might be thereby humbled. they little knew! rumours as to the advance of the mongols were rife throughout the winter; but the month of march, 1241, had arrived, and still there was nothing to be called an army, in spite of the sending round of the bloody sword, and in spite of the king's most urgent commands, entreaties, and personal exertions. on the 11th of the month came the first note of actual alarm in a despatch from héderváry the palatine, who was guarding the north-eastern frontier. he announced that the mongols had reached the pass of verecz (almost in a straight line with kaschau), and that it was impossible for him to hold them back unless large reinforcements were sent to him at once. the king, meanwhile, had despatched ambassadors to his old enemy friedrich, of austria, urging him in his own interest to come to the help of hungary. to the kunok in their new settlements he had also sent orders to mount at once, and they required no second bidding, but set out immediately for the camp. the queen and court had left pest for pressburg, whither all who took the coming danger in the least seriously, and many even who professed to think little of it, had sent their womankind. the few who dared run the risk of leaving them in country houses, with moats and walls as their sole defence, were nobles whose castles were believed to be inaccessible, or so far from the frontier and so buried in the woods, that they had every reason to hope that they would remain undiscovered. the hédervárys and the szirmays were not of this number, always excepting master peter; for, such was their reputation for wealth, that it seemed only too likely that, to save their own skins and perhaps share the spoil, some of their servants and dependants might turn traitors and betray them to the mongols. they, therefore, were among the first to send their wives and children to pressburg, lavishly provided with all that they might need, and accompanied by brilliant trains of men-at-arms. pressburg was full to overflowing, and to every man there were at least ten women. jolánta, of course, was there, and was daily looking forward to the pleasure of seeing dora; not doubting for a moment that her uncle would send her with all speed as soon as he himself left home to join the army. but the days had passed, and not only had dora not come, but no one knew where she was, or anything about her. there was no little wonderment at this among those whose minds were sufficiently at leisure to wonder about anything not immediately concerning themselves or their families. it was odd that master peter should have stayed so long in pest without her, a thing he had never done before; it was odder still that he should not have sent her to pressburg, out of harm's way. surely he must have placed her somewhere to be taken care of! he could never think of leaving her at home, and alone, when the time of his absence was likely to be so uncertain. they knew, indeed, that his ancient hall was so buried in dense woods, and so surrounded by ravine-like valleys, that no one would be likely to find it unless they knew of its existence and went there for the purpose; yet at the same time, as he and stephen had been busy collecting their troops, and seemed to consider preparations of some sort necessary, he would surely never be satisfied to leave dora alone in a place which, though strong enough to resist any ordinary foe, would certainly not be safe from the thieving, burning tartars, if they should discover it. and yet, in spite of all these conjectures, that was precisely what master peter had done. we have already mentioned his reasons for not taking his daughter to pest. the same reasons prevented his sending her to pressburg. he would not have her exposed to sneers, perhaps insults, when he was not at hand to protect her. dora herself was quite against going to swell the queen's train; and her father was more than a little hurt that, whereas her majesty (so paul's mother told him with satisfaction) had especially summoned jolánta to join her with all speed, she had not said a word to show that she even remembered dora. what dora wished was to follow her father and share all his dangers, labours, and hardships--no such very uncommon thing in those days, when women were often safer with their fathers, husbands, and brothers, than they could be anywhere else. her father was dora's first thought, as she was his; but at first he would not give her any decided answer. the mongols were not yet in the country; and he and his brother, though they loyally obeyed the king's orders, were among those who thought him far too anxious, and his preparations more than were necessary. at all events, he would not take her with him when he set out with his troop for the camp at pest, but he promised, if he could not find any better way of ensuring her safety, that he would come later on, put her in a coat of armour, and take her with him. the only question was where she had better stay meantime, and he decided that on the whole home would be best. the seneschal, or governor, was a gloomy and rather lazy man, but thoroughly honourable. peter knew what a bold, brave man he was when it was a question of bears, wolves, and wild boars, and in his simplicity he argued with himself that courage was courage and that a man courageous in one way must needs be courageous in all! peter would have liked much to take with him talabor, of whom he had lately grown quite fond, but it suddenly flashed across him that in any case of unexpected danger, the younger man, full of life and energy, would not be less courageous than the portly seneschal, while he would certainly be more active and resourceful. talabor, who was burning to accompany his good master, was therefore told that for the present he was to remain at home. master peter had a long conversation with him before his own departure, and gave him full instructions, so far as that was possible, as to what he was to do in case of accidents, which peter himself never in the least expected to occur. and then he rode away at the head of a very respectable troop, or "banderium," consisting of the lesser nobility of the neighbourhood, and of such recruits as he had been able to enlist; and on reaching pest he found that the szirmay contingent, furnished by himself and his brother, was first in the field. soon after arrived the king with the troops which he had been raising himself in the two home-counties. pest was becoming daily more like a camp. the streets, the open spaces, were turned into bivouacs, the officers slept in tents; and, as most of the men were mounted, on all sides was to be heard the neighing of horses, tethered by long ropes in the open air. earthworks were being hastily thrown up at a considerable distance beyond the walls of the town, these walls themselves being low and hardly capable of defence, as they were not everywhere provided even with moats. impossible to describe the state of bustle and excitement in which everyone in pest was living just then, and at first sight no one would have discovered anything like fear in the animated and hilarious crowd which filled the thoroughfares. the mongols were spoken of in terms of the utmost contempt as a wild, undisciplined, unorganized rabble, who would fly at the mere sight of "real troops," properly armed! everywhere was to be heard the sound of music and boisterous mirth on the part of the younger nobles, who made great display of gaudy apparel, fashionable armour from germany, huge plumes, and high-spirited horses. like peacocks in their pride, they loved in those days to make a show of magnificence. and if this was true more or less of all the higher and wealthier nobility, particularly of the younger members, it cannot be said that the lower classes, or the less wealthy, were at all behind-hand in following the example of their betters. the king himself hated display, though he did not despise a becoming state and magnificence when occasion required; but those who were attached to his court, or to the retinue of the great lords, spiritual and temporal, delighted to imitate the young magnates as far as they could. foremost among these was now libor the clerk, héderváry's well-known governor, whom his young master found so prompt and ready, so helpful in carrying out, and so quick to approve all his whims, that it became more and more impossible to him to dispense with his services, and he kept him constantly about him. libor sported a gigantic plume in his cap, and his sword made such a clanking as he walked, that people knew him by it afar off. whenever he had the chance, he might be heard declaiming in praise of the heroic king, and affirming that everyone who did not support him was a scoundrel. all who were in favour of active measures highly approved of libor; even the king knew him, at least by name, for there was not such another fire-eating magyar in the whole of pest, and all were agreed that the king had no more devoted subject than this exemplary young clerk. bishops, abbots, magnates, and the king's brother, duke kálmán, were arriving now with their expected troops; but on march 14th arrived one who was not expected, and at whom people looked in terror and amazement. he rode up slowly, wearily, at the head of a few hundred men, as worn and weary as himself; and as he came nearer, people whispered under their breath, "héderváry the palatine!" héderváry, who was supposed to be defending the passes of the carpathians! his armour was battered, his helmet crushed, and a sabre cut across the face had made him hardly recognisable. he rode straight up to the king's tent, before which the diet was assembled, no one, not even his old friend peter, daring to speak to him, though he gazed on him hardly able to believe his eyes, and with a sudden chill of alarm as he thought of dora. for a few moments no one spoke, but after more than one attempt, the palatine got out the broken words, "god and the holy virgin protect your majesty!" then, turning to the assembled diet, he added, "comrades! the enemy is in our land! our small force held the pass seven days; on the eighth the flood burst through and flowed over dead bodies. you see before you all who escaped! god and the holy virgin protect our country!" héderváry bowed his head upon his horse's neck to hide his face. the sensation was immense, the news flew quickly from mouth to mouth, and before long all pest knew of the disaster, and knew, too, that in the palatine's opinion the enemy might reach pest itself within a day or two--a day or two! with such awful speed did the torrent rush forward. if peter had been incredulous before, he was anxious enough now, when he heard of the lightning-like rapidity with which the mongols were advancing, of the 40,000 pioneers who went before them, cutting a straight road through the thickest forests, of the catapults for throwing stones and masses of rock, against which nothing, not even the strongest walls, could stand. he could not leave his post, it was even questionable whether he could reach dora now if he made the attempt; for, when the scouts came in they more than confirmed all that the palatine had said, with the additional information that five counties had been already devastated, and that batu's army was within half a day's journey of pest itself. that same night the red glare in the sky told of burning towns and villages only a few miles off; and the day after héderváry's return small bodies of mongols actually appeared on the very confines of pest, laying hands on all that they could find, and then vanishing again like the lightning, as suddenly as they had come. the fortifications of the city were pushed on with redoubled energy, and all were wildly eager to go out at once and challenge the enemy. but the king's orders were strict; no one was to go out and attempt to give battle until the whole army was assembled, when he himself would take the command. not a third part had come in yet, and the men chafed impatiently at the delay. even now, however, with danger facing them, there was little unity in the camp, little order, little discipline; everyone who had any pretension to be "somebody," wanted to give orders, not obey them, and, in fact, do everything that he was not asked to do. but as the troops continued to come in, as the earthworks rose higher, and the ditches and trenches grew broader; as, above all, the king seemed to have no fears, confidence revived, and those who had been timorous ran to the opposite extreme, and began to believe that the king had but to give the signal for battle, and the enemy's hosts would at once be scattered like chaff. they not only believed it, but loudly proclaimed it. libor was especially loud and emphatic in his expressions of confidence, and went about from one commander to another, trying his utmost to obtain a post of some sort in the army. he succeeded at last, for héderváry the palatine had lost his best officers, and knowing how highly his son thought of libor, he gave him a command in his own diminished army. whereupon paul presented the young governor with a complete suit of armour, and from that day forward libor did not know how to contain himself. he was a great man indeed now, and he might rise still higher. in fact, so he told himself, the very highest posts were open to him! chapter viii. the better part of valour. on the 17th march, six days after héderváry's imploring cry for help, three after his return, one enormous division of mongols was in the neighbourhood of pest, while another was in front of vácz (waitzen), a town twenty miles to the north. that morning very early, paul héderváry and ugrin, the archbishop of kalócsa, had sallied forth unknown to anyone, to satisfy themselves as to whether the scattered parties of mongols who had been seen several times beneath the very walls of pest, were mere bands of brigands, or whether they were part of batu khan's army. paul was a daring, not to say foolhardy man, and it was not the first time he had been out to reconnoitre, taking only libor and a few horsemen with him. of course, he wanted libor this morning, but the governor, being with all his valour a discreet person, was not forthcoming, was indeed not to be found anywhere, much to paul's vexation. paul and the archbishop therefore rode quietly out together, accompanied by no more than half a dozen men-at-arms, and they had not been riding a quarter of an hour before they caught sight of a party of horsemen coming towards them through the grey dawn. there seemed to be some three or four score of them, and they might be some of the expected troops arriving; it was impossible to tell in the dim half-light, and paul and his companion drew behind some rising ground to make sure. they had not long to wait before they saw that these were no friends, however, but an advance body of mongols cautiously and quietly moving forward. to engage them was out of the question, and the two at once agreed to turn back without attracting attention, if possible. but they had no sooner left their shelter than a perfect hurricane of wild cries showed that they had been observed. fortunately for them, their horses were fresh and in good condition, while those of the mongols were sorry jades at the best, and worn out besides. the hungarians, therefore, reached the city in safety, though hotly pursued, and they at once presented themselves before the king, who had risen very early that morning, and was already at work in his cabinet. "why, ugrin, how is this?" said béla, rising to meet the archbishop, "armed from head to foot so early? and you, too, héderváry? where do you come from? i see you are dusty!" "your majesty," began ugrin, one of the most daring of men, in spite of his office, "héderváry and i have been riding in the neighbourhood, and we chanced upon the tartars!" "did you see many?" "the advance guard, with a whole division behind." "we have only our horses to thank for it that we are here now," added héderváry. "have not i forbidden all provoking of encounters until we have all our troops assembled?" said the king. "and there was no provocation--on our part," replied ugrin, in anything but an amiable tone; "but if we don't get information for ourselves as to the enemy's movements----" the king cut him short. "i know all about them!" said he, "more than you gentlemen do." ugrin and héderváry shrugged their shoulders, and both put the king's coolness down to irresolution, or even fear. "i know," said the king, "that they have not only approached our towns, but that at this moment they are before vácz, if they have not stormed it." "before vácz!" exclaimed ugrin, "and your majesty is still waiting! waiting now! when one bold stroke might annihilate them before the khan himself comes up." "batu is close at hand," said the king, "and if we don't wish to risk all, we must be prudent, and act only on the defensive until the rest of the troops arrive." "ah!" cried ugrin, forgetting for a moment the respect due to the king, "i suppose your majesty means to wait until vácz is in flames! by heaven! i won't wait--not if i perish for it!" as he spoke, ugrin turned on his heel and abruptly left the room. possibly the rattle of his armour and the clank of his sword prevented the king's hearing clearly his last words; but he called to him in a tone of command, and ordered him not to leave the city. "make haste and stop him, paul," said béla, as the door closed behind the archbishop, and héderváry hurried to obey; but his own horse had been taken to the stables with a mongol arrow in its back, while ugrin's was on the spot, being walked up and down in front of the palace. the archbishop had the start of him therefore, for he had rushed down the steps, mounted, and dashed off like a whirlwind, before héderváry could catch him up. "let him go!" said the king, "let him go!" he repeated, walking up and down the room. he had left his private cabinet now for a larger room, in which, notwithstanding the early hour, many of the nobles were already assembled; for the news of ugrin's and héderváry's encounter had spread like wildfire, and all were impatient to be doing something. "we must double the guards and keep the troops ready; but no one is to venture out of the city," said the king, and his words fell like scalding water upon the ears of those who heard them. for it was always the hungarian way to face danger at once, without stopping to realise fully its gravity, or to give courage and energy time to evaporate. "my orders do not please you, i know, gentlemen," the king said, with dignity, "but when danger is near, blood should be cool. if we waste our strength in small engagements, the enemy's numbers, the one advantage he has over us, will make our efforts entirely useless. no! let him exhaust his strength, while we are gathering ours, and as soon as we have a respectable army, myself will lead it in person!" no one was satisfied; but héderváry the palatine was alone in venturing to say a word, and he spoke firmly though respectfully. he had had more actual experience of the mongols than anyone else, and submitted that, though their strength lay chiefly in their numbers, yet that this was not the whole of it, for they were exceedingly cunning, and he believed their object just now was to cut off the reinforcements before they could reach the place of rendezvous. if so, then an attack quickly delivered would be of the greatest service. "besides," he concluded, "i suspect that the archbishop of kalócsa has led his 'banderium' out against them, and we can't leave him unsupported." "the brave bishop will soon settle the filthy wretches!" cried a young forgács who was standing near. with a reproving look at the young man, the king turned to the palatine and said gravely, "i expressly forbade the archbishop to leave pest, and i cannot therefore believe that he has done so! if he has--well, he must reap as he has sown! i am not going to risk all for the madness of one. but you are right, palatine, there is no more cunning people on the face of this earth! isn't it more likely that they want to deceive us and entice us away from our defences, by sending forward these comparatively small bodies of men?" the palatine shook his head, urging that a great part of the country was already laid waste, that fear was paralysing everyone, and that it was no time to wait when danger was actually in their midst and threatening the very capital. and so the discussion went on, a few holding with the king, but the more part with the palatine. but the king had heard the same arguments so often before that they had ceased to make any impression upon him. his resolution was taken to await the arrival of duke friedrich of austria, whom he knew to be on the way, and whom he confidently believed to be at the head of a considerable body of troops, from whom béla expected great things. they would at least set his own army a good example in the matter of discipline, and this was much needed; and that army, too, was growing day by day, surely if slowly, though the greater part was ill-armed. the discussion ended with the king's reiterated orders that no one should go outside the city, and the nobles went their several ways, giving free vent to their disapproval and impatience, and helping thus to spread mistrust of the king's judgment. for all that, most of them were confident of victory as soon as the army should be put in motion, and some went so far as to expect no less than the immediate annihilation of the mongol bands in the vicinity, at the hands of ugrin. crowds filled the streets, and reports of all sorts were flying about the city. the archbishop had met the enemy and defeated him! some watchman on one of the towers had seen the archbishop cut down a mongol leader, and great part of the mongols were lying dead on the ground! more important still, he had felled batu khan himself with one blow of his battle-axe! so it went on all day till late in the evening, when suddenly the news spread that the archbishop was coming back, but--with only three or four of his men with him! and while the people in the streets were talking together with bated breath, a man rushed into their midst, covered with blood and dust. "what has happened? where are you from?" they asked, not at first recognising the furrier, a man belonging to pest, and well known there. "water!" whispered the new-comer, bowing his head on his breast. "water! i don't know how i got here! water, quick!" several of the crowd hurried off for water, and when he had quenched his thirst, some of them began to wash the blood from his face and to bind up his wounds. "ah! they are no matter!" he gasped, "one may get such cuts as these any day in a tavern brawl, but--i'm--done for!" by the help of a wooden flask of wine the man presently revived enough to satisfy the curiosity of the bystanders, though he still looked terrified. "i have come straight from vácz--my horse fell down under me. i was pursued by tartars--a score of arrows hit the poor beast--three went through my cap and tore the skin off my head!" "but what is going on in vácz? they have beaten off the tartars, eh?" "there _is_ no vácz!" said the man, with an involuntary shudder through all his limbs. all were too dumfounded to utter even an exclamation. they had believed that their troops had but to show themselves, and the mongols would be scattered. "the walls of vácz stand staring up to heaven, as black as soot," the man went on. "the people defended themselves to the last, ay, to the last, for hardly a hundred out of them all have escaped!" "but the church--there are moats to it, and new walls----" began one of the bystanders. "there _were_!" said the furrier, "there were! there is nothing left now! the clergy, and the old men, with the women and children, took refuge there, and all the valuables were taken there; even the women fought--but it was no good!" "did the tartars take it?" inquired several at once, beneath their breath. "they stormed it, took it, plundered it, murdered every soul and then set fire to it; it may be burning still! their horrible yells! they are ringing in my ears now!" and the furrier shuddered again. but at that moment the attention of the crowd was diverted from him by a commotion going on at a little distance, and they pressed forward to see what it meant, but soon came back, making all the haste they could to get out of the way of some heavy cavalry, armed from head to foot, and preceded by six trumpeters, who were advancing down the street. "the austrians!" said some of the more knowing, as duke friedrich and his brilliant train passed on straight to the king's palace, where his arrival was so unexpected that no one was in readiness to receive him. events and rumours had followed one another so quickly that day, that the whole population was in a state of excitement; but there was more to come, and the duke was hardly out of sight, when a magyar horseman galloped up, the foam dropping from his horse, which was covered with blood. its rider seemed to be so beside himself with terror as not to know what he was doing, and as the crowd flocked round him, he shouted, "treachery! the king has left us in the lurch! ugrin and his troops--overwhelmed by the tartars!" with that he galloped on till he reached the bank of the danube, where his horse fell under him, and when they hastened to the rider's assistance, they found only a dead body. in spite of the king's commands, ugrin had led his troops out, and had daringly attacked the bands of mongols who had approached pest to reconnoitre. many of them he had cut down with his own hand, and the rest he had put to flight and was pursuing, when, just as he came up with them, the mongols reached a morass. this did not stop them, however, with their small, light horses. on they went at breakneck speed, and he followed, without guessing that he was already on the edge of the marshy ground until the treacherous green surface gave way beneath the heavy hungarian horses, which floundered, lost their footing, and sank helplessly up to their knees, up to their ears, unable to extricate themselves. and then the mongols turned upon them, as was their wont, and poured a perfect storm of arrows upon the defenceless troopers. ugrin and four others managed to dismount and cast away their heavy armour; and, with only their battle-axes in their hands, they succeeded at last by superhuman efforts in wading through the marsh, and so reached pest, pursued by the mongols, and leaving corpses to mark their track all the way, almost to the gate. the people were aghast at the intelligence, and they set to work to blame the king! he was blamed by ugrin in the first place--ugrin, who had nothing but his own madness to thank for the disaster! he was blamed by the mob, who were ready to see treachery everywhere; and above all, he was blamed by duke friedrich, surnamed the "streitbare," for his valour! the king bore all, and worked on. all night he was on horseback, seeing to the fortifications, urging the workmen to redoubled vigour. and while he was thus engaged, what was going on in the army? it is hardly credible, but is nevertheless a fact, that blind self-confidence, whether real or feigned, held possession of the camp. the troops and their leaders spent the night for the most part in revelry, while the sentries on the walls mocked at such of the mongols as came near enough and let fly their arrows at them. early in the morning duke friedrich was on horseback, after a previous argument with the king, in which he had made light of the invasion, and called it mere child's play, easily dealt with, and then he led the small body of men he had brought with him out of the city. a small body it was, to béla's bitter disappointment. he had expected something like an army, and the duke had brought about as many men in his train as he would have done if he had come to a hunting party! such as they were, he led them forth on this eventful morning to have a brush with the mongols, whose advance guard retired, according to custom, as soon as they caught sight of the well-armed, well-mounted, well-trained band. the duke was cautious. he meant to do something, if only to show pest how easy it was; and when he presently returned with a couple of horses and one prisoner, he had his reward in the acclamations with which the populace received him. the success of the valorous duke was belauded on all sides, and some compared the daring warrior with the prudent king, not to the advantage of the latter. the prisoner was taken before the king, and, as ill-luck would have it, he proved to be a kun; worse still, he said among other things, that there were many kunok in batu's camp. they had been forced to join him; but the news spread through the town, exciting the people more than ever, and it was openly asserted by many that the kunok were in league with the mongols, and that kuthen was a traitor, who had managed to ingratiate himself with king béla only that he might prepare the way for the enemy. chapter ix. "i wash my hands!" the diet, summoned a few weeks before, was still holding its meetings in the open air, with no better shelter than that afforded by a large open tent. akos szirmay would be going thither presently, but it was still early, and he was now on his way to his uncle's old mansion near the danube. though kuthen was rather prisoner now than guest, he was still visited by some of the hungarian lords, and bishop wáncsa was often there with messages from the king, saying how greatly he deplored the necessity for still keeping him prisoner, and explaining that it was from no want of confidence on his part, but rather for the ensurance of kuthen's own safety, adding that he was hoping and waiting for the time when he might come in person and restore the king and his family to liberty. kuthen had loved and honoured béla from the first, and though in this matter he thought him weak, no one would have been able to persuade him that béla would consent to anything which would imperil his guest. akos had been a daily visitor at the house all along, and he made no secret, either there or at his father's, of his attachment to kuthen's younger daughter, whose sweet face and winning ways had attracted him from the first. stephen szirmay did not like his son's choice, which was not to be wondered at. kuthen, it was true, possessed much treasure, and marána was his favourite child. but jolánta's marriage had taught him that wealth did not make happiness. her marriage had had his eager, delighted approval, as he was obliged to admit to himself; and as his judgment had been at fault in the one case, he would not interfere in the other. it would be wiser to remain neutral, lest ill-timed opposition should make his son more determined. kuthen was up very early this morning; for news had reached him that many of the kunok who had remained behind in moldavia were hastening to hungary, and being aware also that those already in the country were now on their way to pest, he was hourly expecting a summons from the king for himself and his sons, and then they would fight, they would fight! and for ever silence the jealous suspicions of their enemies. kuthen knew all that was going on about him, for he was well served by his faithful followers, who were more devoted to him than ever since he had been a sort of state prisoner; he knew that the diet was sitting that day, and that his best friends, the king and duke kálmán, would for their own sakes do all they could to bring to an end the present disgraceful state of affairs, which was only likely to increase the slanders and suspicions of which he was the victim. kuthen knew also of the duke of austria's arrival, of his encounter with the mongols, and of the prisoner, said to be a kun, whom he had so unfortunately captured. kun or not, the populace believed, and were encouraged by the duke to believe, that he was one. during the last few hours the duke had done his utmost to foment the growing irritation against the king and his people. kuthen knew all, and though he hoped in king béla, he neglected no precautions to ensure the safety of his family, if the worst should come to the worst. there were already more than a hundred kunok in the castle, chiefs and simple armed men, who had found means to join him, by degrees, without attracting notice, all of whom were most resolute and most trustworthy. watch was kept day and night without intermission, and of one thing kuthen might be entirely confident, that if danger should come, it would not take him by surprise, and that, if the mob should rise against them--as he knew was not impossible--though they might perish, they would at least not perish like cowards. when akos arrived on this particular morning, he was closeted alone with the king for a time, and could not deny that things looked threatening, or that the populace and most of the nobles were in a state of irritation, thanks in great measure to the duke of austria and his unlucky prisoner. all that he could do was to urge the need of prudence and vigilance. but before the young noble took his leave, something seemed to strike kuthen. whether a new idea flashed into his mind, whether he had a premonition of any kind, or whether he was merely filled with vague forebodings, not unnatural under the circumstances, it is impossible to say, but as akos was about to make his farewells, kuthen laid a detaining hand upon his shoulder, and drew him into the adjoining room. there he took his daughter marána by the hand, and leading her up to akos, he said solemnly, "children, man's life and future are in the hands of god! we are living in serious times. see, akos, i give you my beloved daughter! happen what may, you will answer to me for this, one of my children." "you have given me a treasure, you have made me rich indeed! god bless you for it; and, father, have no fears on her account, for we will live and die together," said akos, with much emotion, his hand in that of his bride. the queen's eyes filled with tears as she looked at the handsome young pair, and drawing close to akos, she whispered in his ear, "mind, whatever happens to the rest of us, my marána must be saved." just then in came the two young princes, who were always pleased to see akos, and were delighted, though not surprised, to hear of their sister's betrothal. "oh, but brother akos," they exclaimed together, as if they thought that the new relationship must at once make a difference, "we should so like to go with you to the diet, but we are captives, and we have not wings like the eagles." "and, my dear brothers, even if you had," returned akos, "i should advise you not to leave your dear father for a moment just now." "oh, but why? why?" they both asked. "because i think that this is a critical time," he answered. "let us only get through the next day or two quietly, and i quite believe that you will all be able to go in and out as you please." "you are right, akos," interposed the king. "time may bring us good. let us wait and be watchful! and don't forget that i have given this dear child into your care. trust the rest of us to god, in whose hands is our fate; we shall defend ourselves, if need be, but you think only of her. do you promise me?" "i swear i will," said akos, with uplifted hand. then he embraced his bride, who accompanied him to the covered entrance, then followed him with her eyes all along the drawbridge, and after that watched him from a window until he was quite out of sight. kuthen had already doubled the guards about his dwelling, and had taken other precautions and measures of defence; but the walls were high, and all had been done so quietly that it had not attracted the attention of the sentries posted on the other side of the drawbridge. when akos was gone, he and his sons armed themselves as if for battle. sheaves of arrows were brought out and placed in readiness, the guards were armed, and the kun chiefs, who took it in turn to be on duty near the king, made all needful preparation for an obstinate defence. akos had not been gone more than an hour or two, when little groups and knots of people began to gather round kuthen's house. there were three or four here, and three or four there, and presently they might be counted by the score. later on a large crowd had collected. they were talking quietly to one another, and seemed so far to be quite peaceable, however. the kun royal family took no alarm, for they knew the pest populace and its insatiable curiosity well by this time, and they fancied that there was perhaps some idea abroad that kuthen and his sons would be going to the diet; or perhaps marána's betrothal was known. another hour passed and the people began to shout and howl. two persons were declaiming to them; but within the walls it was impossible to distinguish what they were saying. the crowd pressed nearer and nearer to the drawbridge, so near indeed, that the guards on duty there had the greatest difficulty in keeping them back, and a sudden rush of those in the rear sent two or three of the foremost splashing into the moat, to the huge diversion of the rest. presently, however, the mob appeared to be seized by a new idea, for they all set off running in one direction; and in a few moments, only a few small knots of people remained. but these few lay down on the patches of grass round about, as if they meant to stay indefinitely, and the kun chiefs, who had been keeping close watch behind the loop-holed walls, noticed that they were all armed, some with knotty sticks and wooden clubs bristling with nails, and a few here and there with bows and quivers. it looked as if they meant mischief, and the kunok were all on the alert for what might happen. akos meantime had been for the last hour or two at the diet. from where he was he had a full view of the danube, and after a time he noticed a large crowd of people crossing the river by the ferry-boats and making straight for the place where the diet was being held. both banks of the danube were thronged, and soon the crowd became a vast, compact mass; but the first intimation of anything unusual that many of the members had, was the finding the table at which they sat suddenly surrounded by their own gaily caparisoned horses, which the crowd had found blocking their way, and had driven before them into the tent. it was a terrible moment! no one could imagine what had happened, and some of the more nervous thought that the tartars, whom they had taken so lightly before, had actually stormed the town. all started to their feet, seized the horses by their bridles, and drew their swords. and now the howls of the furious mob were plainly to be heard. "kuthen! the kunok! the traitors! death to the kunok!" it was impossible to misunderstand what the mob were bent upon. this was no peaceable, if clamorous deputation like the former one! these were no faithful subjects rallying round the king in a moment of danger, and seeking his counsel and help! no! the flood had burst its bounds, carrying all before it, and had come not to petition, but to claim, and to threaten. the king motioned for silence. he was the calmest and most collected of all present, and such was the magic influence of his presence, such the respect felt for him, that even now, in spite of all the excitement, for a moment the clamour seemed to cease. just then one of the nobles, a young man in brilliant armour, with flashing eyes, seized the bridle of the horse nearest him, flung himself on its back, dashed away, and looking neither behind nor before him, forced his way recklessly through the mob. all who noticed him supposed that he had received some command from the king, but the confusion was so great that his departure was unobserved, except by those whose legs were endangered by his horse's hoofs. "the kun king is a prisoner," said béla in a trumpet-like voice, which commanded attention at least for the moment. "no one in my dominions will be condemned unheard. i forbid all violence, and i shall hold the leaders of this insurgent multitude responsible." so far the king was allowed to speak without interruption, or at least without having his voice drowned. but after this, if he spoke, he could not make himself heard. for no sooner did the magnates and others assembled understand what all the uproar was about, than the king's words lost their effect. members from the counties where the kunok were settled, recalled the many irregularities of which the latter had been guilty on their first arrival, envied them their rich pastures, and joined the mob in crying for vengeance upon them, and in shrieking "treachery!" there were but few on the king's side, save the two archbishops, the two szirmays, one foyács, and héderváry the palatine. the mob surged into the tent, howling and threatening. "if the king won't consent, let us settle it ourselves! the country stands first! the king himself will thank us when his eyes are opened! let's go! what are we waiting for? there are enough of us!" duke friedrich, who, as being the most powerful and most distinguished guest present, was sitting next the king, turned to him and said in a half whisper: "your majesty, this is a case in which you must give in! nothing is more dangerous than for the people to think they can act against the king's will and go unpunished. no one will defend kuthen, and who knows what has been going on yonder, or even whether kuthen is still alive?" the king maintained a determined silence, but his eyes flashed, and his hand grasped the hilt of his sword. the tumult increased, and some even of those who believed in the kunok's innocence, were so alarmed by the rage of the insurgents that they hurried up to the king and implored him to yield. the pressure around him waxed greater and greater. duke kálmán, who was standing not far off, cried out, "your majesty won't give in! the honour of the nation is at stake!" but the noise and confusion were so great that the king could not hear a word his brother said. the duke shouted for his horse, but it was all in vain, for he could not move. king béla, pressed on all sides by those who were beseeching, imploring, urging, forgot himself for a moment. he put his hands over his eyes, then stretching them out, he said, "lavabo manus meas! (i will wash my hands). you will answer to god for this wickedness. i have done what i could do!" "the king has consented!" roared those nearest him. the mob began to sway about, the horses neighed, the people all poured forth, roaring, "eljen a király! long live the king! death to the false traitors! forward! to kuthen! to kuthen!" no sooner was he free than duke kálmán mounted the first horse he could seize, while the mob rushed off like a whirlwind in the direction of the house by the danube. when the king looked round none were left but some of the magnates. "a horse!" he shouted furiously; and he galloped away after the mob, accompanied by the austrian duke and the rest. if béla had mounted his horse before he addressed the mob, if he had faced the insurgents as a king, and had at once punished the ringleaders, the country might have been spared great part of the disasters which were now on the very threshold. but once again the king was weak at a critical moment. there is much to be said in his excuse and defence; but weakness, however brilliantly defended, remains weakness still. a few moments after the mob had burst into the king's tent, akos was again at the drawbridge which led to kuthen's dwelling. "what do you want, sir?" asked the captain of the guard hotly, as he sprang forward to meet him. "no one is admitted." "since when?" asked akos haughtily. "the king sent orders an hour ago." "maybe! but i have come straight from the diet by the king's command, and i am to take kuthen and all his family before him and the states at once, while you can remain here to guard the place till our return." the captain turned back submissively, and blew the horn which hung at his side. possibly the drawbridge which formed the outer gate of the castle would not even now have been lowered, but that kuthen had recognised akos, and that they were so well armed as to be quite a match for the guard, and for those of the mob who had remained behind. the drawbridge was lowered therefore, but raised again the moment akos had passed. he rode across the covered space between the drawbridge and the inner gate, and there he had to wait again a few moments while the bolts and bars were withdrawn. he leapt from his horse as soon as he was within, and kuthen and his sons hurried from the entrance-hall to meet him, doubting whether he brought good news or bad. "quick!" said akos, "to horse! your majesty, to horse! all of you," and without waiting kuthen's answer, he shouted, "horses! bring the horses! and mount, all who can!" the princes flew at once to the stables, and bridled the horses--which were always kept ready saddled--while kuthen asked in some surprise, "what has happened? where are we to go?" for he had not been able to read anything in young szirmay's face, whether of good or of evil. "where?" said akos bitterly, "where we can be farthest from the mob--the mob has risen and may be here any moment." in those times, sudden dangers, sudden alarms, sudden flights were things of every-day occurrence, and kuthen and his followers had long been accustomed not to know in the morning where they should lay their heads at night. no people were quicker or more resolute in case of extremity than the kunok, who were one family, one army, one colony, and moved like a machine. the queen and princesses, as well as the chiefs, had all come together in the hall, but now the former and many of the servants rushed back into the house, from which they again emerged in a few moments, all cool and collected, all ready to start, and with their most valued possessions packed in bundles. the riding horses were bridled, some of the pack-horses loaded, and all had been done so quickly and quietly, that the guard without had heard no more than the sort of hum made by a swarm of bees before they take flight. meantime akos had rapidly explained matters to kuthen, pointing out to him that king béla and his brother and others were standing up for him, but that there was a rising of the populace, and that the mob might arrive before the king, when, even if they were successfully beaten back, there would certainly be bloodshed, which would only exasperate the people more than ever, and make it impossible for the king, good as he was, to ensure the safety of his guests. whereas, if they could succeed in avoiding the first paroxysms of fury, king béla would be the first to rejoice at their escape. akos spoke confidently, and his words carried conviction. kuthen, his family, and the chiefs were already mounted, while those of the guard who were on foot formed themselves into a close, wedge-shaped mass, and were all ready to set out. "lower the drawbridge!" cried kuthen. the chains rattled, and the gate, which had been closed behind akos, was reopened. he and kuthen headed the procession which issued forth. at that moment a long, yellow cloud of dust made its appearance in the distance, coming towards them. a horseman was galloping in front of it, and he was closely followed by two more, shouting aloud what no one in the castle understood, but something which made the captain of the guard without give orders for the bolts of the drawbridge to be pulled back; and the bridge, left without its supports, dropped with a great plash into the moat. the kunok were cut off! with the sangfroid and fearlessness learnt in the course of his adventurous life, kuthen at once ordered the drawbridge to be raised; the inner gate was closed again and barred with all speed. akos was as pale as death, for he saw in a moment that he had come too late, and that all was lost; but he was resolved to share the fate of the man, whom for marána's sake he looked upon as his father. as for kuthen, he was suddenly the wild chief again. his face was aflame, his eyes flashed fire, he was eager for the fray, and his one thought was to defend himself proudly. he ordered the guards to their places, the horses having been already led back to their stables; and then, turning to his family, he said coolly and calmly, "we will defend ourselves until the king comes, and then his commands shall be obeyed, whatever they are." the women at once retired to their own quarters, without uttering word or groan. there were no tears, no sobs, no sign of terror on their countenances. they looked angry and defiant. when the women had withdrawn, the princes went to their posts, and kuthen, turning to akos, said, "remember your oath." akos raised his hands to heaven without a word. his own position was a more dangerous one than it might seem at first sight. his manifest intention of shielding kuthen from their vengeance would bring down upon him the hatred of his own countrymen; while on the other hand the furious glances of the kunok confined in the castle, and their ill-concealed hostility, showed him clearly that his life was now in danger from within as well as from without. the mob which had rushed away from the diet had pressed on with the speed of the whirlwind, its numbers growing as it went. a few minutes only had passed since the cloud heralding its approach had been seen, and already the crowd was swarming round the banks of the moat, making an indescribable uproar and uttering the wildest, fiercest shouts. within, all was silent as the grave. but the mob outside were not idle for a moment. they were athirst for vengeance, and from the moment of their arrival they had been busy trying to make a passage across the moat by throwing in earth, straw, pieces of wood, even furniture, brought on all sides from the neighbouring houses, and, in fact, all and everything that came to hand. all at once there was a cry raised of "the king! the king is coming!" it was not the king, however, but duke kálmán, with his servants and some of the nobles in his train. that part of the moat faced by the gate was by this time almost full, and some of the more daring spirits were trying to clamber up to the drawbridge, when suddenly the scene changed. the wild figures of the kunok appeared as if by magic upon the walls, the thrilling war-cry was raised, and a cloud of well-aimed arrows hailed down upon the assailants. kuthen and his sons, who confidently expected king béla, had done their utmost to restrain their people, but in vain, for when they saw the moat filled and their enemies preparing to rush the gate, they became infuriated and uncontrollable. in the first moment of surprise all fell back, knocking over those behind them; but some few began to retaliate and shoot up at the garrison. not to much purpose, however, for neither arrows nor spears hit the intended marks, while the long arrows shot from the powerful bows of the kunok never failed. it was during this fierce overture of the contest that duke kálmán rode up. "stand aside!" he shouted, "stop fighting! the king is coming, he will see justice done----" the words were not out of his mouth when two arrows flew forth from loopholes in the walls. one struck the duke's horse, and the second felled to the earth a young nobleman riding close beside him. "they have shot the duke!" was shouted on all sides; for so dense was the cloud of arrows that it was impossible to see at first which of the two had fallen. the duke himself, however, was standing coolly defiant amidst the whistling storm. but the shouts were the signals for a general rush, and from that moment no one, not even the king, could have restrained the people. the moat was filled, the drawbridge wrecked, the inner gate, in spite of its bars, wrenched from its hinges and thrown down upon the dead bodies of the kun guards. the mob rushed in and stormed the castle, and an awful scene of bloodshed followed. kuthen, his sons, and the kun chiefs fought desperately; and side by side with them fought akos, so completely disguised as a kun as to be quite unrecognisable. he was too downright to have thought of a disguise for himself, but had acquiesced in it at kuthen's entreaty. the first of the mob who rushed into the courtyard fell victims to their own rashness, and many more were despatched by the arrows poured from the walls. but suddenly the younger of the two princes fighting beside their father, fell to the ground with a short cry. "my son!" exclaimed kuthen, turning to akos, "go! now's the time! keep your word! i--i'm dying!" with that, kuthen, who had been mortally wounded by a couple of pikes, rushed upon his foes, felled several of them by the mere strength of his arm, and then himself sank down. akos rushed from the entrance-hall into the house. "you are our king now!" roared the kunok, pressing round the remaining prince, and covering him with their shields, as he fought like a young lion. all at once there were loud outcries and yells. the kunok outside the house, finding themselves unable to defend the castle against the swarms which poured into the courtyard, had rushed in, closing the doors and barring the windows. all in vain! the young prince, just proclaimed king amid a shower of arrows, retreated from one room to another, some of his defenders falling around him at every moment. by the time the last door was burst open, less than a dozen of his guard remained, all wounded, all fighting a life-and-death battle with desperation. a few moments more and every kun in the place had ceased to breathe. where were the women? what had become of akos and his bride? presently the mob outside received with howls of joy the heads of kuthen and his family, flung to them from the windows, and at once hoisted them on pikes in token of victory. if the head of akos was among them no one noticed it, for he had stained his face. maddened by their success, the rabble now made with one consent for "king béla's palace," foremost and most active among them being the austrian duke's men-at-arms. they poured into it like a deluge, and the air was filled with shouts of "eljen a király! long live the king! the traitors are dead!" when they had shouted long enough, they set fire to master peter's old mansion, as if it had been the property of king kuthen, and in less than a quarter of an hour sparks and burning embers were flying from it into the air, while the gaping multitudes ran round and round the dwelling, in all the bloodthirsty delight of satisfied revenge. a day or two later, the kun army, which had promptly obeyed orders--more promptly indeed than most even of the more energetic hungarians--reached the gate of pest, well mounted and well armed. there first they learnt what had befallen their king and his family. they came to a halt. the chiefs took counsel together as to what was to be done, and they were not slow in coming to a decision. for the news had spread into the country that all the kunok in pest had been put to death for treachery, and the country, following the example of the city, had also begun to take matters into their own hands by making in some places regular attacks upon the kun women, children, and old men. the kunok had not understood the reason of this before. now they knew! and with one consent they turned back, gathering all their own people together as they went, and turning against the hungarians the arms which at béla's appeal they had been so quick to take up in their defence. duke friedrich stayed no longer, but, content with his little victory over the mongol chief, content with having helped to capture kuthen's castle and to murder its inhabitants, he made off home, giving a promise which he did not keep, that he would send an army to béla's assistance. he had done mischief enough, and left an evil legacy behind him. chapter x. libor climbs the cucumber-tree. duke friedrich had left him in the lurch; the kunok were on their way to bulgaria, wasting and burning as they went; and now king béla saw the mistake he had made in not exerting his utmost power to defend kuthen. the banderia (troops) expected from both sides of the tisza (theiss) did not arrive, eagerly as they were expected. the bishop of csanád, and nobles from arád, and other places, had indeed been hastening to pest with their followers, but on the way they had encountered the outraged and enraged kunok. knowing nothing of what had been taking place in the capital, they were unprepared for hostilities, and when the kunok fell upon them, some were cut off from the rest of the force, and some were cut down. all things seemed to be in a conspiracy against the king and the country, and one blow followed another. it was not until the kunok had crossed into bulgaria, leaving a trail of desolation behind them that the bishop of nagyvárad (grosswardein) could venture to lead his banderium towards pest; and the banderium of the county of bihar was in the same case. now, however, they were hurrying forward, when the mongols, who knew of their coming, put themselves in their way. the bishop attacked what appeared to be but a small force of them; the mongols retreated, fighting. the hungarians, who did not as yet understand their enemy's tactics, pursued. suddenly the mongols turned and fell upon them, and but few escaped to tell the story of the disaster. by this time some 60,000 or 70,000 men were assembled in pest, against the 300,000 or more under the command of batu khan; but of those who had put in an appearance, few were likely to be very serviceable as commanders. the nation had to a great extent lost the military qualities which had distinguished it before, and which distinguished it again afterwards. the masses were no longer called upon for service, and the nobles, not being bound to serve beyond the frontier, had become unused to war. there was plenty of blind self-confidence, little knowledge or experience. the king was no general; and although duke kálmán and bishop ugrin were distinguished for their personal valour and courage, neither they nor any of the other leaders had an idea of what war on a large scale really was. however, such as it was, the army was there, and it was not likely to receive any large accessions; it believed itself invincible, which might count for something in its favour; and the general distress and misery were so great that at last the king yielded his own wish to remain on the defensive, and led his army out into the plain. batu khan at once began to retreat, and to call in his scattered forces, which were busy marauding in various directions. he drew off northwards, his numbers swelling as he went, and the hungarians followed, exulting in the conviction that the mongols were being driven before them, and meant to avoid a battle! it did not for a moment strike them that they were following batu's lead, and that he was drawing them to the very place which he had chosen to suit himself. when they were not many miles from tokay the mongols crossed the sajó by a bridge which they fortified, and they then took up a position which extended from this point to the right bank of the tisza (theiss), having in front of them the vast plain of mohi, bounded on the east by the hills of tokay, on the west by woods, which at that time were dense forests, while behind them to the north they had more plains and hills and, beyond these again, a snow-capped peak which shone like a diamond in a field of azure. master peter's old country-house lay about a hundred miles to the north-west of mohi, almost under the shadow of the loftiest part of the carpathians. a hundred miles was no distance for such swift riders as the mongols, but thus far the county of saros had escaped them, they having entered hungary by passes which lay not only east and west, but also south of it. batu khan's forces occupied the horse-shoe formed by the junction of the three great rivers, sajó, hernád, and tisza. the hungarians encamped on the great plain opposite. but though they had so vast a space at their disposal, their tents were pitched close together, and their horses--a large number, as nearly all were mounted men--stood tethered side by side in rows. freedom of motion within the camp was impossible; and to make matters even worse, the whole was enclosed within an ill-constructed rampart of wooden waggons, which quite prevented freedom of egress. a thousand mounted men were on guard at night outside the camp, but scouting and outposts were apparently unthought of. a few days had passed in merry-making and self-congratulation on the easy victory before them, when one morning king béla appeared mounted on a magnificent charger, to make his customary inspection of the camp. he wore a complete suit of german armour, a white, gold-embroidered cloak over his shoulders, and an aigrette in his helmet. many of the knights templar had joined the army, and some of them, in their white, red-crossed mantles, were now standing about him. close behind him was his brother kálmán, in armour of steel, inlaid with gold; and near at hand was the fiery archbishop ugrin, the most splendid-looking man in the army, so say the chroniclers, his gold chain and cross being the only mark which distinguished him from the laymen. the bishop was a devoted patriot, and though he had not forgiven the king for "leaving him in the lurch," he was sincerely attached to him. he was the leading spirit of the campaign. it was ugrin who had urged the king to take the field without further delay; ugrin, who, with much valour and enthusiasm, but with little military experience, had advised duke kálmán where to pitch the camp; and again it was ugrin, who, convinced that the mongols were in retreat, had pressed the king to give hurried chase, whereby the army had been fatigued to no purpose, and had finally been brought precisely to the spot where batu wished to see it. the bishop, however, happy in his ignorance, was under the delusion that it was he who had forced the khan into his present position. just now the king was giving patient hearing to the opinions, frequently conflicting, of those about him. black care was at his heart, but he looked serene, even cheerful, as usual, as he asked his brother in an undertone whether he had managed to reduce his men to anything like order. the duke, for all reply, shrugged his shoulders and looked decidedly grave. "ah!" said the king, stifling something like a sigh, "just as i expected!" then he heard what the leader of the knights templar had to say, and then he turned to ugrin, well knowing that the bishop's one idea was to attack, and of course beat, the enemy, and that he had no room in his head for any other. "you don't think batu khan will attack?" "attack! not he!" said the bishop, scornfully. "they are all paralysed with fear, or they would never have pitched their tents between three rivers. they have three fronts, and they have put those wretches the kunok and russians foremost! here have we been face to face for days and nothing has come of it! and yet," continued the archbishop eagerly, "nothing would be easier than to annihilate the whole army. all we have to do is to deliver one attack across the sajó, while we send another large force to the left through the woods at night, and across the hernád, and we shall have the mongols caught in their own net!" the archbishop may have been right, but whether he were so or not, the king saw one insuperable objection to what he proposed. the movement depended for its success upon its being executed in absolute silence; and there was no power on earth capable of making any part of the hungarian squadrons move forward without shouts, cries, and tumult! unless heaven should strike them dumb they would noise enough to betray themselves for miles around, as soon as they caught the sound of the word "battle." still, the king was obliged to admit that there did not seem to be anything to be gained by waiting. he was just about to start on his tour of inspection, when there was a sudden sound of great commotion within the camp. men were rushing to and fro, tumbling over one another in their eagerness, and the air was rent with their shouts. but sudden hubbubs, all about nothing, and tumults which were merely the outcome of exuberant spirits, were so frequent that béla and the more staid officers expected the mountain to bring forth no more than the customary mouse on the present occasion. "a prisoner, apparently," observed the duke, as an officer emerged from the crowd. spies and fugitives were frequently crossing the river and stealing into the camp, where there were already russians, kunok, tartars, and men of many tongues. this man had been caught just as, having crept between the waggons, he was starting off at a run down the main thoroughfare, and making straight for the king's tent. "keep back!" cried the officer, "keep back! and hold your tongues, while i take him to the duke and let him tell his story!" but he might as well have addressed the winds and waves. there was a storm of "eljens," mingled with cries in various tongues unintelligible to the rest. they threatened, they swore, they yelled; and in this disorderly fashion approached the group of which the king was the centre. "not to me! there is the king!" said the duke, as the rather bewildered officer pushed his prisoner up to the commander-in-chief. "well, what news do you bring? who are you? where are you from?" the king asked good-humouredly, but with an involuntary smile of contempt. "i am a magyar, your majesty," said the man in a doleful voice. "the tartars carried me off just outside pest." "why!" exclaimed paul héderváry suddenly, as he stood facing the fugitive, "why, if it isn't mr. libor's groom, matykó!" libor, as we have said, was not to be found on the morning of paul's expedition with bishop ugrin; and not having seen or heard of him since, paul had been growing daily more anxious on his account. he missed him, too, at every turn, for libor had made himself indispensable to his comfort. stephen szirmay and master peter, who were as usual in close attendance upon the king, looked with curiosity at the unfortunate lad, who, as they now saw, had lost both ears. "what have you done with your master?" inquired master stephen, forgetting the king for a moment in his eagerness. "the tartars are going to attack the hungarian camp this very night!" blurted out the fugitive, with a loud snort; after which, and having relieved his news-bag of this weighty portion of its contents, he seemed to feel easier. "do you know it for a fact?" asked the king gravely. "take care what you are saying, for your head will have to answer for it." "it is the pure truth, your majesty. i heard the whole thing, and when i knew everything i took my life in my hand and crept through the bushes, swam across the sajó, and then stole hither by the edge of the ditches! well, your majesty will see for yourself by to-night whether i have been telling lies or no." "what more do you know? are the mongols in great force? have they many prisoners?" the king asked, by way of getting at the lad's budget of news and forming some idea of its value. "they are as thick together as a swarm of locusts, sir; and as for the prisoners, they are like the chaff of a threshing floor. there are gentlefolk there too. my old master is one of them--blast him with hot thunderbolts!" "and who is your master?" "my faithful governor--libor!" exclaimed paul héderváry, stepping forward and answering for the groom in a tone of great displeasure. "and have they treated the rest as they have treated you?" asked the duke, pointing to the lad's bleeding ears. "the tartar women cut off the ears and noses of every pretty woman and girl, and the best looking of all they kill! they have killed most of the gentlemen too, and thrown them into the hernád." "and your master?" asked paul quickly. "my master? no master of mine! he's better fit to be master to the devil," said the prisoner, quite forgetting the king in his rage. "what--whom are you talking about?" asked paul, indignantly. "i'm talking about mr. governor libor, and i say that he has turned tartar!" "turned tartar!" exclaimed several in amazement. "it's fact," said the lad. "he has cast off his 'menti' and 'suba,' and doffed his great plume, and now he is going about like a reverend friar, with a cowl large enough to hold myself." "turned priest then, has he?" asked master peter. "priest to the devil, if he has any of that sort down below," said matykó. "priest, not a bit of it! he has turned knéz! that's what he has done! the tartars wear all sorts of church vestments, even the khans do, blight them!" "knéz! what sort of creature is that, matykó?" asked ugrin. "a sort of governor, something like an 'ispán' (_i.e._, count, or head-man of a county)--i don't know, but he has some sort of office, and our poor gentlemen prisoners must doff their hats to the wretch!" "well, nephew!" said master peter, with a laugh, for this was water to his own mill, "so you have chosen a pretty sort of fellow indeed to entrust your castle to!" the king meantime had turned away to speak to the knight commander of the templars, and paul was able to go on questioning matykó. he was beside himself with astonishment. "how long has he been in such favour with the tartars?" he asked. "ah, sir! who can say?" answered the lad, hotly. "he was knéz before they took me! i found him among them, and hardly knew him. it was he who had my ears cut off, the brute! and only just saved my nose!" "well, that is something anyhow," said master peter. "and then," continued matykó, "i heard that mr. governor had been having dealings with the tartars, like those rascally kunok, and what's more, if it is true--and true it must be, for tartars don't give anything for nothing--they say he has shown them the way to two or three castles, where they have got a lot of plunder!" "shown them! the scoundrel!" exclaimed peter and héderváry together. "it's so," said matykó emphatically. "he did ought to have his own long ears and snout cut off, he ought!" young héderváry did not perhaps believe all that had been said about his favourite, but still his anger waxed hot within him. he had to leave matykó now, however, and follow the king, who rode through the whole camp, and finally gave orders to the duke to anticipate the tartars by advancing at once to the sajó with a considerable force. "ugrin!" cried the duke, well pleased with the command, "you will come with me! quick! mount your men, and we will be on the way to the sajó in half an hour and stop the tartars from crossing." by the time the duke and ugrin reached the river, they found that a number of mongols had already got across. these, after some hard fighting they successfully beat back, and that with considerable loss; and as the survivors disappeared into the woods on the opposite side of the river, the duke and ugrin led their victorious troops back to the camp, where they were received with acclamations and triumph. they had lost hardly any of their men and were highly elated by their victory. the night following this success was one of the quietest in the camp. the rapid and easy victory they had won had redoubled everyone's hopes that, upon the advance of the entire army the mongols would perish utterly and completely, as if they had never been. most of the men in camp lay down, with the exception of the king, the sentries, and some of the generals. the king allowed himself but a very short rest; for, from his many conversations with the unfortunate king kuthen, he was well aware of the overwhelming numbers and strength of the mongols, and he was determined that the enemy should never find him anything but prepared and on the alert. kálmán and bishop ugrin also approved these prudent measures; but the army as a whole was so worn out by long watches and merry-making that rest it must have. it was a dark night, and the wind blew the tents about; the camp fires had been purposely extinguished, though it was spring-time and chilly. twice in the course of the night the king left his tent, made the round of the camp, and satisfied himself as to the strength of the wooden bulwarks. the duke, the commander of the templars, héderváry the palatine, and his son paul, as well as ugrin, all lay in the king's tent, on carpets, dozing, but not sleeping, while the king merely put off his armour, and stretched himself on the camp bedstead for an hour or two. all was still save for the wind, and in the intervals between the gusts nothing was to be heard but some terrific snores, and the stamping of the horses. now and again those who were fully awake thought they heard shouts of merriment, showing that there were still some not too tired to be amusing themselves; then the wind roared again, and all other sounds were lost. chapter xi. "next time we meet!" since her father's departure, dora had held the reins of government, and held them, too, with a firmer hand than master peter had done. in a couple of weeks she had made the sleepy governor, if not active, at least less dilatory; the men-at-arms had been well drilled by himself and talabor, and the serving men and women had been bewitched into some degree of orderliness. news of her father she neither had nor expected. probably she would hear nothing until he came or sent for her. she knew nothing positively as to what was taking place outside, though the servants from time to time picked up fragments of news in the villages, so contradictory as to convey little real information. but the air, even in this out-of-the-way region, was full of rumour and presentiment, which affected different characters in different ways, but had the general result of making all more careful than usual. without being in the least alarmed, talabor was one who showed himself particularly circumspect at this time; and, as if he had some sort of instinct that trouble might be at hand, he gradually got into the way of helping the seneschal in all that he had to do. and his assistance, though uncalled for, was most welcome to the poor man, who felt a good deal burthened, now that he had to bestir himself to greater speed than was his wont. some of the servants liked talabor for his unpresuming ways, resolution, and courage, while the rest sought to curry favour with him because the young clerk was evidently in the master's good graces, and they believed him to be a power in consequence. by degrees, and without even noticing it, talabor quite took the governor's place. the servants, being accustomed to receive their orders from him, and to go to him in all difficulties, finding moreover that talabor was always ready with an answer and never at a loss what to do, while the old seneschal forgot more than he remembered, soon almost overlooked the latter and put him on one side. even dora, who was perhaps more distant with talabor now than she had ever been before, came at last to giving her orders to him, instead of to the governor. and the governor, finding himself thus in the shade, would now and then suddenly awake and become jealous for the preservation of his authority, and at such times would seize the reins with ludicrous haste, while talabor would as quickly take up again the part of a subordinate. such was the state of affairs when the governor and talabor were sitting together one evening in a tolerably large room occupied by the former. on the table before them were a good sized pewter pot and drinking cups to match. the two had been talking for some time. the governor was looking as if he had been annoyed about something, and talabor could not be said to look cheerful either, in fact, he had rarely been seen to smile since master peter's departure. he missed him greatly, for latterly, as long as he was at home, peter had often had the young man with him in the evenings, when the candles were lighted, or when a blazing fire supplied the place of tallow and wax, these latter being still considered luxuries. master peter possessed a few books which he greatly valued--a copy of his favourite ovid, and a bible, for which he had given a village and a half, besides one or two others. he made talabor read to him from all in turn; and often by way of variety, he had long conversations with him, and told him stories of his hunting adventures. talabor was a good listener, and he not only enjoyed but learnt a good deal from the narratives of his younger days, in which master peter delighted. dora, too, was more often present than not, and sometimes joined in the conversation, which made it more interesting still, and then talabor felt as if he were almost one of the family. of course, there could be nothing of this sort now. dora gave her orders, sometimes made suggestions, but he never saw her except in the presence of others and on matters of business. he had quite satisfied himself, however, that there had never been anything between her and libor, and that was a satisfaction. she had not deceived her father, she had never either sent or received a single letter unknown to him, and in fact she was just as upright and honourable as he had always thought her. as to why libor had spread the reports which talabor had traced to him, and why he had enlisted borka's aid, unless it were to magnify his own importance, that, of course, he could not guess; but he had so frightened the maid that he was satisfied not only that she had told him the truth so far as she knew it, but that for the future she would keep it to herself, on pain of being denounced as a traitor to her master, of whom she stood in great awe. "this won't do!" cried the governor, as he brought his hand down on the table with a mighty bang. "this won't do, i say! here are the woods swarming with wolves, and one good hunt would drive the whole pack off, and yet you, talabor, would have us look idly on while the brutes are carrying off the master's sheep and lambs regularly day after day." "not idly, sir, i did not say idly; but they have the shepherd and his boys to look after them, and they are good shots, especially the shepherd, and then he has four dogs, each as big as a buffalo," talabor rejoined, rather absently. "buffalo!" "calf, i mean, of course; but it would certainly not be wise to take the garrison out hunting just now." "and why not? you are afraid of the tartars, i suppose, like the rest!" "no, sir! but if they do come, i should prefer their being afraid of us! besides, there is no good in denying it--the wind never blows without cause, and there has been more than one report that the tartars have actually invaded us." "always the tartars! how in the world should they find their way through such woods as these unless you or i led them here?" "if once the filthy creatures flood the country, it seems to me from all that ever i have heard, that not a corner will be safe from them. they'll go even where they have no intention of going, just because of their numbers, because those behind will press them forward in any and every direction." "well, it's true, certainly, that the last time i was with the master in pest, i heard they had done i don't know what not in russia and wallachia. people said that wherever they forced their way they were like--excuse me--like bugs, and not to be so easily got rid of, even with boiling water! and they are foul, disgusting folk, too! they poison the very air; and they eat up everything, to the very hog-wash!" "so, governor, you agree with me then! it's the man who keeps his eyes open who controls the market! who knows whether we mayn't have a struggle with them ourselves to-day or to-morrow!" "ha, ha, ha!" laughed the governor. "our walls are strong, and, if only there are not very many of them----" "eh, sir, but numbers will make no difference! we are so enclosed here that the closer they are packed the more of them our arrows will hit." "true! true!" said the governor, with more animation now that there was a question of fighting, "but they shoot too, blast them!" "let them!" said talabor confidently, "we are behind our walls, and can see every man of them without being seen ourselves." "clerk!" cried the governor, quite annoyed, "i declare you talk as if the tartars were at the very gate!" "heaven forbid! but----" at that instant the door flew open, and the gate-keeper, one of the most vigilant fellows of the castle, rushed in. "get on with you, you ass!" shouted the governor, "what's the news? what do you mean by leaving the gate and bolting in here as if the wolves were at your heels?" the governor might perhaps have gone on scolding, but the gate-keeper interrupted him. "talabor--mr. governor, i mean, there are some suspicious-looking men on the edge of the wood, if my eyes don't deceive me." "on the edge of the wood? but it is rather dark to see so far," said talabor, standing up as he spoke. "if it were not so dark, i could tell better who the rascals are; but so much i can say, there they are, and a good lot of them." "very well," said talabor, making a sign to the governor, "you are a faithful fellow to have noticed them; but we mustn't make any fuss, or our young mistress may be frightened." "i am not usually given to fearing danger, mr. talabor," said dora, entering the room at that moment, and speaking with cool dignity. "i have just been to the top of the look out myself, and what this honest fellow says is perfectly true. there are some men just inside the wood, and they do look suspicious, because they keep creeping about among the underwood, and only now and then putting their heads out." while his mistress spoke, the gate-keeper had stood there motionless. "come, go back to the gate," said dora, turning to him, "and make haste! you heard what mr. talabor said; let him know at once if you notice any movement among these people." "and, governor," she continued, "you had better place the guard and all the men who can shoot at the loopholes, quietly, you know, not as if we were expecting to be attacked; and then, the stones for the walls----" "pardon me, mistress," interposed talabor, "i had stones, and everything else we might need, carried up a week ago." "i know it, mr. talabor, i was not doubting it," dora said in an unruffled tone, "but for all that, it will be as well to have more stones, i think. i believe myself that they are just brigands, not tartars, but even so, if they attack us at night, and in large numbers, all will depend upon the reception they get, so it seems to me." talabor said no more, but in his own mind he was fully persuaded that the suspicious-looking folk were the mongols, and that they were concocting some plan for getting into the castle without attacking it. "your orders shall be obeyed, my young mistress," answered the governor. "talabor," dora went on, as if to make up for her previous coldness, "i trust to you to do everything necessary for our defence." a few moments later talabor was in the spacious courtyard, collecting the men who formed the watch or guard, while the old governor hurried with some difficulty up the stairs which led to the porter's room, over the gate. all preparations were complete within a quarter of an hour. dora wrapped herself in a cloak and stationed herself in a wide balcony facing the woods. she had been very desirous of following her father and sharing all his perils and dangers; but it must be confessed that at this moment she was filled with fear; so, too, she probably would have been if at her father's side in battle, but she would have suppressed her fear then as she was doing now, and would have shown herself as brave and resolute as any. the doubtful-looking figures had vanished now from the wood, and, aided by the moon which just then shone out through the clouds, talabor's sharp eyes detected three horsemen coming towards the gate. they were riding confidently, though the path was steep and narrow, with a wall of rock on one side and a sheer precipice on the other. they seemed to know the way. "talabor!" cried dora, as she caught sight of him standing on the wall just opposite her, between the low but massive battlements. "directly!" answered talabor, and with a whisper to jakó the dog-keeper, who was beside him, he hurried down and came and stood below the balcony, while dora bent over it, saying in a pleased tone, "do you see, there are guests arriving? i think they must be friends, or at least acquaintances, by the way they ride." "yes, i do, mistress!" answered talabor. "they have the appearance of visitors certainly, but they have come from those other questionable-looking folk, so we will be careful. trust me, i have my wits about me." "there are three," said dora, after a short pause, and as if the answer did not quite satisfy her. "how can we tell whether they have any evil intentions or not?" "we shall see; but i must go back to my place." "go to the gate tower." "i am going!" said talabor, and without waiting for further orders, he ran back, first to his former post on the wall, where he spoke to the wild-looking dog-keeper and the two armed men who had joined him, and then to the tower flanking the gate, from a slit-like opening in which he could see the moat, and the space opposite formed by a clearing in the wood. the gate-keeper had not noticed the approach of the "guests," as dora called them, for the window was too narrow to give any view of the breakneck path, along which the riders were advancing, now hidden in the hollows, now reappearing among the juniper bushes and wild roses. they were within a short distance of the moat now, and were making straight for the gate. "quick!" said talabor to the porter, "go and fetch the governor! i'll take your place meantime; and tell him to be on his guard, but not to raise any alarm. it would be as well if he could get our young mistress to leave that open balcony, for some impudent arrow, if not a spear, might find its way there." the gate-keeper stared for a moment, and then went off without a word. the governor, finding day after day pass in peace, had cast care to the winds for his own part, and had fallen into the way of constantly testing the contents of master peter's well-filled cellar, in the privacy of his own room. he was rather a dainty than greedy drinker, and the wine, being pure, never affected his head, though it did not make him more inclined to exert himself. just now, however, he was carrying out dora's orders, as he sat on a projection of the wall with his feet dangling down into the court. he would have had his pipe in his mouth, not a doubt of it, if tobacco had been known in those days. while the gate-keeper was gone the three horsemen arrived. "hi! porter!" cried the foremost, whose figure, though not his features, was plainly discernible. he was mounted on a dark, undersized horse, and was enveloped in a sort of cloak of primitive shape, much like the coarse garment worn by swine-herds. his head was covered by a small round helmet, like a half melon. "here i am, what do you want?" answered talabor. "i come by order of master peter szirmay," answered the man. "the tartars have broken into the country, and his honour has sent a garrison, as he does not consider the present one sufficient." "you are libor the clerk!" said talabor, at once recognising the forward governor by his peculiar voice, which reminded him irresistibly of a cock's crow. "and who may you be?" "talabor, if his honour the governor still remembers my poor name." "ah! all right, clerk! just let them be quick with the drawbridge, for it is going to rain, and i have no fancy for getting wet." "no fear, mr. libor. it is not blowing up for rain yet! but in these perilous times, caution is the order of the day, and so, mr. libor, your honour will perhaps explain how it happens that mr. paul héderváry's gallant governor has been sent to our assistance by our master. that we are in much need of help i don't deny." "why such a heap of questions? mr. héderváry and some twenty or more szirmays are in the king's camp, and master peter has sent me with mr. héderváry's consent, as being a man to be trusted." "a man to be trusted? and since when have you been a man to be trusted, governor? since when have people come to trust a scamp? you take care that i don't tell master peter something about you!" "mr. talabor!" cried libor haughtily, "have the drawbridge lowered at once! i have orders to garrison the castle. and pray where is the governor? and since when have such pettifoggers as you been allowed to meddle in master peter's affairs?" "here is the governor," said old moses at this moment. curiosity, and just a little spice of uneasiness had brought him quickly to the tower, and he had heard libor's last angry words. talabor at once gave up his place to him, but neither he nor the porter left the room. "oh, mr. governor," said libor in a tone of flattery, "i am glad indeed to be able to speak to the real governor at last, instead of to that wind-bag of a fellow. i know mr. moses _deák_, and how long he has been in master peter's confidence as his right hand." then, slightly raising his voice, he went on: "the promised garrison has arrived. it is here close at hand by master peter's orders, and is only waiting for the drawbridge to place itself under mr. moses' command." before making any answer to this, the governor turned to talabor with a look of inquiry, which seemed to say, "it is all quite correct. master peter himself has sent governor libor here, and there is no reason why we should not admit the reinforcements." "mr. governor," whispered talabor, with his hand on his sword, "say you will let mr. libor himself in and that you will settle matters with him over a cup of wine." "good," said the governor, who liked this suggestion very well. then he shouted down through the opening, "mr. libor, before i admit the garrison, i should be pleased to see you in the castle by yourself! i am sure you must be tired after your long journey, and it will do you good to wet your whistle with a cup or two of wine; and then, as soon as we have had a look at things all round, i will receive your good fellows with open arms." "who is in command of this guard?" inquired talabor, coming to the window again. "myself! until i hand my men over to the governor. but i don't answer you again, clerk talabor! what need is there of anyone else while good mr. moses is alive? but i can't come and feast inside while my men are left hungry and thirsty without. i will summon them at once! and even then they can come only single file up this abominable road where one risks one's life at every step." "indeed so, mr. libor? well, if you have all your wits about you, we have not quite taken leave of ours. you would like to come in with your troop, but we should like first to have the pleasure of being made personally acquainted with your two wooden figures there! i understand you, sir! but you should have come when times were better. these are evil days! who knows whether master peter is even alive, and whether mr. héderváry's governor has not come to take possession and turn this time of confusion to his own advantage?" so spoke talabor, and governor moses was a little shaken out of his confidence. indeed, the whole affair seemed strange. surely, thought he, if master peter had wished to strengthen the garrison he would have found someone to send besides the clerk, libor; for he, of course, knew nothing of the latter's recent military advancement; and then again, talabor was so prudent that during the past weeks the governor had come to look on him as a sort of oracle. "then you won't admit the guard?" said libor wrathfully. "we have not said that," answered moses; "but if you have come on an honest errand, come in first by yourself; show me a line of writing, or some other token, and we shall know at once what we are about." "writing? token? isn't the living word more than any writing? and isn't it token enough that i, the hédervárys' governor, am here myself?" "the garrison are not coming into the castle!" cried talabor. "there are enough of us here, and we don't want any more mouths to feed! but if you yourself wish to come in, you may, and then we shall soon see how things are." "mr. governor!" shouted libor in a fury, "i hold you responsible for anything that may happen! who knows whether some stray band of tartars may not find their way up here to-day or to-morrow, and who is going to stand against them?" "we! i!" said talabor. "make your choice, if you please! come in alone, or--nobody will be let in, and we will take the responsibility." so saying talabor went forward, and looking down through the loophole, exclaimed, "why, mr. libor, who are those behind you?" "tótok (slovacks), they don't understand hungarian," answered libor; and in a louder voice he added, "let the drawbridge down at once, i will come in alone." "talabor!" said dora, coming hastily into the room, "i see a whole number of men coming up the road. what does it mean?" "it means treachery, mistress! mr. héderváry's governor, libor, _deák_, is here asking for admittance, and i suspect mischief. i believe the rascal means to take the castle," said talabor. "no one must be admitted," answered dora. as dora spoke, governor moses turned round. the old man was not yet clear in his own mind what they ought to do. if the reinforcements had really come from master peter, why then there was no reason why they should not be admitted; and, left to himself, he would certainly have let both libor and all his followers in without delay. but talabor had "driven a nail into his head" which caused him to hesitate, and dora's commands were peremptory. "excuse me, mr. governor," said dora, "and allow me to come to the window." "mr. libor," she went on, in a voice which trembled a little, "please to withdraw yourself and your men, and go back wherever you have come from. if we are attacked we will defend ourselves, and you must all be wanted elsewhere, if it is true, as i hear, that the tartars have invaded the country." "dearest young lady! your father will be greatly vexed by this obstinacy." "that's enough, libor!" said talabor, with a sign to dora, who drew back. "we shall let no one into the castle, not even master peter's own brother, unless he can show us master peter's ring, for those were his private instructions to me." "why didn't you say so before?" muttered moses to himself; and then, as if annoyed that his master should have thought it necessary to give private instructions to any but himself, in the event of such an unforeseen emergency as the present, he called down to libor, "it is quite true! i asked you for a token myself just now, for i have had my instructions too." "i'll show it as soon as we are in the castle," returned libor. "treachery!" said talabor, addressing dora. "the castle is strong, and it will be difficult to attack it. we will answer for that! don't have any anxiety about anything, dear young lady; but hasten back to your own rooms and don't risk your precious life, for i expect the dance will begin directly." talabor's manly self-possession had reassured her, and she looked at him with animation equal to his own; then, not wishing to wound the feelings of the governor, she shook him by the hand for the first time in her life, saying, "moses, _deák_! if they should really attack us, i trust entirely to you and mr. talabor. and, now, everyone to his post! i am not a szirmay for nothing! and i know how to behave, if the home of my ancestors is attacked!" and having hurriedly uttered these words, dora withdrew. "very well then, as you please!" shouted libor furiously. "hungarian dogs! you shall get what you have earned!" with that he turned his horse's head, and not long after the whole body of mounted men had reached the open space fronting the gate. "hungarian dogs!" thundered the governor, "then the rascally whelp can actually slander his own race!" a few moments more, and not only the horsemen who wore the hungarian costume, but also a hundred or so of filthy, monkey-faced mongols on foot, were all assembled before the castle, these latter having climbed the rocks as if they had been so many wild cats. it was easy to see at once that they were not hungarians. "yes! hungarian dogs, that's what you are!" shouted libor, "and i am a knéz of his highness, the grand khan oktai, and i shall spit every man of you!" so saying, he hurried away, and was lost in the throng. chapter xii. defending the castle. a few moments later the small garrison of brave men were all on the walls, and so placed behind the breastwork as to be almost invisible from below. all stood motionless; not an arrow was discharged, not a stone hurled. the castle was to all appearance dead. all at once there was a terrific roar from the enemy, which awoke countless echoes among the rocks. but it was no battle-cry of the tartars or mongols, for they rush to the fray in silence, without uttering a sound. this was like the wild yell of all sorts of people, a mixture of howls and cries, almost more like those of wild animals than of human beings. dora, who at that moment had stepped out into the balcony, shuddered at the sound. the howls and screams of fury were positive torture to her ears, and thrilled her through and through. "o god!" she said within herself, "i am afraid! and i must not be afraid!" and as she spoke, her maids all came rushing into the balcony, wringing their hands above their heads, uttering loud lamentations, which were half strangled by sobs. "the tartars! the tartars!" they cried, hardly able to get the words out. "it's all over with us! what shall we do! what shall we do!" "go about your own business, every one of you!" said dora sternly, "fighting is the men's work, yours is to be at the washing-tub, and the fireside. don't let me hear another sound, and don't come here again till i call you!" her speech had the desired effect; the women were all silent, as if they had been taken by the throat and had had their wails suddenly choked; and away they went in haste, either to do as they were told, or to hide themselves in the lowest depths of the cellar. at all events they vanished. they had no sooner all tumbled out of the balcony than talabor stepped in, and just as he did so, an arrow, the first from outside, flew in and struck his cap. "come in! come inside! for heaven's sake!" cried talabor, seizing dora by the hand. "mr. talabor! what do you mean?" she began indignantly, both startled and angered by his audacity. then, catching sight of the arrow in his cap, she went on in a frightened voice, "are you wounded, talabor?" the young man did not let go his hold until he had drawn dora into the adjoining hall, where she was quite reassured as to the arrow, which he then drew from his cap, without a word, and fitted to the long bow he had in his hand. then he stepped back into the balcony, and sent the arrow flying with the remark, "there's one who won't swallow any more magyar bread at all events!" the next instant a cloud of arrows poured into the balcony, but already talabor was down in the court and rushing to the walls, whence master peter's famous dog-keeper and some of the garrison had already discharged their arrows with deadly effect. dora had quite recovered herself. as for libor, he had vanished as completely as if he had never been there. "if i could only clap eyes on that scoundrel!" cried talabor furiously. "ah! there! that's he! with his head buried in a cowl! cowardly dog!" he fitted an arrow and drew his bow, but hit only a tartar. "missed!" he muttered, with vexation, "and it's the last! here, jakó," he said, turning to the dog-keeper, "just go and fetch me the great székely bow from the dining hall! you know, the one which takes three of us to string it." while jakó was gone, talabor observed that one body of tartars was stealing along under the trees close beside the moat, towards the south side of the castle, and that libor had dismounted, and was creeping along with them. "what can those rascals mean to do?" whispered the governor. "i know!" said talabor, "the traitor! i know well enough what he's after! but he's out! the wretch! he thinks he shall find the wall on that side in the same tumble-down state in which it was the last time he was here!" "true!" returned the governor, "they are making straight for it." "you there at the bastion, quick! follow me," he went on, hurrying along the parapet to where the mongols seemed to intend a mighty assault. the dog-keeper, who had come back with the bow, climbed the wall by the narrow steps, and he, too, followed talabor. libor was creeping along on foot among his men, wearing a coat of mail, and so managing as to be out of range of the arrows of the defenders. libor thoroughly understood how to avail himself of shelter, and here, close to the wood, had no difficulty in finding it. to his great chagrin, however, he found that he had miscalculated. the wall had been so well repaired that if anything it was even stronger here than elsewhere. talabor and his party had no sooner made their appearance than they were observed, in spite of the gathering twilight, and were the targets for a cloud of arrows. they withdrew behind the breastwork, and after some difficulty succeeded in stringing the great székely bow. whereupon, talabor chose the longest arrow from jakó's quiver, fitted it to the string, straightened himself, and, as he did so, he caught sight of libor. libor also recognised his worst enemy at the self-same moment, and turning suddenly away made for the wood. but talabor's arrow flew faster than he, and with so sure an aim that it hit him in the back, below his iron corselet, and there stuck. "ha! ha! ha!" roared jakó, himself a passionate bowman, and one of the few who could manage the székely bow, "ha! ha! ha! that's right! if not in front, then behind! all's one to us!" but talabor was not satisfied with his shot, for libor kept his feet, at least as long as he was within sight. the mongols were meantime showing how determined they could be when the hope of valuable booty was dangled before their eyes. their numbers had been mysteriously increased tenfold, and from all sides they were bringing stones, branches from the trees, whole trees, in a word, all and everything upon which they could lay hands. the attack on the south side of the castle was abandoned, though not before some score or so of the enemy had been laid low by the arrows of talabor and his men, and the mongols all now turned their attention to the moat, and to that part of it immediately fronting the drawbridge. arrows poured down upon them incessantly, and there was seldom one which missed its mark. but in spite of this, the work proceeded at such a rate as threatened to be successful in no long time, for as one fell another took his place, and the wood seemed to be swarming. talabor had had no experience of the mongols, and was not aware that their chief strength lay in their enormous numbers. he did not so much as dream how many of them there might be. however, master peter had made no bad choice in the garrison he had left behind him, and they did not for a moment lose courage. they shot down arrow after arrow, not one of which was left without its response by the bowmen stationed behind those at work on the moat; but while many of the besiegers were stretched upon the ground, not more than three or four of the besieged were wounded, and of them not one so seriously as to be incapable of further fighting. dora had been coming out into the courtyard from time to time, ever since the siege had begun in earnest. talabor and the governor were too busy probably to notice her, and though not altogether safe, she found herself comparatively out of danger, so long as she kept under the wall, as the arrows described a curve in falling. she could handle a bow at least as well as many of the women of her time; but though she had a strong sense of her responsibilities as the "mistress of the castle" in her father's absence, she was content to leave the fighting to the men, and to do no more than speak an encouraging word to them from time to time and keep everything in readiness for attending to their wounds. as she stood there, in the shelter of the wall, she suddenly heard the governor's voice uttering maledictions and imprecations, and the next moment he came blundering down the stone steps from the parapet. "oh! moses, _deák_! what is the matter?" cried dora, rushing towards him. the governor could be a very careful man when occasion required, and if he descended now with something of a roll, he trod gingerly all the same; and he had besides the advantage of such well-covered bones, that they were in little danger. "the matter?" he cried, as he reached the grass in safety, "the matter, young mistress, is that they have shot me--through the arm, hang them! just as my spear had caught one of them behind the ear too!" "here," cried dora to the man nearest her, "vid, fetch me some water and rag, quick! we must stop the bleeding. borka has them all ready!" vid, who was on the wall, had seen the governor totter and almost lose his balance as he stumbled down the steps, and was hurrying after him when dora called. but mr. moses no sooner found himself safely at the bottom, and sound in all his limbs except just where he was hit, than he at once regained his wonted composure. "off with you, vid," said he, "but fetch a good handful of cobwebs; that will stop the bleeding in a trice." meantime dora herself ran into the house and soon came back with borka her maid, bringing water, heaps of old rag, and all that could possibly be wanted. the girl's knees were shaking under her with terror as she slipped along, close after her mistress. dora herself bound up the injured arm, moses offering no opposition, as they were in a fairly safe place, and when the operation was over, he even kissed the hands of this "fairest of surgeons," as he called her. then he rose to his feet, gave himself a shake and roared, "hand me my spears! i shall hardly be able to draw another bow to-day!" no sooner was the governor standing up once more than borka made a hasty dash for the house. "keep along by the wall, borka!" dora called after her. but the girl was so consumed with fear that she neither heard nor saw. just as she was hurrying up the steps of the principal entrance, instead of going round to the back, where the danger was nil, she fell down, head foremost, and as she did so, a long tartar arrow caught her in the back. dora flew after her, and just as she had reached the steps talabor was beside her, with his shield held over her head. two or three arrows rattled down upon it, even in the few moments that they stood there. "get up at once!" said talabor, sternly. but the girl did not move, and moses began to tremble. borka was dead! killed, not by the arrow, as they found later on, but by her own terror. "oh, poor girl!" cried dora, her eyes filling with tears. "she has got her deserts!" said talabor, in a hard tone. "there is one traitor less in the castle! and i believe she was the only one." and without giving time for question or answer, he hurried dora indoors, and rushed back to his post on the wall, followed at a more leisurely pace by moses with his four spears. while all this was going on, the mongols had succeeded more or less in filling up the moat, and though up to their knees in water, and impeded by the logs, branches, stones, and other material with which they had filled it, some had already crossed, and were beginning to climb the wall, by means of long poles, when talabor gave the signal, and a volley of huge stones and pieces of rock came suddenly crashing down upon them. these were swiftly followed by a flight of arrows, and the two together worked such terrible havoc among the assailants that the survivors beat a hasty retreat. they seemed to be entirely disheartened by this last repulse, and convinced that nothing would be gained by continuing their present tactics; for, to the great surprise of moses and talabor, they did not return. when next the moon shone out it was seen that a large number of men were lying dead both in and about the moat. all, whether whole or wounded, who could do so, had drawn off into the depths of the wood, the more severely wounded borne on the shoulders of the rest. libor was not again seen by anyone. the usual guard was doubled, and talabor was going to pass the night on the battlements, with the great dog-wood bow beside him and his quiver full of fresh arrows. the wounded, only four of whom were seriously injured, had been bandaged, and it now appeared that, of the entire garrison there were but two or three who had not at least a scratch to show. talabor had been hit he did not know how many times, but he had escaped without any serious wound, though he had lost a good deal of blood. before going to his post on the wall, he paid a visit to the porter's room to have his hurts seen to, and when at last the porter's wife let him go, he was so bound up and bandaged as to be not unlike an egyptian mummy. by the time moses came in to see dora, she was utterly worn out. "where is talabor?" she asked. "on the castle wall," said the governor. "not wounded, is he?" "i don't think so," was the answer. "at least, he said nothing about it." "we must all watch to-night, mr. moses; i am afraid they may come back and bring more with them." "my dear young lady," said moses, "whether they do or not, this castle is no place for you now. it is only the mercy of god which has preserved you this time." "but i must not stir from here until i hear from my father! besides, where can i go? if the tartars have discovered such an out-of-the-way place as this, the country must be swarming with them!" "it was easy enough for them to find their way here," growled moses, with sundry not too respectful expletives. "it was that good-for-nothing clerk, libor, who brought them down on us." "that's true indeed; but now that they have found us out, others may come. so, mr. moses, we must have our eyes open, and as soon as we can, we must have the moat cleared, and make the castle more secure if possible." moses said "good-night," though he well knew that dora would not go to rest, and then he, too, went to the porter's room. it was a most unusual thing for the mongols to abandon any attack, but just as talabor had begun to pelt the assailants with the heavy missiles already mentioned, one of the chiefs sent with libor (possibly to act as spy upon him), hastily quitted the post of danger and hurried after the governor-clerk, whom he found in the wood, trying as best he might to bind up the wound from which he had now drawn the arrow. the wound, though deep enough, was not serious. "why, knéz! sitting here under the trees, are you?" cried the mongol roughly, in his own uncouth tongue. "sitting here, when those magyar dogs have done for more than a hundred of our men!" "directly, bajdár!" said libor sharply, "you see i have been shot in the head and can't move!" "directly? and can't move? shot in the head? perhaps you don't keep your head where we mongols keep ours! but what will the khan say, if we take back only five or six out of 300 men?" "five or six?" repeated libor in alarm; "are so many lost?" "well, and if it's not so many! and if you, who ought to be first in the fight have managed to save your own skin! quite enough have fallen for all that, and we shall all perish if this mad business goes on any longer. take care, knéz! look after yourself! for batu khan is not used to being played with by new men such as you!" libor staggered to his feet, and though badly frightened by his ill-success, as well as by what bajdár had said, his natural cunning did not altogether desert him. "be off, bajdár! and don't blame me! of course, i meant it for the best! the castle is crammed with gold and silver, and there are some good horses, as well as a pretty girl or two. who could have supposed the rascals would defend themselves in such a fashion! be off, i tell you, bajdár, and stop this senseless fighting, and we'll draw off into the woods." "what! with empty hands?" "who is to help it? but we won't go quite empty-handed either." the mongol glanced up from under his cap as libor said this, and his small eyes glittered like fire-flies in the darkness. "master peter has a large sheep-fold in a valley not far from here, and the few men who guard it are nothing to reckon with; if we drive off the sheep, there will be a good feast for a thousand or two of hungry fellows in the camp." "what's that?" said the tartar hotly. "why, we shall eat those up ourselves! all the cattle have been driven off out of our way, and we are as hungry as wolves!" "only go, bajdár, and call the men off, and then i'll tell you something which will make up for our ill-luck here." bajdár shook his head. he was in no good humour, but he had gained his object, and he went off, cursing and threatening, to stop the assault. as for the amends which libor promised, we can say only so much as this, that they were ample. he believed the country to be wholly at the mongols' mercy, he was well acquainted with the neighbourhood, and he led his men, who had now dwindled to thirty or so, to the most defenceless places, where they found cattle enough to satisfy them. so great was the prevailing terror, that many had fled from their homes leaving everything behind them, or had been so harassed by perpetual alarms that they had at last concealed their property in such senseless ways that it was found without difficulty. however it may have been in this case, it was a fact that when knéz libor returned from his campaign, he received high praise from batu khan, who cared nothing at all that the force had melted away till little more than a fourth part was left to return to the sajó. batu had further uses for libor. when the mongols had at last made off, and moses and talabor found that the shepherds had been killed, and the sheep, either eaten on the spot, carried off, or scattered in the woods, they first cautiously searched the neighbourhood, and then proceeded with no little labour, to bury the dead. this done, talabor made it his business to ride out every day, and was sometimes absent for hours, scouring the country while those at home were busy with the governor, strengthening the defences of the castle. one morning, some days after the attack, talabor asked to speak to dora. it had been a trying time for all in the castle, but dora had gone back to her usual habits, and was looking after her household affairs as strictly and regularly as if nothing had happened. in one thing she was somewhat changed: her confidence in and dependence upon talabor had much increased. "well, talabor, is there any good news?" she asked gently. "may i speak plainly, dear young mistress?" he asked, by way of answer. "i never wish you to speak otherwise, clerk talabor." "then i will tell you at once, that you must not stay here any longer, mistress. the place is too unsafe now that the mongols know it." "must not? and where could i go?" "we have to do with dangerous enemies, and they are enraged, and will be certain to revenge themselves as soon as they can," he urged. dora sighed. "i know, talabor, but i am not going to move till i hear from my father." "dear lady," said talabor again, after a pause. "dear mistress--perhaps you may have noticed that i have been out riding every day. i have scoured the whole neighbourhood for miles round, and i have learnt a good deal more than the mere rumours which are all that reach us here." "and you have dared to keep it to yourself?" "yes, dear mistress, i have dared! i did not wish to trouble you for nothing, and one hears many things. if i have done wrong, god knows, i could not do anything else until i was sure." "talabor!" said dora, quite disarmed, "and why do you speak now?" "because the time has come when i must either tell you the worst, or let you risk your precious life." dora shuddered but did not speak, and talabor went on to tell her, what we already know, of the invasion, and of the successes already gained by batu khan. there were naturally many gaps in his narrative, and much that was already sorrowful fact, he knew only as rumour and surmise. but still, with all deficiencies it was abundantly evident that her present home was no longer safe, and that the very next week, day, even hour, she might be exposed to fresh and graver peril. and still, what was she to do? "is that all?" she asked presently, "you have not heard anything of my father?" "i have heard that he is alive at least," responded talabor cheerfully, "though twice i heard the contrary----" "and you kept it from me?" "why should i tell you what i did not believe myself, and what those who told me were not at all sure of? it was only a report, and now i know for certain that master peter is alive." "certain? how?" "truly," and he told how the news had reached him, adding, "so now we know where to find him, when we have the opportunity." "ah! that settles it then, talabor. the proper place for a good daughter is with her father. i'll go to him!" but while dora was thus making up her mind to ride to the camp, events had taken place which, when they came to her ears, made her hesitate again as to what she ought to do. meantime, until they could decide, talabor went on strengthening the walls in every way he could think of, and rendering the steep approach more difficult. chapter xiii. camp fires. dschingiz khan had died in 1227, and by the year 1234 his son and successor, oktai, had completed the subjugation of northern china. two years later he sent his nephew batu westwards at the head of 500,000 men, and in less than six years the latter had overrun nearly one quarter of the circumference of the earth. the boundless steppes of asia, and the lands lying between the river ural and the dnieper, with all their various peoples, were speedily brought under his sway. in the autumn of 1237 the mongolian catapults had reduced riazan to a heap of ruins; moscow perished in the flames; and with the capture of kieff, then the handsomest and best fortified city of northern europe, all russia sank under the yoke of the mongols, who ruled her for centuries. kieff had fallen towards the end of 1240, and batu had then divided his forces, sending 50,000 men to poland, where they burnt cracow and breslau, and then proceeded to silesia, where, on april 9th, they defeated an army of germans, poles, and bohemians near liegnitz; they then devastated moravia, and entering hungary on the north-west, presently rejoined batu, who himself had made a straight line from kieff for hungary, entering it, as already said, by the pass of verecz, on the north-east. the third division of mongols had gone south, skirting the eastern carpathians and entering transylvania at two different points. one portion of this division had rejoined batu at the river sajó, in time for the pitched battle now imminent. when first the hungarian camp was pitched batu had surveyed it from an eminence with a grim smile of satisfaction. "there are a good many of them!" he exclaimed, "but they can't get away! they have penned themselves up as if they were so many sheep in a fold!" with the return of duke kálmán after his victory at the bridge, all danger was believed to be over for the night, and save for a few merry-makers, the exultant army slept profoundly. there were few watchers but the king, the duke, the archbishop, and the few others gathered in the royal tent. on the other side of the sajó a different and wilder scene was being enacted. the night was dark, but the mongol camp was brilliantly illuminated by the blaze of a bonfire so huge, that its light shone far and wide. it was never the khan's way to extinguish his camp fires; quite the contrary. he wished his enemy to see them, and to suppose that his army was stationary. thanks to his innumerable spies, he was well aware of all that had taken place early in the night, and had not been in the least surprised by the recent sortie. it was, in fact, just what he had wished to provoke, by way of diverting the attention of the hungarians from that which was taking place farther up the river. if a few hundred scape-goats had perished, what matter? there were plenty more to take their place. and they were not even mongols, but slaves, russians, kuns, etc., who had been forced into his service. while these wretches, with the trembling libor perforce among them, were bearing the brunt of the hungarian onset, and being thoroughly beaten, batu had sent a large force across the sajó farther up and this, under cover of the darkness, was now stealthily drawing nearer and nearer to the hungarian camp. it moved forward in absolute silence, and without attracting any notice. batu and several of his chief leaders were just now standing on a low hill, all mounted, armed, and ready for battle. below was the mongol host, mounted also and armed with bows, spears, and short, curved swords. a wild, terrible-looking host they were, short of stature, broad in the chest, flat in the face; with small, far-apart eyes, and flat noses. they were clad in ox-hide so thick as to be proof against most weapons, and consisting of small pieces, like scales, sewn together. so they are described by thomas, archdeacon of spalatro, who had but too good opportunity of seeing what they were like. he adds that their helmets were either of leather or iron, and that their black and white flags were surmounted by a bunch of wool; that their horses, ridden bare-backed and unshod, were small but sturdy, well inured to fatigue and fasting, and as nimble and sure-footed in climbing rocks as the chamois. scanty food and short rest sufficed these hardy animals even after three days of fatigue. their masters were not accustomed to much in the way of creature-comforts for themselves. they carried nothing in the way of stores or supplies, which gave them great advantage in the matter of speed; they ate no bread, and lived on flesh, blood, and mare's milk. wherever they went, they dragged along with them a large number of armed captives, especially kuns, whom they forced into battle, and killed whenever they did not fight as desperately as they desired. they did not themselves care to rush into danger, but were quite content to let their captives do the worst of the fighting while they reaped the victory. in spite of their enormous numbers they made no noise whether they were in camp, on the march, or on the field of battle. thus far archdeacon thomas. when to this description we add the fact that they had had continuous practice in warfare for years past, that a career of well-nigh unbroken victory had given them perfect self-confidence, while it spread such terror among those whom they attacked as paralysed the courage even of the stoutest hearts, it is not difficult to understand how it was that everything fell before them, and they were able to found an empire vaster than any which had before, or has since, existed. but to return to the khan and his train of chiefs, among whom was to be seen libor the knéz--not the libor of old days, but a much less comfortable-looking individual. mongol fare did not seem to have agreed with him too well, for he looked worn and wasted, and his every movement betrayed his nervousness. yet he was at the khan's side, perfectly safe, and surely a hundred-fold more fortunate than the miserable captives whom the mongols held so cheap that they cared not a jot whether they lived or died. libor was a mongol now; he wore a round helmet of leather, carried a scimitar, rode one of the tough little mongol horses, and was in high favour with his terrible master. batu was an undersized man, and the reverse of stout. his eyes, set far apart and slant-wise, were small, but they burnt like live coals, and were as restless as those of a lynx. his low forehead, flat nose, fearfully large mouth, and projecting ears, made him altogether strikingly like the figures, in gold on a black ground, to be seen on antique chinese furniture. he was marked out from those about him, however, by his dignified bearing, and by the pure white of his leathern garments. it is true that his dignity was of the lion-like order, animal, that is to say, rather than human; but it was very pronounced. and there was a sort of rude splendour and glitter in his costume, too; for the white leather, the fur of which was turned inwards, was covered all over with strange designs, looking like so many dragons or other imaginary monsters. he was mounted on a slim, dapple-brown horse, of purest breed, and all his arms, even his bow, were profusely decorated with precious stones. of all the ape-faced circle, there is no denying that he was the best looking ape of them all, even if we include libor, who was dainty enough in appearance, though fear just now was making him not indeed like an ape, but like a large hare, with quivering nostrils! the camp was far from deserted, in spite of the large force detached, for there could not have been altogether fewer than 300,000 mongols on the sajó, and in addition, there were nearly half as many more of the miserable beings who had been first conquered and then forced to join the great host. round about the hill where stood the khan were multitudes of felt or leather tents, and thousands of temporary mud-huts, for the trees afforded but little shelter as yet, it being now about the middle of april. tents and huts were full of armed men, also of women, who wore the scantiest of clothing, and of children, who wore no clothing at all. besides these, there were many women captives, who lay about in groups under the trees, with ears and noses cut off, the picture of exhaustion and misery, and so brutalised by slavery and suffering that they looked more like a herd of mutilated animals than human beings. any good-looking women captured by the mongols were given up to their own women, who fell upon them like furies, tortured without mercy, and then murdered all but those wanted as slaves. the camp extended far into the depths of the wood, where the chiefs kept order such as it was, with their whips. as batu reached the top of the hill, his harsh voice was to be heard giving some peremptory order, at which those about him bent their heads low in respectful submission, and a dozen women, his wives, appeared upon the scene, muffled up in white woollen garments, and mounted upon beautiful horses, which were smothered in fringes, straps, etc., of leather. they were followed by an armed guard, and preceded, oriental fashion, by a band of singers chanting a melancholy dirge. they had come to take their leave of the khan, who was sending them to his home, and on reaching the foot of the hill they were helped to dismount. whereupon they threw back their snow-white veils, which were of wool like their other wraps, and batu khan looked at them in dead silence. there was no trace either of pain, or pleasure, or of any other emotion, unless it were vanity and ambition, upon his wild features. the women burst into a furious fit of weeping; but it was evidently the result of great effort, not of any irrepressible distress. men are much like overgrown children, and have always liked to deceive themselves and be deceived; and this weeping and lamentation were the proper thing, the conventional way of saying "farewell!" and yet, if they but looked on themselves, the sight was surely enough to move anyone to tears; for these women were all strikingly beautiful, and their beauty was enhanced by an expression--and this not forced--of profound sorrow and dejection. who they were, and whence they came--whether they were russian girls from the volga and don, caucasians from the caspian, fair slavonians, or white-faced wallachians, who could say? but all were beautiful, all had an air of distinction about them, and all looked overwhelmed with woe unutterable. they gathered round the khan, and his horse pricked its ears and whinnied as if it would take part in the proceedings; for, though batu's horses were all his friends and tent-mates, far more beloved than his people, this one was an especial favourite, its sire, so the story went, having lived to the age of a hundred. when he had had enough of the ceremonial weeping, batu raised his hand, as who should say, "that will do! you have done your duty, now you can go!" and instantly the sobs were checked, and smiles were forced to take their place, while the poor goods and chattels raised their hands towards their master, but whether as a mere token of farewell, whether in blessing, or perchance in secret cursing, who could tell! another signal and away they hurried down the hill; and a few moments after the white figures had disappeared out of the glare and were lost to sight in the recesses of the wood. the women gone, batu put spurs to his horse and raced down the slope, his chiefs following as best they might. with the light flashing blood-red about him, with his spear quivering uplifted above his head, himself and his horse absolutely one, he dashed on with the rush of a whirlwind, and wherever he went he seemed to say, "look and admire!" and indeed, the khan looked his best, when he was thus exhibiting his horsemanship, and in spite of his ape-like features, might almost have passed for some gallant, if wild cavalier. he and his train galloped away into the darkness, followed by a select body of mounted men; and as soon as they were out of sight, the remaining squadrons were drawn up in regular order. tents were taken down, and they and their belongings were packed on horses or in waggons, and in a short time, though the bonfire still blazed, it cast its light upon a deserted camp. followed by a herd of women, the entire force moved in dead silence towards the sajó, where batu had his first line of battle. day was beginning to break when the hungarian camp was roused by startling cries, and those who rushed from the king's tent to learn the meaning of them were met by terror-stricken shouts of "the tartars! the tartars are upon us!" "they are yonder, close at hand!" "the guard at the bridge has been overpowered, massacred, put to flight," etc. looking out between the wooden walls, master peter descried at the distance of about a quarter of an hour's march, a dark mass of something which appeared to be in the form of a crescent, but of a size too vast to be measured by the eye. it was like a wall of stone, as solid, as silent, and as motionless; and for a moment he was in doubt as to what it might be, until the neighing of a horse, and the briefer, rarer sound of a signal-horn brought the truth home to him. the mongols had come up in the night; the camp was surrounded on three sides; and nothing but the most desperate determination could save them! so much was evident even to his inexperienced eyes, and the silence of these savage folk, who could howl like the very wolves at other times, had something so weird and terrible about it that master peter was not the only brave man to feel his heart quake and his blood run cold. the victory of the duke and ugrin but a few hours before had been delusive indeed, for they had hardly returned in triumph to the camp when batu sent down to the bridge seven of the gigantic engines of war which played so large a part in the mongol invasion. suddenly, without the least warning, the detachment left on guard found itself assailed by a fierce and heavy storm of stones and pieces of rock; and what added to their terror was the fact that they could not see their enemy, and that there were no stones or rocks anywhere near the river. seized by superstitious panic, those who escaped being crushed or wounded fled back to the camp, where instantly all was uproar and confusion. master peter rushed back to the king as fast as he could for the turmoil, the narrow ways, and the tent-ropes; and indignation filled his soul at some of the sights he saw: luxurious young nobles, for instance, making their leisurely toilets, combing and arranging their hair, having their armour put on with the greatest care, and finally drawing on new gloves! what he heard during his hurried passage was not much more reassuring. there was plenty of courage and confidence expressed; plenty of contempt for the despicable foe; plenty of assurance that mongol spears and arrows would prove ineffectual against iron armour; but also there was among some contempt, openly expressed, for their own leaders, though they looked upon the victory as already won. "it will be a hard day's work!" muttered peter szirmay to himself, while his thoughts flew to dora in her lonely castle. he had little doubt that the hungarians must conquer in the end, in spite of the huge odds against them, but still--! and even if they did, he himself might fall! what would become of her? "god and the holy virgin protect her!" chapter xiv. a fatal day. peter szirmay and paul héderváry were arming the king with all speed, while his charger, magnificently caparisoned, was brought round, neighing with excitement. béla had never appeared more cool and collected than on that eventful morning. as already remarked, he was without military experience, and though his expectations were not extravagant, and he did not make the mistake of underrating the enemy, he had much confidence in the valour of his army. "we must get the troops outside, without an instant's delay!" shouted bishop ugrin, galloping up his face aglow with pleasurable excitement, for he was never happier than when astride his war-horse and amid the blare of trumpets. "sequere!" (follow) cried the king, who usually spoke latin to the ecclesiastical dignitaries. they rode through the camp, finding the ways everywhere crowded with men, whom some of the officers were trying to reduce to order, while others, still busy attiring themselves, were of opinion that they would be in plenty of time if they made their appearance when the whole army was mounted. the templars were first on horseback. their white mantles, with the large red cross upon them, were blowing about in the keen wind, and displaying the steel breastplates beneath, their martial appearance being enhanced by their heavy helmets, which covered the whole head and face, with the exception of narrow slits through which they breathed and saw. as the king rode up to them, the wind blew out the folds of their white banner, and showed its double-armed cross of blood-red. all this time the mongols had been drawing nearer and nearer, like an advancing wall, so close were their ranks. and now like a storm of hail the arrows began to fall upon the half-asleep, half-tipsy, and wholly bewildered men in camp. most were mounted now, but the confusion was indescribable. there were grooms with led horses looking for their masters, masters looking for chargers and servants, and generals looking for their banderia. there was shouting, running to and fro, and such confusion and hurly-burly that the king had great difficulty in making his orders understood. he galloped from one squadron to another, amid a cloud of falling arrows and spears, doing all that in him lay to organise the troops. men were falling on all sides around him, more than one arrow had struck his own armour; the battle had begun, and blood was flowing in streams before the army had been able so much as to get out of camp. at last a dash was made down the narrow ways between the tents and the hastily uncoupled waggons; and then with the rage, not the courage, of despair, every leader wanted to rush upon the enemy straight away without waiting for orders, or heeding any but his own followers. "stop!" cried béla, hurrying up to them with the palatine, and a few men who were hardly able to force their way after him. "stop! wait for the word of command!" but no one even saw, no one heard him. leaders and men had most of them lost their heads, and the few disorderly squadrons which succeeded in reaching the mongols were immediately surrounded and overwhelmed. the great black crescent was growing more and more dense and solid; there was no way of eluding it, no hope of escape. bishop ugrin was well-nigh beside himself; and he poured forth now blessings, now execrations, as the distracted troops rushed aimlessly hither and thither, between the tents and their ropes, and down the narrow passages. they were completely entangled as in a net; to form them up in order was an impossibility; and a deadly cloud of spears and arrows was continuously poured upon them by the mongols. to add to the general horror and terror, the waggons took fire, and soon the tents nearest them were in flames. the tumult and confusion waxed greater and greater. batu's main object was to capture the king, and already béla had had at least one narrow escape, which he owed to the devotion of one of his guard; but now both he and they were all wounded. fighting had been going on since early morning; it was now noon, when the duke made a last bold effort to retrieve the day. "i'll break through the enemy's lines with the right wing," he shouted in stentorian tones. "will your majesty give the left wing orders to do the same, and then yourself lead the centre!" the heroic duke spoke of left and right wing, and centre; but alas! where was any one of them? without waiting for the king's answer he galloped off again, succeeded in infusing some of his own spirit into his men, and, joined by ugrin and his followers, and the remaining templars, he made a dashing attack upon the mongols, who were drawn up in such close order that individuals had no room to turn. numbers of them fell before the furious onslaught of the hungarians, and great was the devastation wrought in their ranks, when suddenly, like a whirlwind, up came batu khan himself with a fresh cloud of savage warriors, and arrows and spears flew thicker and faster than ever. the archbishop was smitten on the head by a spear, just as he had cut down a mongol, and he fell, as a ship's mast falls struck by lightning. next fell the leader of the templars, fighting helmetless by his side. the riderless horses dashed neighing into the ranks of the enemy, among whom they quickly found new masters. kálmán had seen the bravest fall around him, but he was still pressing forward, still fighting, when he also received a severe wound. just then the sun went down. his sword-arm was useless, and his brave warriors, placing him in their midst, made their way back to the camp. but the camp was deserted now by all but the dead and the dying. the troops whom they had left there had forced their way out at last, but it was to fly, not to fight. the mongols had made no attempt to stop them; on the contrary, they had opened their ranks to let them pass through, and the faster and thicker they came, the more room they gave them. that the fugitives would not escape in the long run well they knew, and their object just now was the king. the flower of the hungarian nobility, several bishops, and high dignitaries, both of church and state, had fallen in the battle, or fell afterwards in the flight. most of them took the way to pest, which was strewn for two days' journey with the dead and dying, with arms and accoutrements. many were slain by the mongols who pursued and attacked them when they were too weak to defend themselves; and many others perished in the attempt to cross rivers and swamps. seeing that all was lost, béla himself thought it time to fly, and while the mongols were plundering the camp, he succeeded in reaching the open, and made for the mountains, recognised by few in the on-coming darkness. immediately surrounding him were paul héderváry, in spite of his five wounds, peter and stephen szirmay, akos, detrö, adam the pole, the two forgács, and several others--a devoted band, while behind came a long train of the bravest warriors, the last to think of flying, who followed in any order or none. few, as we have said, had recognised the king, but there were some who had, and these pressed hard after him. "my horse is done for!" cried the king, as his famous charger began to tremble beneath him. "let us stand and die fighting like men!" "no! for heaven's sake, no!" cried adam the pole, leaping from his horse as he spoke. "mine is sound! take him! i hear the howl of the mongols." one had indeed actually overtaken them, but, though on foot, adam felled him to the ground, leapt upon the mongol's horse, and galloped on after the king. the handful of brave, true men guarded béla as the very apple of their eye. not one thought of himself; their one anxiety was for the king. for an hour they galloped on, always pursued by the mongols. the foam was dropping from the horses; the moon had risen and was shining brightly down upon them, when the irregular force which had followed them was overtaken, and engaged in a fierce battle with the relentless and unwearied enemy. just at that moment down sank the horse which adam had given to the king; but one of the two forgács, andrás (andrew), who was known in the army as ivánka (little john, _i.e._, john baptist) gave up his. the king was so worn out by this time that two of the nobles had to lift him upon the horse; ivánka himself followed on foot. a younger brother of his, whose name has not come down to us, lost his life at the hands of the mongols, who were again approaching perilously near the fugitives. ivánka was threatened by the like danger, when paul héderváry and a few of the others who were on in front chanced to see his peril, and turning back, routed the mongols. ivánka mounted his brother's horse, which had remained standing quietly by its master's body, and rode after the little band. daybreak was once more at hand, and they were far, far away from the field of blood, when again the king's horse failed him, and the mongols were hardly so much as a hundred paces behind. they had recognised the king, and one of batu khan's sub-officers had promised a large reward to anyone who could get béla into his hands, alive or dead. then a young hero, rugács by name, who had already distinguished himself in battle, offered the king his charger, and it was thanks to this good horse of transylvanian breed that the king finally escaped his pursuers. for, tough though they were, even the mongolian horses were beginning to fail, while nothing apparently could tire out the transylvanian. as they helped him to mount, béla noticed that there was blood on the arm of the faithful rugács, and asked kindly whether it gave him much pain. "ay, indeed, sir!" was the answer, "but there is worse pain than this!" "ah! your name shall be fáj from to-day," said the king. "remind us of it if we live to see better times." and accordingly, there is to this day a family which bears the honourable name of fáj or fáy, the meaning of which is: "it pains." at last the fugitives reached the forest, the mongols were left behind, and the king then happily gained a castle in the mountains, where for a while he remained. but when he looked upon his devoted followers, how many were missing! how many had laid down their lives to save his! among the dozen or more who had fallen by the way was jolánta's father, stephen szirmay; his brother peter, though he had not come off scathless, had escaped without any mortal wound. having no army, the king was for the present helpless, and as soon as he could do so, he made his way to pressburg, where he sent for the queen and his children to join him, they having taken refuge in haimburg, on the other side of the austrian frontier. but instead of the queen, appeared duke friedrich, who persuaded the king that it would be much wiser for him too to come to austria, and had no sooner got him in his clutches than he made a prisoner of him, and refused to let him go until he had refunded the large sum of money with which friedrich had purchased peace from him four or five years previously. béla gave up all the valuables which he and the queen had with them, but as the duke was still not satisfied, he had to pawn three hungarian counties in order to regain his liberty. once more free, he sent the queen to dalmatia for safety, and despatched ambassadors to pope and emperor, and the king of france, praying for their help against the terrible foe who threatened all europe with destruction. but the emperor was fighting rome, and the pope was bent upon reducing him to obedience. poland was fighting the mongols on her own account; bohemia was in momentary danger of being herself attacked; and the shameless duke friedrich availed himself of hungary's defenceless condition to invade and plunder the counties nearest him, and even to rob such fugitives as had fled to austria for refuge from the mongols. béla meantime had borrowed a little money where he could, and had gone south to await the answers to his appeal, and to raise what troops he could for a campaign. but he waited in vain. no help came! and without an army or the means of raising one, he was helpless. his brother kálmán had reached pest, and after urging the terrified inhabitants to abandon the city, cross the danube, and hide wherever they could, he continued his journey to slavonia (then dalmatia and croatia), his dukedom, where he soon after died of his wounds. before the people of pest could remove their goods to a place of safety, they were hemmed in by the mongols. thousands from the surrounding country had taken refuge here with their families and treasures, and the numbers had been further increased by the arrival of fugitives from the army. they resolved to defend themselves to the last man; but they little knew the enemy with whom they had to deal. three days' battering with catapults was enough to make breaches in the walls; the mongols stormed and burnt the town, and murdered all who fell into their hands. the mongols flooded all the land east of the danube, but for the present the broad river formed a barrier which they could not easily pass, and they were further deterred from making the attempt by the idea, unfortunately erroneous, that if they crossed it they would find all the armies of europe massed upon the other side waiting to receive and beat them back. but if they were checked to the west, there was nothing to prevent their chasing the king, who was lingering near the drave. here they were in no fear of the armies of europe, and they crossed the danube by means of bladders and boats. béla fled to spalatro, but feeling unsafe even there, retired with his family to the island of issa. furious at finding that his prey had escaped him, the mongol leader, kajdán, revenged himself upon his prisoners, whom he set up in rows and cut down; then he hurried on to the sea coast, and appeared before spalatro early in may. foiled again, he hurried to issa, which was connected with the mainland by a bridge; and here he had the mortification of seeing the king and his followers take ship for the island of bua under his very eyes. pursuit, without a fleet, was hopeless, and kajdán had to content himself with ravaging dalmatia, croatia, and bosnia. chapter xv. dora's resolve. for days, weeks, months, talabor had been expecting libor and his mongols to return and renew their attack upon the castle, whose defences he had strengthened in every way possible to him. but spring had given way to summer, and summer to autumn, and still they had not come. when a winter of unusual severity set in, he felt the position safer, for the steep paths were blocked with snow or slippery with ice. rumours of the fatal battle had not been long in reaching the castle, and fugitives had been seen by one or another of the villagers, whose accounts, though they differed in many respects, all agreed in this, that the country was in the hands of the mongols, and that the king had fled for his life--whether he had saved it was doubtful. one reported the death of both the szirmays, another declared that master peter had escaped with the king. the general uncertainty began to tell upon the inhabitants of the castle. gradually, one by one, the men of the garrison disappeared. if a man were sent out hunting, or to gather what news he could in the neighbourhood, he not seldom vanished. whether he had deserted, or whether he had been captured, who could say? in either case he might bring the mongols down upon them. at last, when the number of fighting men was so diminished that it would have been out of the question for them to offer any serious resistance, disquieting events began to occur among the house-servants. one day two of them were nowhere to be found! one was a turnkey of master peter's, the other a maid-servant, a simple, country girl, whom no one would have supposed capable of counting up to three! these two had evidently not gone empty-handed, moreover, a few silver plates and other light articles having vanished at the same time! neither of them had been sent out to reconnoitre; neither, least of all the peasant girl, could have gone a-hunting. they had deserted, and they had stolen anything they could lay hands on! after this discovery dora became every day more uneasy, feeling that the danger from within might be as great as that from without. talabor kept his eye with redoubled vigilance upon those who were left, but confidence was destroyed in all but one or two. early one morning it was found that the whole of the plate had disappeared from the great dining hall. every chest was empty, and no one of the servants knew where the contents were. talabor had spent an entire night in carrying them away to a hiding place shown him by master peter, a sort of well-like cavity in a cellar, of which he kept the key always about him. he had been busy for days digging out the earth and rubbish, without letting anyone, even the faithful moses, know what he was about; for, like many another sorrowful magyar in those days, the old man had of late been trying to drown his grief in wine, and talabor feared that his tongue might betray what his fidelity would have kept secret. all being ready, he carried down the silver from the chests in which it had been locked, and finally removed from the shelves in the dining hall even what had been in daily use. this done, he filled the pit with earth again, and left no traces to indicate the hiding place of master peter's treasure. libor, of course, was well aware of its existence, and talabor sometimes wondered whether he were intending to keep the knowledge of it to himself, to be made use of later on, when the winter was over, and the castle more easily reached. be this as it might, neither he nor the mongols appeared again; and only once had talabor encountered any in his rides. so far as he could see and learn, the neighbourhood seemed to be free of them; and still anxiety rather increased than diminished, as day followed day without bringing any news to be relied on. early one morning dora sent for talabor, who went expecting merely some fresh suggestion or order; but he had no sooner entered the room than she met him, and without any sort of preliminary, exclaimed, in a somewhat agitated voice, "talabor! you are loyal to us, and to me, i know you are! aren't you? you would do anything for me? i am sure you would!" talabor fell upon one knee, and with glowing countenance raised his hand to heaven, by way of answer. his heart swelled within him, and just then he felt strong enough for anything. "good talabor, i believe you," said dora; "but get up and listen to what i want to say. i am only a woman, and perhaps i give myself credit for more courage than i really have; but one thing i know, i have a strong will, and i have made up my mind. i mean to go and find the king and my father!" "what!" exclaimed talabor, almost petrified by the mere idea of so daring a step. "master peter--we don't even know whether----" "he is alive!" interrupted dora very decidedly. "but the king! whether it is true or not, who can say? but so far as i can gather he seems to be in dalmatia, and the tartars are pursuing him. the country may still be full of them, for anything i know; and you mean to run such a frightful risk as this would be? dear mistress----" "i do mean, talabor!" said dora, "i do mean; for it seems to me that i may have worse to face if i stay here; and what is more, i can't do any good by staying. i can't in the least help those who would, i know, lay down their lives for me. did not you yourself say, months ago, that this place was not safe?" "true, but then things were not as they are now, and i was thinking of some safer refuge, not of a perilous winter journey. we will defend ourselves to the last, and now that we are free of traitors, we shall be stronger than before." "to the last, you say? then the last person would be myself, and i should be left to die by torture or to become the slave of some mongol scoundrel! no, talabor! if i could protect those who have been faithful and devoted to me, if i could even protect those who have deceived me, robbed me and deserted me so disgracefully, i would stay, but my presence here does no one any good." "and," dora continued, after a moment's pause, "the fact is we are living over a volcano, for who can answer for it that none of those who have stayed behind are traitors, and what of those who are gone? why then, should you wish to stay?" dora had taken to "theeing and thouing" talabor, ever since the time of danger and anxiety which they had passed through together. it showed him that she had confidence in him; but he, of course, continued to address her in the third person. "because," replied the young man in a firm voice, "i can put down any mischief that may raise its head here; and because, dear lady, if there is any danger of your being attacked here in the castle, the dangers outside in the open are a thousand times more serious." "you are mistaken in one thing, talabor. it may all be, perhaps it is, as you say, but something tells me to go! i can't explain it, but it is as if i were continually hearing a voice within saying, 'go, go;' but if i made a mistake in expecting you to follow me blindly----" "oh, dear lady, how could you be mistaken in trusting the most devoted of your servants! let it be as you say! command me, and i will neither gainsay, nor delay to do what you wish." "you really mean it?" "i do! before heaven i do." "well now, talabor, can you deny that there is a sort of nightmare oppression about this place? the garrison has dwindled to three, and there are but four servants. we can't reckon upon mr. moses, for he grows harder to stir every day." it was all so perfectly true that talabor could say nothing; but they talked on for a time, and then dora began to think and consult with him as to the first steps to be taken. she wished to discharge all her duties as mistress of the castle to the end, as far as was possible; and the first question was, what was to become of moses and the rest of the household? this settled, they thought it time to take the old governor into their confidence. mr. moses had long been of opinion that the castle was no safe place to stay in, and he readily undertook to conduct the remaining members of the garrison and household to a place of greater safety. in the depths of the neighbouring forest lived an old charcoal-burner, who supplied the castle blacksmith with charcoal, and had managed to steal up with it now and then all through these perilous times. the hut, or rather cave, in which the poor man and his family lived, was far away from any road, it was closed in by rocks, and was altogether so difficult, if not impossible, for any stranger to discover, that moses and talabor thought it the safest place of any to be found. but dora begged them both to keep their own counsel until the time for action should come; and as to when that time should be, no one knew but herself. latterly, as troubles had multiplied, it had become a sort of fixed idea with her that she must go and find her father at all costs, or at least make sure whether he were still alive or dead, and in the latter event she had resolved to take refuge in a convent. two or three days after the consultation mentioned above, dora sent for her two devoted followers. it was quite early in the morning, but she was already dressed for going out--for a journey it seemed, though, in spite of the bitter cold, she wore none of her rich furs. except that she was cleaner and neater, there was nothing to distinguish her from the poorest peasant-girl tramping from one village to another, or perhaps going on a distant pilgrimage. in the narrow belt, which she wore in the ancient magyar fashion, round her waist, she had hidden a few pieces of gold; on her feet she had thick, heavy boots, and over her shoulders hung a rough cloak of antiquated cut, which might be put over her head like a hood if necessary. somehow talabor had never admired her so much before as he did now. moses stared at her wide-eyed, for of late he had seen her always in black. the old huntsman looked as if he were wondering what new madness this might mean, and one can hardly be surprised at him. but he was always respectful to dora, and next to the old castle, and the woods, and master peter, he loved her better than anything else in the world! talabor came next to her in his affections, but a good way behind. "mr. moses," began dora gravely, addressing him first as she always did, because he was governor, in name at least, if not in fact, "i think the time has come for us to follow your advice; we have not men enough to defend the castle, and if it is true that the whole country is laid waste, it is very likely that one of the horrible tartars who came before will take it into his head to come again. besides, the thieves who have deserted us know how few we are, and how much plate there is in the chests; and what is to hinder their coming back? well, at any rate, i have made up my mind to leave the castle, but i mean to be the last. i shall not go until i know that every one is as safe as he can be." "i don't stir a step without you, mistress," exclaimed moses. "i am dora szirmay, master peter's daughter, and my faithful governor will obey my orders!" returned dora, in tones so decided that it was plain she had not forgotten how to command. mr. moses was silenced, and dora went on, still in the same grave way, "i know that you are faithful, that no one is truer to my father and me than yourself, and so i can give you my orders with trust and confidence. you, mr. moses, and everyone that is left in the castle, except talabor and gábor, will go to-day as soon as it is dusk, to old gödri, the charcoal-burner. you can take jakó's pony with you in case anyone should be tired, and be sure you take all the arms you can carry. the food, too, you must take all that, though i am afraid there is not much left, for we have all been hungry for some time past, if we have not been actually famished. when that is gone, there are the woods; and no hunter ever died of starvation." "but yourself, my dear young mistress?" asked moses. "i stay here in the meantime with talabor and gábor. you know all i wish done besides, good mr. moses," said dora gently, with a smile, rather sad than cheerful. "i need not tell you all to be prudent," she continued. "that we must every one of us be. take all the care you can of yourselves!" "and what about the horses?" "they must be turned out. they will find masters: we need not be troubled about them; and if they don't, they can roam where they will, and there will be grass under the snow, down in the valleys. jakó might take fecske (swallow), if he thinks he could feed her; it would be a pity for her to fall into the hands of the tartars." "fecske" was dora's own favourite horse. "you understand me, don't you, mr. moses?" "yes, young mistress; but--" he added uneasily, "what of the castle and everything?" "well, mr. moses, you were the first to call attention to the unsafe state of the castle, weren't you? so what more can we do? we can't defend it, we can't live in it, we can't carry it with us! now you will start to-day, all of you, except talabor, gábor, and myself; and you must trust everything else to us!" moses would dearly have liked to raise a multitude of further objections, but he could not, perhaps did not dare. just as he was about to leave the room, dora stopped him, saying, "one thing more, governor; when all is ready, let them all come to this room." mr. moses departed, and turning to talabor, dora asked him what he thought of her arrangements. she spoke more brightly now, and talabor answered calmly and respectfully, "i will obey you, mistress! but, i should like to make one little remark--it is not anything concerning myself----" "no preamble, talabor!" said dora, who looked more cheerful every moment. "make any remarks you wish, and i will hear you out, because i know you don't speak from fear." "well, lady, wouldn't it be better to keep jakó with you, instead of gábor? gábor is a good, trusty fellow and active, but he is not equal to jakó." "i am not going to keep more than one with me, and that is yourself, talabor! for safety's sake i must travel on foot, like a pilgrim, and with as few followers as possible. why i am keeping gábor is that i want to send him to seek my father by one route, while we take another. jakó is the only one of the others who is capable of thinking and acting for them. if i take him they have no one. don't you think, now, that i am right?" talabor assented, and no more was said, but when he realised that he was to be dora's sole guardian and travelling companion, he felt as if he had the strength of a young lion. that same evening, moses the governor, and all the rest, with the above-mentioned exceptions, quitted the castle; and by dawn of the following day, master peter's ancient dwelling-house was like a silent sepulchre. all the doors and windows were open, but the drawbridge was up, and the moat full of water. the most valuable articles of furniture of a size to be moved, talabor had helped gábor to carry down to a vault opening out of the cellar, in the course of the night, and together they had walled them up. as to what had become of dora and the two men, no one knew but moses. some thought that she was still there, and others that she had "left the country," as they said in those days, though how she could have crossed the moat, except by the drawbridge, and how, if she had done so, the drawbridge could have been pulled up again, was a mystery which none could fathom. not even talabor had ever known of the subterranean passage, which master peter had shown to his daughter and to no one else; and even now dora did not disclose its whereabouts. blindfold, her companions were led through it, she herself guiding talabor, and he gábor; and when she allowed them to take the bandages off their eyes, they were out of sight of the castle, and could see not the slightest sign of any secret entrance. they were in a diminutive valley, with rocks and cliffs all about them; and here dora gave gábor, the horseman, a small purse, which, had she but known it, was likely to be of small assistance in a wilderness where no one had anything to sell, but where there were plenty of people ready to take any money they could get hold of. dora told the man to travel only by night, to avoid all the high roads, and to make for dalmatia, where he had been once before in charge of a horse which master peter was sending to a friend. he remembered the way well enough, which was one reason why dora had chosen him for this dangerous and almost impossible mission. chapter xvi. through the snow. hungary was a very garden for fertility; her crops of every kind were abundant, her flocks and herds were enormous; and while the grain-pits and barns were full, and while there were sheep and oxen to steal, the mongols lived well. but at last the country was stripped, provisions began to grow scarce, and the year's crops were still in the fields. whether or no the mongols themselves ever condescended to eat anything but flesh, the mixed multitudes with them were no doubt glad of whatever they could get, and batu foresaw that if the harvest were not gathered, and if something were not done to keep such of the population as yet remained in their homes, and bring back the fugitives, there must needs be a famine. among his prisoners he had many monks and priests whom he had spared, from a sort of superstitious awe, and these he now called together, and tried to tempt with brilliant promises, to devise some plan for luring the people back to the deserted farms and homesteads. many and many a brave man rejected his offers at the risk, and with the loss, of his life; but there were some who were ready to do what the khan wanted, if only they could hit upon any scheme. all their proclamations issued in the khan's name failed to inspire confidence, however. the people did not return; those hitherto left in peace fled at the approach of the mongols, the general need increased day by day, and the captives were put to death by hundreds to save food. the massacres were looked upon as a pleasant diversion and entertainment in which the mongol boys ought to have their share; to them, therefore, were handed over the hungarian children; and those who showed most skill in shooting them down were praised and rewarded by their elders. yet how to feed half a million men in a country which had been thoroughly pillaged was still a problem. and then, all over the country there appeared copies of a proclamation written in the king's name, and sealed with the king's seal. there was no mongol ring about this, as there had been about similar previous proclamations, and it was given in the king's name, it was signed with the king's own seal! of that there could be no question. the news spread rapidly, further flight was stopped, and in a few days the people dutifully began to venture forth from their hiding places, and that in such numbers that a great part of the country was re-populated. moreover, the mongols, though still in possession, actually welcomed them as friends, which showed that the king knew what he was about! they were allowed, moreover, to choose magistrates for themselves from among the mongol chiefs, to the number of a hundred, who met once a week to administer strict and impartial justice. magyar, kun, mongol, tartar, russian, and the rest all lived as amicably together as if they were one family. farming operations were resumed, markets were held, and peace of a sort seemed to have returned to the land. at last harvest and vintage were over. corn and fruit of all descriptions had been garnered, and there was wine in the cellars. and then? why, then, late in the autumn, the too confiding people were massacred wholesale; and those of them who managed to escape fled back to their hiding-places. then followed winter, such a winter as had not often been matched in severity. the danube, frozen hard, offered an easy passage; there was no european army to oppose them, for the heads of christendom were fighting among themselves, and the mongols crossed over to do on the right bank of the river what they had already done on the left. always rather savage than courageous, the mongols obliged their prisoners to storm the towns, looked on laughing as they fell; cut them down themselves from behind if they were not sufficiently energetic, and drove them forward with threats and blows. when the besieged were thoroughly exhausted, and the trenches filled with corpses, then, and not till then, the mongols made the final assault, or enticed the inhabitants to surrender, and then, with utter disregard of the fair promises they had made, put them to death with inhuman tortures. the mongols were exceeding "slim," as people have learnt to say in these days. one example of their savagery will suffice. the most important place on the right side of the danube was the cathedral city of gran, which had been strongly fortified with trenches, walls, and wooden towers by its wealthy inhabitants, many of whom were foreigners, money changers, and merchants. as the city was thought to be impregnable, a large number of persons of all ranks had flocked into it. batu made his prisoners dig trenches all round, and behind these he set up thirty war-machines, which speedily battered down the fortifications. next the town-trenches were filled up, while stones, spears, and arrows fell continuously upon the inhabitants, who, seeing it impossible to save the wooden suburbs, set fire to them, burnt their costly wares, buried their gold, silver, and precious stones, and withdrew into the inner town. infuriated by the destruction of so much valuable property, the mongols stormed the city and cruelly tortured to death those who did not fall in battle. not above fifteen persons, it is said, escaped. three hundred noble ladies entreated in their anguish that they might be taken before batu, for whose slaves they offered themselves, if he would spare their lives. they were merely stripped of the valuables they wore, and then all beheaded without mercy. for weeks dora and talabor had journeyed on, avoiding all the main roads, travelling by the roughest, most secluded ways, and seldom falling in with any human beings, or even seeing a living creature save the wild animals, which had increased and become daring to an extraordinary degree. wolves scampered about in packs of a hundred or more, and over and over again talabor had been obliged to light a fire to keep them off. he had done it with trembling, except when they were in the depths of the woods, lest what scared the wolves should attract the mongols. bears, too, had come down from the mountains, and had taken up their quarters in the deserted castles and homesteads, and many a wanderer turning into them for a night's shelter found himself confronted by one of these shaggy monsters. traces of the mongols were to be seen on all sides: dead bodies of human beings and animals, smouldering towns, villages, and forests; here and there, perched upon some rocky height, would be a defiant castle, whose garrison, if they had not deserted it, were dead or dying of hunger; in some parts, look which way they might, there was a dead body dangling from every tree; poisonous exhalations defiled the air; and over woods, meadows, fields, ruined villages, lay a heavy pall of smoke. such was the condition to which the mongols had reduced the once smiling land. truly it might be said, in the words of the prophet: "a fire devoureth before them, and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness." but, though they saw their works plainly enough, the wanderers saw hardly anything of the mongols themselves, which surprised them. once or twice they had narrow escapes, and had to take sudden refuge from small parties, travelling two or three together; but they encountered nothing like a body of men, and those whom talabor did chance to see appeared to be too intent on covering the ground to look much about them. from one or two wanderers like themselves he presently learnt that the mongols were everywhere on the move, and were all going in the same direction, southwards. but what it meant no one could guess. they were moving with their usual extraordinary rapidity, and but few stragglers on foot were believed to be left behind. but it might be only some fresh treachery, some trap, and the people dared not leave the caves, caverns, thick woods, where they had hidden themselves, and lived, or existed, in a way hardly credible, on roots, herbs, grass, the bark of trees, some of them even eking out their scanty provisions by a diet of small pebbles! needless to say that many died of hunger, while the remainder were reduced to skeletons, shadows, ghosts of their former selves. from some of these bands of refugees talabor heard fragmentary accounts of the horrors that had been enacted, and the events that had followed after the battle of mohi. dora had felt more and more confidence in her travelling companion as day had followed day during their terrible journey. he had spared no pains in his efforts to lighten the privations and difficulties of the way; he had thought for her, cared for her, in a hundred ways; and yet with it all, he was just as deferential as if they had been in the castle at home. miserable were the best resting places he could find for her for the night, either in the depths of the forest or in some cavern or deep cleft of the rocks. sometimes he was able to make her a little hut of dry branches, roofed over with snow; and when he could do so without risk of discovery, he would light a fire and cook any game that he had been able to shoot in the course of the day. but whatever the shelter he found or contrived for her, he himself always kept watch outside, and got what little sleep he could when the night was past. they had almost lost count of time, and they hardly knew where they were, when, late one night, dora came to a standstill. the moon was shining, the cold intense, and the snow, which crackled beneath their feet, lay thick and glittering all around them. it was the sort of night that sends fear into the hearts of all who are compelled to be abroad, and yet are anxious to escape the notice of their fellow men, for it was as light almost as by day, and the travellers showed up like a couple of black spots against the white background. talabor, muffled in his cloak, was leading dora by the hand; she had her large hood drawn over her head, and the two looked as very a pair of tramps as one could meet with anywhere. the cold cut through them like a knife, though the night was still--too still, for there was not wind enough to cover up the track they had left behind them. it would be easy to trace them, for the snow was powdery, and in many places they had sunk in it up to their knees. "i must stop, i am tired out! and i am so deadly sleepy," said dora, in a broken voice, "i feel numb all over, as if i were paralysed." she looked ghastly pale, worn, thin, a mere shadow of what she had been; and she had been travelling all day, dragging herself along with the greatest difficulty. "dear lady," said talabor gently, supporting her trembling figure as well as he could, "do you see that dark patch under the trees yonder?" "i can't see so far, talabor," she stammered. "i see it plainly," he went on, "and it is a building of some sort, a dwelling-house, i think. if you could just manage to get so far, we should be better sheltered than we are here." "let us try," said dora, summoning all her remaining strength. "lean on me," talabor urged in a tone of encouragement; "we shall be there in a quarter of an hour; but if you can't walk, you must let me carry you as i have done before, it is such a little way." "you are very good, talabor," said the girl gratefully, and off they set again. the building which talabor had noticed stood on rising ground, on one side of the valley, and, the snow not being quite so deep on the slope, they were able to get on a little faster. neither spoke, for what was there to talk about? the cold was benumbing, and both were suffering. presently dora felt her knees give way under her, and everything seemed to turn black before her eyes. "talabor!" she whispered, holding his arm with both hands, "i--i am dying--you go on yourself and leave me!" "leave you!" exclaimed talabor; and before dora could say another word, he had thrown back his cloak and picked her up in his arms. she was almost fainting, and overpowered by the deadly sleep induced by the cold. light as his burthen was, it was a struggle for talabor to make his way through the snow, for he, too, had lost much of his accustomed strength during the past weeks of hardship and anxiety. still, he managed to go straight on without stumbling or faltering. all about them, for some distance and in every direction, there were strange prints in the snow, and these he scanned carefully until he had quite assured himself that they were not made by human feet. "no tartars have been here lately, at all events!" he said, by way of cheering his companion, as they drew near the gloomy, deserted building, which was not a ruin, but one of the many dwellings plundered by the mongols, and for some reason abandoned without being completely destroyed. it was a small, dark place, and its only defences were its outer walls. there was no moat; and it had probably belonged to some noble family of little wealth or importance, who had either fled or been murdered. the gate was lying on the ground, and the snow in the courtyard was almost waist-deep. talabor needed all his strength to wade through it and to carry dora up the stone steps, which he could only guess at, and had to clear with his foot as he went on. in the tolerably large room which he first entered all the furniture was half consumed by fire, and the door burnt off its hinges; the moonlight, which streamed through the open windows, showed bare, blackened walls, and a scene of general desolation. spreading his cloak on the bench, which owed its escape from destruction to the fact that it was covered with plaster, he laid dora down upon it, gathered up some of the broken furniture already half reduced to charcoal, and soon had a small fire burning. the smoke from it filled the whole room, but still the warmth revived his companion, who had known what it was to spend even worse nights than this one promised to be; for, when talabor presently took a piece of burning wood from the fire, that he might explore the building, he found an old sack full of straw. the room in which he discovered it opened out of the larger one, and was not quite so desolate looking, for the fire did not seem to have penetrated so far, and, moreover, it had a large fireplace still containing the remains of charcoal and bones. talabor lighted another fire here, drew the sack into one corner, and hurried back to dora, who was now dozing a little, with the light from the crackling fire shining on her face. how deadly pale, how wasted it was! talabor stood looking at her for a moment, wondering whether after all he should be able to save a life which every day was making more precious to him. he piled more wood on the fire, and tried to rub a little warmth into his own numb hands. it was the most bitter night of all their wanderings, and the cold pierced his very bones. tired out as he was, heavy with drowsiness, he kept going from one fire to the other, as he wanted to take dora into the smaller room when she awoke, for it was not only a degree warmer, but also free from smoke, and had a door which would shut. she opened her eyes about midnight, and seemed to be all the better for her two hours' sleep. talabor had kept her so carefully covered, and had replenished the fire so diligently that her healthy young blood had begun to flow again, and, not for the first time, he had saved her from the more serious consequences of her exposure and fatigue. "talabor!" she said, raising herself a little, "i have been asleep! thank you so much! now you must rest; you must, indeed, for if your strength fails, it will be all over with us both." "oh, i am accustomed to sleeping with one eye open, as the tartars do when they are on horseback. it does just as well for me; but you, dear lady, must rest for at least a few hours longer, and after that i will have a real sleep too." "a few hours!" "yes, here in the next room, where i have found a royal bed of straw, and there is a good fire and no smoke." by this time the smaller room really had some warmth in it, in spite of the empty window frames; and the sack of straw was a most luxurious couch in dora's eyes. "what a splendid bed, talabor!" said she, gratefully; "but before i lie down, one question--it sounds a very earthly one, though you have been an angel to me but--have we anything to eat? i am shamefully hungry!" "to be sure we have!" said talabor, opening his knapsack, and producing a piece of venison baked on the bare coals. "all we want is salt and bread, and something to drink, but there is plenty of snow!" "let us be thankful for what god gives us! our good home-made bread! what a long time it is since we tasted it!" "we shall again in time!" said talabor confidently, as he handed dora the one knife and the cold meat. "talabor," said dora presently, "i am afraid we have come far out of our way." "i am afraid so too," he answered, "but i don't think we could help it. there has been little to guide us but burnt villages and ruined church-towers. and then, when we have come upon recent traces of the tartars, we have had to take any way we could, and sometimes to turn back and hide in the forest for safety. how far south we have come i can hardly guess, but we are too much to the east, i fancy." "you have saved me at all events, over and over again: from wild beasts by night, from horrible men by day, from fire, smoke, everything! i shall tell my father what a good, faithful talabor you have been! and now i am really not very sleepy, and i should so like to see you rest--you know you are my only protector now in all the wide world, and you must take care of yourself for me!" "you must have just a little more rest yourself first, dear mistress, and then i will have a sleep." "you promise faithfully? then shake hands upon it, for you have deceived me before now, you bad fellow!" but when next dora opened her eyes, the moon had set; it was quite dark; the fire had gone out, and the cold was more biting than ever. "talabor!" she cried, alarmed and bewildered, for she could not see a step before her. "i'm here!" he exclaimed, starting up from the bare floor, on which he had been lying near the hearth, and rubbing his eyes as he did so. "i have been asleep," he said, greatly displeased with himself. "i was overpowered somehow, and our fire is out! never mind, we will soon have another!" and he set to work again with flint and steel. but when the fire was once more blazing, and both were a little thawed, talabor would not hear of any more sleep. "i _have_ slept!" he said, still indignant with himself. "for the first time in my life i have slept at my post, slept on duty--i deserve the stocks!" "and you are not sleepy still?" "no!" and then he suddenly jumped up from the floor, on which he had but just thrown himself. "what is it?" asked dora nervously, and she, too, started up. "nothing! nothing--i think," he answered, taking up his bow and quiver as he spoke. "i hear some noise, i'm sure i do," said dora, listening intently. "what can it be? quick! we must put out the fire!" at that moment, just in front of the house, and, as it seemed to both, close by, there was a long-drawn howl. "it's wolves, not tartars," said talabor, much relieved. "oh! then make haste and fasten the door!" "they won't come in here," said talabor, as he put the door to. it had been left uninjured by the fire, but its locks and bolts were all too rusty to be of the smallest use. there was a heavy little oak table which had survived the rest of the furniture, however, and this talabor pushed up against it, saying, "the fire is our best protection against such visitors as these; but dawn is not far off now, and perhaps it would be better not to wait for it before we move on. i should not care to have them taking up their quarters in the yard." "what are you going to do?" exclaimed dora, in alarm, "surely you are not going to provoke them?" "no! and if i should annoy one of them, he will not be able to do much harm after it!" "i forbid you to do anything rash! you are not to risk your life, talabor. you are to sit still here, if you don't want to make me angry." dora's vehemence was charming, but talabor never did anything without reflection; and he was not going to have her life imperilled by any ill-timed submission on his own part. "you may be quite easy," he said, "i am not going to stir from here, and they are not going to come in either!" the wolves meantime had been drawing nearer and nearer, to judge by their howls. perhaps they had scented the smoke, and expected to find the dead bodies of men or cattle, as they commonly did in every burning village in those days. talabor was standing at the window, bow in hand, when he presently drew back with a hasty movement. "quick!" he said in an undertone. "we must put out the fire!" dora rushed to it and began scattering and beating it out with a piece of wood. "what is it?" she whispered; and talabor whispered back, "i saw someone that i don't like the look of!" then, holding up his forefinger, he added, "perhaps there are only one or two; don't be afraid." these few words, intended to be re-assuring, did not do much to allay dora's fears, and she went up to talabor, who was back at the window again, now that the fire was put out. trembling, she stood beside him, while her cold hand fumbled in her pouch for the dagger which she carried with her. it cannot be denied that at that moment, in spite of all her high spirit, dora was terrified. thanks to the snow and the stars, talabor could see clearly enough what was going on outside; and this is what he saw: two muffled figures hurrying towards the house, by the very same path which he himself had trodden only a short time before; tracking him by his deep footprints in all probability. but a few moments after he had told dora to put out the fire, one of the two figures, an unmistakable tartar, was overtaken by the wolves, and there began one of those desperate conflicts between man and beast, which more often than not ended in the defeat of the former, firearms not being as yet in existence. "here! help! father!" shouted the one attacked. he had beaten down one wolf, with a sort of club, and was trying his utmost to defend himself against two others. at this appeal, made, by-the-bye, in the purest magyar, the man in front hurried back to the help of his son. "surely he spoke magyar!" whispered dora. "there are only two of them, at all events," was talabor's answer, that fact being much the more reassuring of the two in his eyes, for he had heard, during their wanderings, that there were more "tartar-magyars" in the world than libor the clerk. he fitted an arrow to his bow, as he spoke, and added, in an undertone, "they are coming, and the wolves after them! but there are only two, nothing to be afraid of; trust me to manage them!" in fact the two men were already floundering in the courtyard, and close at their heels rushed the whole pack, disappearing now and again in the deep snow, then lifting up their shaggy heads out of it, while they kept up an incessant chorus of howls. tartar-magyars might be enemies, but wolves certainly were, thought talabor, as he let fly his arrow and stretched the foremost wolf upon the ground, just as it was in the act of seizing one of the tartars. apparently the fugitives had not heard the twang of the bow-string, for as soon as they caught sight of the open door, they hurried towards it with the one idea of escaping their pursuers, so it seemed. but when talabor again took aim, and a second wolf tumbled over, one of the men looked up, saw the arrow sticking in the wolf's back, and cried out, as if thunderstruck, "tartars! per amorem dei patris!" (tartars! for the love of god!) and having so said, he stopped short, irresolute, as not knowing which of the two dangers threatening him it were better to grapple with. talabor heard the exclamation, and, whether or no he understood more than the first word, at least he knew that it was uttered in latin. the fugitives must surely be ecclesiastics, who had adopted the tartar dress merely for safety's sake. "hungari, non tartari--we are hungarians, not tartars!" he replied in the same language, leaning from the window as he shouted the words. whereupon that one of the "tartars" who had spoken before called out again, as if in answer, "amici! friends," and turned upon the wolves, two of which had been so daring as to follow him and his companion even up the steps. the nearer of the two he attacked with his short club; but his comrade, who had been hurrying after him, slipped and fell down, and the other wolf at once rushed upon him and began tearing away at his cowl. talabor meanwhile, being completely reassured by the word "amici," turned to dora saying, "glory to god, we are saved! they are good men, monks, as much wanderers as ourselves!" he pulled the table away from the door, snatched a brand from the still smouldering fire, waved it to and fro till it burst into flame, and then rushed out with it through the hall into the entry, where the learnèd one of the two supposed tartars was hammering away at the head of the huge wolf which had got hold of his friend, whose rough outer garment it was worrying in a most determined manner. the rest of the pack, about twenty, seemed not at all concerned at the loss of their four companions lying outstretched in the snow, for they were drawing nearer and nearer to the entry, and were lifting up their heads as if desirous of joining in the fray going on within, while they howled up and down the scale with all their might. but the moment talabor appeared with his flaming torch they were cowed, turned tail, and tumbled, rather than ran, down the steps in a panic. head over heels they rushed towards the gate, some of the hindmost getting their tails singed as they fled. meantime the two strangers seeing the enemy thus put to flight, took courage, and thought apparently to complete the rout, for they rushed off after the retreating wolves and were for pursuing them even beyond the gate, when they were checked by a shout from talabor, who called to them to stop. they stood still, up to their waists in snow, and looked at him, wondering and half doubting who and what he might be. "who are you?" he asked. "magyars! infelices captivi--unfortunate captives," answered the learnèd one. "we are magyars!" said the other in hungarian. "if you are magyars, follow me," said talabor, and the strangers obeyed. it was dark no longer, but still it was difficult to judge of the men by their looks, for they wore the rough tartar hoods over their heads, and the one who had been mauled by the wolf had his hanging about his face in lappets and ribbons. talabor could see just so much as this, that neither was very young, that both were wasted to the last degree, and that they were as begrimed as if they had been hung up to dry in the smoke for some weeks. "come along, come along!" he said, for he was anxious to get back to dora, and to make up the fire again. should he take them into, the warmer inner room, or keep them in the other until he knew more about them? he was still undecided what to do when a sudden exclamation from one of the wanderers, followed by the fervent words, "glory be to jesus!" startled him. more startled still was he to hear from dora the response, "for ever and ever!" and to see her clinging to the begrimed "tartar." "father roger! father roger!" she exclaimed tremulously, and for the moment could say no more. chapter xvii. a stampede. as soon as he was sufficiently warmed to be able in some degree to control his trembling lips, father roger explained that he had been captured by the mongols, from whom he had but recently escaped; that his life had been spared, at first on account of his clerical costume, and afterwards because he had been taken into the service of a tartar-magyar, who had saved both himself and his servant. but when dora would have questioned him further, and inquired who the tartar-magyar was, he shook his head, saying gently, "another time, dear child, another time--perhaps. but it is a nightmare i would willingly forget, except that i may give praise to god, who has preserved us through so many grievous perils." it was evidently such a painful subject that she could not press him further; and she began to speak of their own plans. "dalmatia!" said the canon, shaking his head, "dalmatia! but we are in transylvania! and who knows for certain where his majesty may be? i have heard rumours, but that is all, and they are ancient by this time. it would be wiser to try and find some safe retreat here, where there are more hiding-places than in the great plains." he spoke dreamily; but he had noticed dora's hollow cheeks, and had marked how greatly she was altered from the bright, beautiful girl whom he had last seen less than a year ago. her strength would never hold out for so long a journey, even if it were otherwise desirable, which he did not himself think it; for he was able to throw some light upon the mysterious movement among the mongols, and told his hearers that oktai the great khan had died suddenly in asia; and that batu khan, the famous conqueror, was far too important a person in his own eyes to be ignored when it came to the choice of a successor. he must make his voice heard, his influence felt; and the tidings had no sooner reached him than he despatched orders to all his scattered forces, appointing a place of rendezvous, and bidding them rejoin him at once. this done, off he hurried, in his usual headlong way; and, with his captives, his many waggons laden with booty, and his yellow hosts, he had rushed like a tornado through transylvania into moldavia, plundering, burning, ravaging, according to custom, as he went. that was the last father roger knew of him; for, finding that the farther they went the worse became the treatment of the captives, until at last the only food thrown to them was offal and the bones the mongols had done with, he had felt convinced that a massacre of the old and feeble was impending. "then the tartar-magyar is not gone with them to asia, and he could not protect you any longer?" asked dora. "he could not protect us any longer," echoed father roger. "we, my faithful servant here and i, watched our opportunity and made our escape one night into the forest." and here we may mention that they had fled none too soon, as the massacre of those not worth keeping as slaves actually took place, as father roger had foreseen, and that within a very short time after his flight. the more talabor thought of it, the more he felt that father roger was probably right as to dalmatia, and dora finally acquiesced in giving up her cherished plan. it was a comfort to be with father roger, broken down though he was; and for the rest, if she could not join her father, what did it matter where she went? she left it to him and talabor to decide, without troubling her head as to their reasons, or even so much as asking what they had agreed; but the disappointment was grievous. the little party therefore journeyed on together, slowly and painfully, often hungering, often nearly frozen, until at last they reached the town now known as carlsburg. but here again they found only ruins and streets filled with dead bodies, and they toiled on again till they came to the smaller town of frata, where there were actually a good number of people, recently emerged from their hiding-places, and all busily engaged in strengthening and fortifying the walls to the best of their power. they had but little news to give, for all were in doubt and uncertainty both as to the king and the mongols. the latter they did not in the least trust; and though frata had hitherto escaped, no one felt any security that it might not be besieged any day, almost any hour. "better the caves and woods than that," said father roger with a shudder. but if there were no safety for them in frata itself, talabor heard there of what seemed at least a likely refuge for dora, and that with a member of her own family, a certain orsolya szirmay, who was said to have taken refuge among the mountains, and to have many of the transylvanian nobility with her, and would certainly receive them. "only a little further!" said talabor, as he had said before; but this time it was "only a few miles," not a quarter of an hour's walk; and when one can walk but slowly, when one's strength is ebbing fast, and one's feet are swollen and painful from the many weary miles they have trodden, when one is chilled to the bone, weak from long want of proper food, and in constant terror of savage beasts and still more savage men, the prospect of more rough travelling, though only for "a few miles," is enough to make the bravest heart sink. before we see how it fared with the four travellers, we must glance at what had been taking place in transylvania, whose warlike inhabitants had been far less apathetic and incredulous than those of hungary, and at the first note of alarm had raised troops for the palatine. héderváry had been despatched, as already mentioned, to close all the passes on the east, and this done, and his presence being required elsewhere, he had departed, leaving merely a few squadrons behind as a guard. he and they both considered it impossible for the mongols to force a passage on this side, so well had they blocked the roads. like most of the fighting men of those days, the hungarian army received very little in the way of regular pay, and nothing in the way of rations. it lived upon what it could get! and what would have been theft and robbery at any other time, was considered quite lawful when the men were under arms. the troops lived well at first. to annex a few sheep, calves, oxen, and to shoot deer, wild boar, or buffalo was part of the daily routine, for the forests abounded in game. they were at no loss for wine either, as some of the nobles supplied them from their cellars. on the whole, therefore, the men were well entertained; and, little suspecting the serious campaign in store, looked forward to a brush with the mongols as involving little more danger than their favourite hunting expeditions. and then, one morning they noticed a peculiar sound in the distance. in one way it was familiar enough, for it reminded them of a hunt, but a hunt on such a scale as none of them had ever witnessed yet. for it was as if all the game in the dense, almost impassable forests on the frontier were being driven towards them by thousands of beaters, driven slowly and gradually, but always nearer and nearer. they wondered among themselves who the huntsmen could be, and thought that the great lords had perhaps called out the peasantry by way of beguiling the time, and that, as the roads were closed against the mongols, they were coming through the woods. but there was no shouting, which was remarkable, and they could hear no human voices, nothing but the hollow sound as of repeated blows and banging, which came to them from time to time, when the wind was in a particular quarter, like the mutter of distant storms. two days later, this weird and ghastly noise could be heard till dark. no one could imagine what was going on. but the detachments whose especial duty it was to watch the frontier appeared to be under a spell, for they passed their time in the usual light-hearted way, and went out shooting and hunting in large parties. they had never known the forest so full of game of all sorts before--wild buffalo, bears, wolves, deer, fawns--as it had been since "the woods had begun to talk," as they expressed it. by the third day the distant sounds had altered their character, and were no longer like the ordinary noise made by sportsmen and their beaters, but more puzzling still. then came orders to the various detachments from the palatine, that a few bodies of men were to be posted here and there, rather as spies than guards, while the rest hastened with all speed to join the main army in hungary proper. héderváry did not so much as hint that the "tartars were coming"; but he was well aware of the fact, for he had good spies, and that even among the russians who had coalesced with the mongols. early on the morning of their departure some of the men thought they saw scattered clouds of smoke rising over the forests to the east, but they were a "happy-go-lucky" set, as so many were in those days, and they troubled their heads very little as to what it might mean. someone suggested that, as the blacksmiths were all unusually hard at work on horseshoes, of which an enormous number were wanted, no doubt the charcoal burners were especially busy too; and there were many of them in the woods and forests; in all probability, the smoke proceeded from their fires. and with this supposed explanation all were content. but suddenly, to the now accustomed sound of beating and knocking, which was still drawing nearer and nearer, there was added another of a different character. hitherto, the woods had "talked," and echo had answered them; now the forest "roared." the wind had been light at early morning; now it was piping and whistling, swaying the trees to and fro, making the tall stems tremble, and knock their long bare arms one against the other. one of the palatine's small detachments of about 150 men was stationed in the mountainous district of marmaros, with a lofty and precipitous wall of rock bounding one side of the camp. the men were just preparing for a start, when a huge buffalo made its sudden appearance on the edge of the cliff far above their heads. it had come so far with a rush, but the sight of the great depth below had stopped it short, and it stood with its feet rooted to the ground for a moment--only for a moment, however. it raised its head, and seemed to sniff the air, and then, with one short, faltering bellow, it leapt and fell into their midst, upsetting one horse, and wounding a couple of men. this was the first; but after the first came a second, after the second, a third! helter-skelter the troops retired from the dangerous spot, and from a safe distance they counted five buffalo, one after the other, which dashed to the edge of the cliff, as if in terror from their pursuers, and took the fatal leap. only one was able to rise again, and that one just gave one look round, dug its forefeet into the ground, and then rushed on straight ahead as if there were a pack of hounds at its heels. shortly after, while the troops were riding down the narrow valley at the foot of the mountains, they could hear the howl of wolves coming nearer and nearer, and a pack so large that no one could even guess their number, was seen to be scampering down the dale; some were clattering down the cliffs, which were more sloping here, while the rest tore wildly forward, passing close beside, and even in among the horses, many of which were maddened with terror, and bolted with their riders. an hour or so later, when the little troop had succeeded in quieting the horses, and had advanced some way on its journey amid many perils and dangers, the cause of all this excitement among the wild animals was suddenly revealed. the forest was on fire! it was crackling in the flames, burning like a furnace beneath a canopy of black smoke. the mongols had fired it on this side, while in another direction they had opened a way forty fathoms wide, through woods over hill and dale, through walls of rock, and across streams and ditches. they were making ready their way before them, and were advancing along it upon the unready country. wherever they were reached by the fire, the trees crashed down one upon another; ravens, crows, jackdaws, and all the winged creatures of the woods, were flying to and fro above the trees, in dense, dark clouds, and with loud cries and cawing; bears came along muttering, flying before the fire and smoke, climbing trees from which they did not dare descend again, and with which they perished together. as already mentioned, batu khan's army was preceded by pioneers with axes and hatchets, who drove their road straight forward, through or over obstacles of all kinds. nothing stopped them, and often their own dead bodies helped to fill up the ditches and trenches; for what was the value of their lives to the mongols? absolutely nothing! since they were taken for the most part from the people whom they had conquered. as soon as the awful news of their advance spread through the country, the people fled without another thought of defending their homes or resisting the enemy, or of anything else but saving their lives and what little property they could carry with them in their wild stampede. in a few days transylvania was ablaze from end to end. towns, villages, farms, castles, country seats, strongholds, even the ancient walls of alba julia, all were surrounded by the flames, and were crashing and cracking into ruins. the invaders, stupid in their destructiveness, spared nothing whatever; and their leaders and commanders, themselves as stupid as the brute-like herd over whom they were placed, occasioned loss to the khan which was past all reckoning, for his object was plunder, and they in their rage for ruin, destroyed what the khan might even have called treasure, as well as what might have provided food for hundreds of thousands of the army. what did the khan oktai, or batu, or his thousands of leaders care! the latter were little tartars, russian tartars, german tartars, and what not, to whom the conqueror had given the rank and title of knéz, whom he favoured, promoted, and enriched, until his humour changed, or he had no further use for them, and then--why then he squeezed them, made them disgorge their wealth, and strung them up to the nearest tree. they were but miserable foreigners after all! transylvania was in the clutches of the enemy, who had entered her in two large divisions, north and south. but, thanks to the nature of the country, and the many hiding-places it afforded, she did not suffer quite so severely as her neighbour. orsolya szirmay, of whom the travellers had heard at frata, had married one bankó, a man of large property and influence, who owned vast estates both in hungary and transylvania; but orsolya did not see much of her own relatives after her marriage, for her husband was a man of awkward temper, and they rarely paid her a visit; so that when, four or five years before the mongol invasion, bankó died, she went to live on the transylvanian property, which was in a most neglected condition, and required her presence. bankó had lived to be ninety-three, and his widow was now an old lady with snow-white hair, but with all her faculties and energies about her, and eyes as bright, hair as lustrous, as those of a young girl. she had made her home in a gloomy castle among the mountains, but at the first rumour of the coming invasion, she left it for frata, where she had an old house, or rather barn, which had been divided up into rooms, and was neither better nor worse than many another dwelling-house in those days. during her short stay here, the old lady was constantly riding about the country accompanied by her elderly man-servant, and a young girl, who had but lately joined her, and was introduced as "a relation from hungary." one morning early all three disappeared without notice to anyone, and it was only later that it was rumoured that "aunt orsolya," as she was called throughout the country, had taken refuge in a large cavern among the mountains to the north of frata. it afforded plenty of space, it was difficult of approach, and it had but one, and that a very narrow entrance; the streams which now flow through it not having then forced a passage. how aunt orsolya had contrived to stock it with food and other necessaries we are not told, but she had done it; neither did she lack society in this lonely abode after the first week or two, for she was joined in some mysterious way by between seventy and eighty persons belonging to the most distinguished families in the land. she, of course, was the head, the queen of this strange establishment, for those who fled hither to save their lives, and, as far as they could, their most precious valuables, found the old lady already installed. she received them, she was their hostess; and besides all this, she was a born ruler, one to whom others submitted, unconsciously as it were, and who compelled respect and deference. orsolya, then, had taken the part of house-mistress from the beginning, and no doubt enjoyed receiving more and more guests, and enjoyed also the consciousness that they all looked up to her, and were all ready to submit themselves to her wishes--we might say commands. the old lady herself appointed to each one his place, in one or other of the many roomy caves which opened out of the great cavern, and she managed to find something for everyone to do. in a short time the cavern was as clean as hands could make it. the driest parts were reserved for sleeping places; and one cave was set apart as a chapel, where service was regularly held by the clergy, of whom there were several among the refugees. when the neighbourhood was quiet, the men went out hunting, and--stealing! stealing! there is no polite word for it. they stole sheep, cattle, provisions anything they needed for housekeeping. those who came in empty-handed orsolya scolded in plain language; and the men who swept and cleaned at her bidding, and the women who boiled and baked, gradually became as much accustomed to the old lady's resolute way of keeping house and order as if they had served under her all their lives. it was some time in march that aunt orsolya had retreated to the cavern, and there she and her companions had remained all through the spring, summer, and autumn, often alarmed, but never actually molested, hearing rumours in plenty, but knowing little beyond the fact that the whole country was in the hands of the mongols, and that the king was a fugitive. chapter xviii. aunt orsolya's cavern. three fires were burning in different parts of the cavern, and round each was encamped quite a little army of women and children. of the men, some were lying outstretched on wild-beast skins, others were pacing up and down the great vaulted hall, and yet others were busy skinning the game shot during the day. quite respectable butchers they were, these grandees, who had been used no long time ago to appear before the world with the most splendid of panther-skins slung elegantly over their shoulders. some of the women were filling their wooden vessels at the springs which trickled out from under the wall of rock; and as they watched the water sparkling in the fire-light they chattered to one another in the most animated way, or told fairy tales and repeated poetry for the general entertainment. in her own quarters, in the centre of the cavern, close under the wall, orsolya was seated in a chair of rough pine branches, beneath a canopy of mats, which protected her from the continual droppings of the rock. her face was covered with a perfect network of lines and wrinkles, but her dark eyes shone like live coals. her beautiful silver hair was nearly hidden beneath a kerchief which had seen better days, and her dress, a plain, old-fashioned national costume, was neat and clean in spite of its age. she had a large spinning-wheel before her, and on a low stool by her side, sat a young girl, also employed with a spindle. it was evident that this latter, a pale, slim creature with black eyes, was no magyar. her features were of a foreign cast, her hands were small and delicate, and the charm and grace of her every movement were suggestive rather of nature than of courts. but the beautiful face looked troubled, as if its owner were haunted by the memory of some overwhelming calamity. evidently this young relation of hers was the light of the old lady's eyes, for her features lost their stern, rather masculine expression, and her whole face softened whenever she looked at her. some of the men interrupted their walk from time to time to loiter near the fires, or talk to the sportsmen as they came in, or drew near to orsolya, as subjects approach a sovereign; and orsolya talked composedly with each one, too well accustomed to deference and homage even to notice them. "dear child," said the old lady, as soon as they were left to themselves again, "how many spindles does this make? i'll tell you what, if you spin enough we will put the yarn on a loom and weave it into shirting." the girl raised her beautiful eyes to the old lady's face, saying in good magyar, though with a somewhat peculiar accent, "i think mr. bokor might set up the loom now, dear mother; i have such a number ready." "i only hope we shall be able to make it do, my child," said orsolya, leaning towards the girl, and stroking the raven hair which floated over her shoulders. "good man!" she went on, smiling, "not but that he can be as obstinate as anyone now and then! and he has made the shuttle the size of a boat!" the girl laughed a little as she answered, "we will help him, good mother," and she drew the old lady's hand to her lips, and kissed it as if she could not let it go. "yes," she went on slowly, "necessity is a great teacher; it teaches one all things, except how to forget!" "oh, my dear, and who would wish it to teach one that! there are some things which we cannot, and ought not to forget, and it is best so, yes, best, even when the past has been a sad one." she stroked and caressed the girl in silence for a few moments, and then went on, "but you know, dear child, that life on this sad earth is not everything. god is good, oh, so good! why did he create all that we see? only because he is good. he, the almighty, what need had he of any created thing? it is true that life brings us much pain and anguish at times, but then this is but the beginning of our real life. there is another, beyond the blue sky, beyond the stars, which you can no more realise now than a blind man can realise a view, or a deaf man beautiful music. we shall find there all that we have loved and lost here. god does not bring people together and make them love and care for one another only that death may separate them at last." "no, don't forget anything, dearest child," orsolya went on, with infinite love in her tone, as the girl laid her head in her old friend's lap. "keep all whom you have loved, and honoured, and lost, warm in your heart." "they are always there, dear mother, always before me! i see their dear, dear faces every moment!--oh! why must i outlive them?" "that you may make others happy, dear child; perhaps, even that you may be a comfort and joy to me in my old age." mária threw her arms round the old lady and embraced her warmly. "dear, dear mother! how good you are to me! don't think me ungrateful for what the good god has given me in place of those whom i have lost. yes, i wish to live, and i will live, if god wills, to thank you for your love, and to love you for a long time. but if you see me sad sometimes, don't forget, good mother, how much i have lost! and--i am afraid, i am afraid! i have only one left to lose besides you, dear mother, and if--if--i don't know how i could go on living then----" just then two or three men appeared in the passage leading up from the mouth of the cave, and mária went back to her stool. night had fallen, the men had been engaged in making all safe as usual by barricading the entrance with large pieces of rock, but they had suddenly left their work and were hurrying up to the cavern. "someone is coming, mária! or--but no, we won't think any evil, god is here with us!" "mistress aunt!" said the first of the men, bowing low, "we have brought you a visitor, a great man, canon roger, who has but lately escaped from the mongols, and there are three others, strangers, with him. leonard here found them all nearly exhausted and not knowing which way to turn." "well done, nephew! i'm glad you found them," said orsolya, "theeing and thouing" him, as she did everyone belonging to her little community. "roger--roger," she went on, "i seem to remember the name--why, of course, italian, isn't he? and lived with my nephew stephen at one time?" "bring them in! bring them in!" she cried eagerly; and in a few moments father roger and his companions appeared before the "lady of the castle." "glory be to jesus!" said, or rather stammered, the canon; and "for ever and ever!" responded orsolya, who had risen to receive him; and for a moment her voice failed her, so shocked was she at the change in the fine, vigorous-looking man whom she remembered. attenuated to the last degree, bent almost double, he looked as if he were in the last stage of exhaustion. his clothes were one mass of rags and tatters, which hung about him in ribbons; his face, sunken and the colour of parchment, had lost its expression of energy and manliness, and wore for the moment a look of bewilderment, which was almost vacancy. he was the wreck of what he had once been. his servant, the one whom he mentions in his "lamentable song," orsolya took to be quite an old man. withered and worn like his master, he was, if possible, even more dilapidated, thanks to his encounter with the wolves. "you have come a long way and suffered much, father," said orsolya gently, when she had welcomed dora and talabor, and regained her composure. "much lady, much--i--i----" "ah, well, never mind! so long as you are here at last, father roger, never mind! it is a long, long time since we met last! do you remember? my husband was alive then, and we were staying in pressburg with my nephew, stephen szirmay, and with the hédervárys." "i remember well, dear lady; ah! how little we any of us dreamt of the days that were coming!" he spoke falteringly, in a faint voice; and as he sat bowed together on the low seat, orsolya noticed that he trembled in every limb. the rumour of his arrival had quickly spread, and the inhabitants of the cavern all came flocking round, eager to see and hear. in their bright-coloured, though more or less worn garments, with the fire-light playing upon them, and a whole troop of eager children among them, they were a most picturesque company. but orsolya allowed no time for questions. "come," said she, rising from her chair, "that will do for the present! father roger is worn out! will you ladies go and get st. anna's house ready, and make up good beds; and you, kinsmen," she went on, turning to the men, "will you see about clothes and clean linen? i am afraid we have nothing but old rags, but at least they are not quite so worn as those our friends are wearing, and they are a trifle cleaner! i shall put the good canon especially in your charge, márton; you will look after him and see that he wants for nothing." "thank you, lady," stammered roger, almost overwhelmed by the warmth of his reception. "blessings be upon your honoured head, and upon all who dwell beneath this roof." all present bowed their heads almost involuntarily, whereupon roger summoned all his remaining strength, and reaching forth his withered hands, pronounced the benediction over them; after which the children made a rush forward to seize and kiss his hands. "no, i won't hear anything now, father roger," said the old lady after a pause, for her new guests belonged to the family now, she considered, and were to be "thee'd and thou'd" and managed like the rest. "you must not say another word; you must eat and drink and get thoroughly rested, and then, to-morrow perhaps, or in a day or two, when you have said prayers in the chapel (we have one!) and the day's work is done, we will all sit round the fire, and you shall tell us all you know and all you have seen." aunt orsolya's subjects were well drilled, and though they were burning with eagerness and anxiety, those who had begun to besiege the other wanderers with inquiries at once refrained. preceded by a couple of torch-bearers, father roger was led carefully away to one of the side caves, all of which had their names; dora was taken in charge by some of the ladies; talabor and the canon's servant were equally well looked after, and that night they all once more ate the "home-made bread," which they had so long been without. that it was made with a considerable admixture of tree-bark mattered little, perhaps they hardly noticed the fact. it was simply delicious! and the beds! as dora sank down on hers, it seemed to her that she had never known real comfort before. at last the excitement of the evening had subsided; the queen's subjects had all reassembled about the fires, speculating much as to what the new-comers would have to tell them; and presently aunt orsolya began her nightly rounds, visiting all in turn, and stopping to have a little kindly chat with each group. chapter xix. father roger's story. a day or two passed, and the good father roger began to recover a little of his strength, if not much of his cheerfulness. he was naturally a robust man, and he was, besides, inured to hardship and suffering; there was nothing actually amiss with him but extreme fatigue and want of food, so that after a few quiet nights and days he began to feel more like himself, and able to give some account of all that had happened since aunt orsolya and the rest had betaken themselves to the cavern. the men, of course, had some of them been going out more or less all the time, hunting, or--as we have said, stealing, but the accounts they had brought back had been not only imperfect, but often so contradictory that it was hard for the refugees to form any clear idea of what had really been going on, and, naturally enough, they were intensely eager to hear. no one was more eager than aunt orsolya, and it cost her no small effort to repress her curiosity, or rather anxiety; but she did it, and not only forbore to question roger herself, but strictly forbade everyone else to do so also. but as soon as she saw that the canon was able to walk about a little, that his appetite was good, and that he was gradually regaining his usual calm, she reminded him of his promise; and one evening they all gathered round him in the firelight to hear the story which he afterwards wrote in latin verse, and to which he gave the title of "carmen miserabile," or "lamentable song." roger began his narration by telling of the battle of mohi and the king's escape to thurócz; and orsolya heard with pride how stephen, peter, and akos szirmay had shared his flight, how stephen had fallen by the way, and how master peter had survived all the perils and dangers by which they were beset, and how akos, too, had not only survived the kun massacre, but was safe and sound when last the canon had heard of him, and had distinguished himself by many an act of bravery and devotion; and the old lady's eyes grew very bright as she listened, and she put out her hand to stroke that of the pale, slim girl who sat beside her, eagerly drinking in every word. father roger's information came from the captives brought in at different times, and stopped short, so far as the king and his followers were concerned, at the time when they had taken refuge in the island of bua, and kajdán had found himself baffled in his pursuit. to indemnify himself for the loss of his prey, he had plundered dalmatia, croatia, and bosnia, had vainly stormed ragusa, and had set fire to cattaro. the last father roger knew of him was that he had turned east and was expected to join batu in moldavia, by way of albania, servia, and bulgaria. the name of kajdán was not unknown to the refugees, for it was he who had led the mongol horde which had poured into transylvania from the north-east; it was he, or rather probably only his vanguard, who had been defeated by the men of radna; it was he who had suddenly attacked them in force on march 31st, when they were gaily celebrating their victory; it was he who had consented to leave their town and mines uninjured on the condition that ariskald, their count, should act as his guide. it was he, as father roger knew too well, who had crossed into hungary and joined batu in reducing it to a desert; for his own cathedral city, grosswardein (nagyvárad) was one of the many places which kajdán had captured. "and about yourself, father roger?" asked orsolya. "tell us about yourself, where you were taken, and how you escaped with your life." "i had fled from nagyvárad before kajdán reached it, and was a fugitive, hiding in the woods, living on roots and herbs and wild fruits until the autumn, and then--i was deceived as others were!" father roger went on to explain that batu, by way of keeping those of the inhabitants who had not yet fled, and of luring back some who had, in order that the harvest might be secured, had issued a proclamation in the king's name. "but how?" interrupted orsolya. "you were deceived! can he write our tongue? besides, the king's proclamations have the king's seal." "and so had this! they--they got hold of it." "and knew what it was?" persisted aunt orsolya incredulously. reluctantly father roger had to admit that they had been enlightened by a hungarian. "a magyar!" burst from his audience in various tones of horror and indignation. "there were not many like him, i am sure there were not many--perhaps we don't know everything. he saved my life; i don't like to think too ill of him--it was a time of awful trial--ah! if you had seen how some were tortured! it was enough to try the courage of the stoutest heart, and he was not naturally a brave man. and yet i could not have believed it of him! i can't believe it! there must have been some mistake, surely!" "you had known him before, the traitor!" cried aunt orsolya. "yes," said father roger sadly, "i had known him. he had joined the mongols before the battle of mohi, partly because he was poor, or rather because he was afraid of being poor, and partly because he was frightened. he had been useful to the mongols on many occasions; and he had grown rich and prosperous among them. no one of the chiefs outdid him in splendour, in the number of his servants, or of his beautiful horses. he, too, had been made a chief, a knéz, as they called it. well, nicholas the chancellor was among the many who fell at mohi, and a mongol, who was plundering the dead, found upon him the king's seal. this chanced to come to--to this man's ears, and he thought it might be useful; it was easy for him to get possession of it, for it was not valuable, being only of steel. he gave the mongol a stolen sheep in exchange, and the man thought himself well paid. i don't suppose he had any thought then of putting his prize to any ill use; but he was one of those who never missed an opportunity, and generally managed to secure for himself the lion's share of any booty. however it was, he had the seal, and now----" father roger paused, perhaps from weariness; perhaps because it was never his way to speak evil of any if it could be avoided. "don't let us judge him," he went on. "the poor wretch had seen enough to terrify a bolder man than he. he went to the khan and advised him what to do, and batu gave him a valuable tartar sword, and a splendid horse in return." father roger explained that among the prisoners there were many monks and others able to write, and that some of these were "compelled" by batu to draw up and make copies of a proclamation in the king's name. every copy was sealed with the king's seal, and they were distributed broadcast over the country. he had seen more than one copy himself, and more than once he had been called upon to read it to those who were unable to read for themselves. this was how the proclamation ran: "fear not the savage fury of the dogs! and do not dare to fly from your homes. we were somewhat over hasty indeed in abandoning the camp and our tents, but by the mercy of god we hope to renew the war valiantly before long, and to regain all that we have lost. pray diligently therefore to the all-merciful god that he may grant us the heads of our enemies." there was nothing of the mongol about this, and any lingering doubts were, dispelled by the sight of the king's seal. the result was what the mongols hoped for. in places which had not yet been harried and ravaged the population remained, while many refugees returned to their farms. "but the traitor!" interrupted orsolya, "what of him? where is he? if there is such a thing as justice----" "he was made one of the hundred chief magistrates," said father roger quietly, "and one day when he was in nagyvárad, after my return, he recognised me and offered to take me into his service. he could protect me better, he said." "but his name! who is he? one ought to know who are traitors! where had you known him before?" persisted orsolya. "at master stephen szirmay's! he was one of his pages. his name was libor." dora and talabor both uttered an exclamation. "he lived with my nephew stephen! and he could turn traitor!" cried aunt orsolya in horror. "yes, dear lady, he was not the only magyar to do so! but there were not many, no! indeed there were not many." "and why couldn't they have died, every one of them!" cried orsolya, impetuously. "ah! who knows?" said father roger gently. "who knows? but he did not think matters would go as far as they did; no, i am sure he did not!" it was not in father roger's nature to think the worst of any, still less of one to whom he owed his life, and he knew nothing of the attack on master peter's house or of the despicable part which libor had played with regard to dora, or he would have spoken less leniently. libor had "climbed the cucumber-tree" to some purpose; and this last service rendered to the khan had won for him the praise of batu and all the chiefs, who called him one of themselves. he had reached the pinnacle of greatness, his fortune was made. the hungarian prisoners came to him for his advice and assistance, and libor always received them with the kindly condescension of a great man, and was always ready with fair words and empty assurances to allay their fears. late in the autumn, and without any previous intimation to anyone, came an order to libor and all the other chief magistrates that they were to assemble on a certain day at various appointed spots, each at the head of the entire population for which he was responsible. they were to come with their old and with their young, and they were to be provided with presents for the khan. it was a gloomy day, and the storm-clouds were chasing one another across the sky, as if they, too, were going to hold a rendezvous somewhere, to consult perhaps how many thunderbolts would be required to reduce the country to a heap of ruins. batu khan's tent was pitched in the centre of a vast plain, and round it were gathered a large number of mongols, some mounted, some on foot. in the background, making a terrific noise, were a swarm of filthy mongol children, who were lying about under a group of tall trees. the mud huts and numberless tents of the mongol camp formed an extended semicircle at some little distance, and within this were drawn up a number of mongol horsemen, quite unconcerned apparently at the blackness of the sky and the distant muttering of the thunder. batu khan was seated on a camp-stool brilliantly attired as if for some great ceremony. around him stood more than thirty chiefs, armed from head to foot, and among them was libor, who had surpassed himself in the magnificence of the apparel which he had assumed in honour of the day's festivity. he stood on the khan's right hand, and more than once had the honour of being addressed by that personage; behind him, as behind the other chiefs, stood a swarm of servants, their ears--if they were still lucky enough to possess such appendages--ever attentive to catch the commands of their masters. father roger had been present in libor's retinue on this occasion, a slave among slaves. presently the wild mongolian "band" struck up. its members were a motley crew, stationed before the khan's tent, and their songs were of the most ear-splitting variety, accompanied too by the dull roll of drums and the screeching of pipes and horns, the whole performance being such as to baffle description, and to be compared only with the choicest of cats' concerts. the "music" seemed to be intended as a welcome to a white-flagged procession which now appeared in the distance, advancing towards the khan, every member heavily laden. it consisted in fact of the whole population of some two hundred villages and hamlets, from the district of which libor was chief magistrate. meanwhile, father roger had brought round libor's horse, magnificently caparisoned, and at the first burst of music, the knéz mounted and galloped off, followed, in obedience to his haughty signal, by a couple of armed mongols, the mongol chiefs meanwhile looking on with envious eyes. they were not too well pleased with the tartar-magyar's rise to favour. libor galloped across the plain to meet the new-comers, who bowed down before him as if he had been a god, and then rising again at his command, followed him to the camp, where he drew them up in a long line; after which he hurried back to the khan, dismounted, and announced that his people had brought him such gifts as they could, and only awaited his orders. the khan's wide mouth grew wider still as he smiled from ear to ear, and showed two perfect rows of sharp-pointed teeth; but the smile was like that of an ogre, and such as might have made some people rather uneasy, though not, of course, anyone who was such a favourite and in such an exalted position as libor. "that's well," said the khan; and then, turning from him, he muttered something to the other chiefs which escaped libor's ears or comprehension, though he had done his best to acquire the miserable language spoken by his master. the next moment a large detachment of mongols had stepped forth from behind the tents, and moving forward swiftly, but in perfect silence, had advanced towards the rear of the hungarians. others at the same time came from behind the khan's tent, and in a few seconds the white flags were hemmed in before and behind. libor, who had looked upon the whole ceremony as merely one of the usual devices for squeezing the unfortunate people, was plainly startled, nay terrified, by this sudden movement, and his astonishment and discomfiture did not escape the sharp eyes of batu. "these proceedings are not quite to your taste, eh, knéz?" said he, with a tigerish grin. and the wretched libor, bowing almost to the earth, made hurried answer, "how could i possibly take amiss anything that his highness the khan, my lord and master, may choose to do?" "i thought as much, my faithful knéz! make haste then, and see that all that these folk have brought is taken from them, and then--have them all cut down together!" libor turned pale as death, but he knew his master; he knew that the slightest remonstrance, the slightest demur even, would be at the risk of his life. he bowed more deeply than before, and staggered away to give the signal for the plunder and massacre of his own people. the wind had suddenly risen to a hurricane, and was filling the air with dust; the thunder pealed; but above the howling of the one and the roaring of the other, there rose one long, long cry, and then all was still. libor returned, trembling, shaking, to the khan, the gracious khan, whose favourite he was, who had honoured him to such an extent as to provoke the jealousy of the mongol chiefs; who had enriched him, and had distinguished him above all the rest. he had faithfully obeyed the khan's orders, though, with a bleeding heart; and now, holding as he did the first place among those who formed batu's retinue, he was secure as to his own miserable life, for who would dare to lift hand against him? the khan received him on his return with the same enigmatical smile, which seemed just now to be stereotyped on his lips. when the dust-storm was past, a terrible spectacle presented itself. thousands of corpses lay upon the ground; and among the men, who were quite worn out by their murderous work, were to be seen mongol women and children, seated upon the bodies of their victims, their hands stained with blood. "a few thousand bread eaters the less!" exclaimed batu, in high good humour, "and if my orders are as well carried out in other parts of the country as they have been by you, libor, my faithful knéz, there won't be many left to share the rich harvest and vintage with us." libor said nothing, for his lips were twitching and quivering convulsively. "by the way, libor," the khan went on pleasantly, "it has just struck me, what present have you yourself brought, my faithful servant?" "all that i possess belongs to your highness, mighty khan," said libor, trembling. "excellent man!" replied batu, and turning to one of the chiefs standing by, he addressed him in particular, saying gently, "see now, and take example by this excellent man, who has made me a present of all that he has!" the chief to whom these words were spoken cast a furious glance at the favourite. "all you possess is mine, eh, libor?" batu went on, "all, even your life, isn't it?" libor bowed. "oh, how faithful he is!" exclaimed the khan, addressing the same chief as before, and speaking in the same good-natured tone. "i know the loyalty of this trusty knéz of ours is a thorn in your eyes! and i know that there are some of you daring enough even to have doubts of his splendid fidelity and obedience! wretches, take example by libor the knéz!" so saying, the khan rose from his seat, and cried in a loud, shrill voice, "take this devoted servant and hang him on the tree yonder opposite my tent!" if a thunder-bolt had fallen at his feet libor could not have been more terror-stricken. he threw himself on his face before the khan, but his voice was strangled in his throat, and he could not utter a word; all that he was able to do was to wring his hands, and raise them imploringly towards his awful master. and the khan--burst into a loud fit of laughter! another moment and libor the favourite, the envied--whom the other chiefs were ready enough to speed upon his way--libor was hanging to a lofty willow-tree and tossing to and fro in the stormy wind. batu khan presented one of libor's horses--a lame one--to bajdár; and the rest of the ex-favourite's very considerable property he kept for himself. (bajdár, it may be remembered, though, of course, neither father roger nor talabor were aware of the fact, had been of the party which had attacked master peter's house, and we may readily guess how he had earned this handsome reward.) orsolya gave a sigh of satisfaction as father roger finished his story. "there is one traitor less in the world," said she, "and he might think himself lucky that he was only hanged! it was an easy death compared with many!" and she said the same thing, yet more emphatically, when she heard from dora and talabor of their experiences at the hands of the magyar-tartar-knéz. gentle father roger sighed too, but without any satisfaction, as he thought of the youth, with whom he had lived under the same roof, and to whom, as he was fond of insisting, he and his servant owed their lives. but when he heard all that talabor could tell him, he was as indignant as even orsolya could have wished; for he understood master peter, and saw at once what had puzzled so many, the reason why he had left dora at home instead of sending her to the queen, out of harm's way. chapter xx. like the phoenix. it seemed too good to be true! but it was a fact that the mongols were really gone--gone as they had come, like one of the plagues of egypt, for there "remained not one" in all hungary. as soon as king béla knew that the unexpected had come to pass, and that the land was clear of the enemy, he hastened home. but what a home he found! it had been one of the fairest and richest in europe; and now he rode for whole days without seeing so much as a single human being, and his followers had to do battle with the wild beasts, which had multiplied to an alarming degree. go which way he would, he found the land uncultivated and overgrown with thorns and weeds; and when he did come across an inhabited district, the men he encountered were not men, but spectres. the many unburied corpses, together with the sometimes altogether indescribable kinds of food upon which the people had had to subsist, had produced pestilence of divers kinds, which carried off many of those who had escaped the mongols. it was only a year or so since the first irruption of the mongols, but the land was a chaos. how the king laboured with might and main to restore the "years which the locust had eaten," and how he succeeded are matters which belong to history. very gradually and cautiously the people ventured forth from the dens in which they had concealed themselves. at first they came only one or two at a time, to reconnoitre; but when they were convinced that the enemy had utterly withdrawn himself, the joyful news was quickly conveyed to those who were still in hiding, and they flocked back to the ruined towns and villages, which began at once to rise from their ashes. one by one the bells pealed forth again from the church-towers, and many, many a cross was put up in the graveyards to the memory of those who returned no more; not only of those known to be dead, but of those who had simply disappeared, no one could say how, but whose bodies were never found, and who might therefore have been carried away to a living death as slaves. few indeed of the captives were ever seen again. many a hamlet and small village of the plains had been wiped out as completely as if it had never existed, and some of these were never rebuilt, though their names live in the neighbourhood to the present day. many a young man who had been but a "poor relation" before the flood, now found himself the heir to large estates and great wealth. once more the plough was to be seen at work among the furrows, drawn now by an ox, now by a horse, and not infrequently by the farmer himself, the old owner or the new. where there had been ten inhabitants there was now one; but that one seemed to have inherited all the energy, vigour, and hopefulness of the other nine, so fiercely he worked. buried treasures were dug up again, though often not by those who had buried them; many remained undiscovered for centuries; many have not been found to this day. the wolves still roamed the plains as if the world belonged to them; they would even enter the scantily populated villages and carry off infants from the cradle, and from the very arms of their mothers. clouds of ravens and crows still hovered over the countless bodies of those who had fallen victims to the mongols or to starvation, exposure, disease. both birds and beasts disputed the possession of the land with its returning inhabitants. of the forty members of the szirmay family there now remained but four male representatives: master peter, his nephew akos, and two others whose names have not come down to us; and all four of these were now wealthy landed proprietors. dora had been unable to communicate with her father; gabriel had never reached him; and when at length master peter was able to re-visit his faraway castle, he did so not knowing whether his daughter were alive or dead. he found the whole place in ruins; for dora had been only too right in her conjectures. the mongols had paid it another visit not long after her departure; and, finding the house deserted and empty, had vented their rage upon it in such a way that nothing remained to receive their owner but the bare walls. among the ruins, however, he discovered old moses, jakó, and a servant or two, all in a famishing condition. from them he learnt how dora had left the house only just in time to escape the second attack; but as to what had befallen her since, they could, of course, tell him nothing. she had intended to join him in dalmatia, and she had never arrived there. so much only was certain, and when he thought of the perils she must have encountered, and the awful sights he had himself seen by the way, his heart sank within him. and, worst of all, there was nothing to be done, nothing! but to wait, wait, wait, in a state of constant anxiety as to what he might any day hear. but supposing that she should have been preserved through all, and were only waiting till she heard news of him, or perhaps until she were able to travel! she would certainly hear in time, wherever she might be, of the king's return--she would go to him for news of her father--she would hear that he was alive, and she would come back to the old home to find him; so there he must stay! master peter was sufficiently practical to reflect that if his daughter appeared one day without warning, he would want a roof to shelter her, and to work he set making preparations accordingly, though with a heavy heart. yet the work did him good. it cheered him to see the labourers repairing the walls and roofing in what had been her own room, for sometimes it beguiled him into thinking that dora must certainly be coming, would be there perhaps before the place was ready for her, and then he would urge the workmen to greater speed. he was watching and superintending as usual one day, growing more and more down-hearted as he reckoned the many weeks, the months which had slipped past since he had left dalmatia, when the clatter of horse-hoofs roused him. most people were finding enough to do at home just now, and master peter was never more ready to welcome anyone--anyone who might bring him the tidings he longed for, and yet dreaded, or at least tell him news of some sort which would divert his thoughts for the time. he hurried forward to meet the visitor as he clattered into the courtyard, and--did his eyes deceive him? or was it indeed his old page who was bowing before him? talabor the page! talabor! any old face was welcome, but--suddenly he remembered! talabor had left the castle with dora, he had come back without her! master peter could do nothing but look at the young man, for his lips refused to utter a word; and he put up his hand with an imploring gesture, as one who would ward off an expected blow. what was it talabor was saying? that she was alive, safe, well! dora was alive and well! then--where was she? and why was she not with him? it was a minute or two before he could take it in; for, his tongue once loosed, he poured forth his questions so fast that talabor had no chance of replying to them. but, when at last he did understand that dora was with "aunt orsolya," that she had wanted to set out with talabor as soon as ever the roads were considered safe, that in fact she had begged and prayed her hostess to let her go, but that the old lady would not hear of her doing so, and had insisted on sending talabor first--why then, with a good-humoured "just like aunt orsolya!" master peter hastily decided that talabor must set out with him again that very day, and take him to her. horse tired? what did that matter? thank heaven, he had a horse or two still in the stable! and catching sight of moses, he shouted the good news and his orders together. talabor had hidden the furniture, the plate? very well, very well! so much the better, but they could wait! later on no doubt he would be properly grateful, but what would he have cared for a gold mine just now? he had no thought for anything but how to reach dora at the earliest possible moment, bring her home, and never let her out of his sight again whatever might betide. orsolya had remained in the cavern until all apprehension of the return of the mongols was over; and then she had betaken herself to the "barn" in frata, with quite a regiment of poor, homeless folk, whom she supported as best she could. there master peter found her and dora; and there, too, he met his nephew akos, and heard from him how he had escaped with mária from the kun massacre, and heard from dora how she had become quite attached to his bride, and no longer wondered at her cousin's choice. there is little more to say. but two or three months later, when master peter and his daughter had not only been restored to one another, but were once more at home, when the castle had been rebuilt, the hidden treasures found uninjured and brought back to the light of day, when dora had recovered the effects of her terrible journey and was beginning sometimes to feel as if its horrors were a dream--she received an offer of marriage from the haughty paul héderváry, who had lost his wife in dalmatia, and was now willing enough to conform to ancient usage and bestow himself upon her cousin, "his first love," as he was pleased to call her, the only child of the now wealthy master peter, and the heiress of his large estates. it was very magnanimous of him, he felt, and he expected dora and her father to see the matter in the same light, and to show their appreciation of the honour he was doing them. great therefore was his astonishment, when he received, not the willing assent he expected, but "a basket," or in other words a refusal, courteously worded, but unmistakably decided. he was even more than astonished, he was annoyed, mortified, for "secrets" of this kind were sure to leak out, even though the parties concerned held their tongues. there would certainly be some kind friend to spread abroad the news, that paul héderváry had been refused! little as he cared for paul, master peter was gratified by the proposal, if only because it would set dora right in the eyes of the world. possibly he would have been pleased to see her the great man's wife, in spite of all that had come and gone, but if so, he cared for her too much to press his views, and when dora herself asked his consent to her marriage with talabor, he was not the man to say her nay! how could he, when but for talabor he would have had no daughter, whether to give or to keep? and now he would give and keep too, for she could and must always live with him, and this reflection consoled him for any regret he might have felt at not having a more notable son-in-law, with a family-castle and estates of his own. a few words as to akos, or rather his wife, aunt orsolya's ward, mária, who had shared her retreat in the cave. who she was, was never exactly known to the world in general. in hungary she was always said to be a transylvanian relation of the szirmays, while in transylvania she passed for a hungarian member of the same family. but how she came to be placed in aunt orsolya's charge was a secret never divulged. one thing struck people as strange, and it was this: akos had been well known as a friend of the kunok, so that, if the kun king had confided to him the place where he had hidden his treasure, that was nothing remarkable; nor was anyone astonished to hear that akos had unearthed it and delivered it up to the king, or that the latter had made it over to the queen. but why should the queen have given everything to mária, when her own stock of jewellery must surely have needed replenishing? more surprised still would people have been, had they seen the queen kiss the girl's still pale cheek, and heard her say, as she wished her all happiness, "dear child, would that instead of giving you these, i could restore to you those who are gone! but we have all lost so many, we have all so many, many graves to weep over!" yet another circumstance attracted attention, though the fact that akos had championed the cause of the kunok was supposed to account for it. many of these had returned to hungary by invitation of the king, who was anxious to re-people the country, if only to keep down the wild animals. on the first anniversary of mária's marriage a deputation from these kunok came to her and akos. to him they presented a hundred arrows and one of their famous long-bows of dog-wood, beautifully ornamented with gold; and to her they gave a coronet of no small value. after awhile some few of the tartar-magyars returned from the places where they had hidden themselves, and were re-magyarised; but never, to the day of their death, were they reinstated in the good graces of their neighbours. the king, however, was more merciful than the populace. there were so few magyars left that he was disposed to cherish lovingly the scanty remnants, and not only showed lasting gratitude to those who had shared with him the time of adversity, and rewarded all who had distinguished themselves by acts of courage or self-devotion, but he even became blind and deaf when any were denounced as turncoats. among the many who received the king's thanks for their loyalty, talabor was not overlooked. how he had repulsed the mongol attack upon master peter's castle, how loyal and devoted he had been to the szirmay family, and especially how he had saved father roger from the wolves, was all known to the king, who gave him a considerable property, the renewal of his patent of nobility, and the surname of védvár, _i.e._, castle-defender. father roger became in time archbishop of spalatro, and in his "lamentable song" he left to future generations a full account of the time of terror and misery through which the nation had passed. hungary had learnt something from her trouble, and the next time the mongols thought of invading her they were promptly driven back. as for the treacherous duke of austria, he lived to see his neighbour more firmly established on the throne than any of his predecessors had been, and just five years after all the mischief he had done during the mongol invasion, he lost his life in battle with the hungarians, or rather with the vanguard of the army, which, by a singular nemesis, consisted mainly of kunok; and the three counties which had been so unjustly obtained by him were again united to the fatherland. the end. _jarrold & sons, limited, the empire press, norwich._ _jarrold & sons'_ _six shilling novels._ crown 8vo, art linen, gilt elegant, 6s. each. =carpathia knox.= by curtis yorke, author of "a romance of modern london," "because of the child," etc. =jocelyn erroll.= by curtis yorke, author of "hush," "that little girl," "the wild ruthvens," etc. =the golden dog.= (le chien d'or.) by william kirby, f.r.s.c. a romance of the days of louis quinze in quebec. =st. peter's umbrella.= by kalmán mikszáth. with introduction by r. nisbet bain. =in tight places.= by major arthur griffiths, author of "forbidden by law," etc. =wayfarers all.= by leslie keith, author of "'lisbeth," "my bonnie lady," etc., etc. =day of wrath.= by maurus jókai. translated from the hungarian by r. nisbet bain. with new photogravure portrait. =debts of honor.= by maurus jókai, author of "the green book," "black diamonds," etc. =eyes like the sea.= by maurus jókai, author of "the poor plutocrats," "the nameless castle," etc. =captain satan.= adventures of cyrano de bergerac. translated from the french of louis gallet. =anima vilis.= a tale of the great siberian steppe, by marya rodziewicz. translated by s. c. de soissons. =the man who forgot.= by john mackie, author of "the devil's playground," "sinners twain," etc. =a woman's burden.= by fergus hume, author of "the mystery of a hansom cab," "the lone inn," etc. london: jarrold and sons, 10 and 11, warwick lane, e.c. jarrold & sons' new & forthcoming books. _second edition._ =old days in diplomacy.= by the eldest daughter of sir edward cromwell disbrowe, g.c.g. en. ex. min. plen. with preface by m. montgomery-campbell, several photogravure portraits, and an autograph letter from queen charlotte. deals with personages and events figuring in the history of the first half of the nineteenth century. first edition was subscribed for in advance of publication. second edition now ready. 10/6 nett =a house of letters.= edited by ernest b. betham. being excerpts from the correspondence of charlotte jerningham (the hon. lady bedingfield), lady jerningham, coleridge, lamb, southey, and others, with matilda betham. the volume will be fully illustrated, and will contain reproductions from portraits by sir joshua reynolds, opie, and sir william ross. 10/6 nett. ='neath the hoof of the tartar; or, the scourge of god.= by baron nicolas jósika--the sir walter scott of hungary. translated by selina gaye. with photogravure portrait of author, and preface by r. nisbet bain. gives a vivid and realistic picture of a series of great national events. a powerful love story in which scenes of warfare figure conspicuously. a novel on heroic lines. 6/ =a scottish bluebell.= by etta buchanan bennett. a wholesome, romantic novel. the heroine, sweet marjorie lindsay, resides at a little seaside town in scotland. she discovers a family secret, and in the end ascertains that she is the heiress of the earl of lowrie. the story contains many exciting episodes at home and abroad, and has a powerful plot. first edition subscribed for in advance of publication. 3/6 =satan's courier; or, the company promoter.= by flora hayter (mrs. northesk wilson), author of "belgrade: the white city of death," etc. 6/ =being the secret history of events which led up to the boer war.= "a story of supreme interest, even apart from the light it proposes to shed upon south african affairs. regarded simply as a novel the book is of thrilling power. it enthrals, it consumes."--_the echo._ "an able book."--_daily news._ =the rising of the red man.= a romance of the louis riel rebellion. by john mackie, author of "the man who forgot," "tales of the trenches," "the cannibal island," etc. with six full-page illustrations by e. f. skinner. 3/6 "compels attention to the last line. a vigorous piece of writing, which shows mr. mackie at his best."--_yorkshire post._ "at once grips attention."--_dundee advertiser._ =outcasts from choice.= a story of klondike. by mr. gustin aish. the title, although it may be held to refer to all miners in general, has a special reference to a distinguished professor, his wife and her sister, who live in the miners' camp for a year. the story is of a distinctly original type. 3/6 =the chronicles of baba.= a canine teetotum. by m. montgomery-campbell, author of "worth the struggle," "two lovable imps," "my very, very own," etc. the amusing and instructive life-story of a yorkshire terrier. beautifully illustrated from photographs taken from life. 3/6 "a sympathetic and charmingly told story of the life of a pet dog, which exhibits his own character and those of his four-footed friends with a rare insight into canine psychology."--_the scotsman._ "nothing could be more entertaining and instructive ... a glimpse of real dog life."--_glasgow herald._ transcriber's note: the following typographical errors present in the original edition have been corrected. in chapter iii, a quotation mark was added before "but--we might find or invent someone". in chapter iv, a period was added after "the king was always glad to welcome useful immigrants". in chapter vii, a period was added after "in exterminating the common enemy", and "versecz" was changed to "verecz". (thanks to the national széchényi library in hungary for their assistance in determining the correct spelling.) in chapter ix, "perhaps marána's betrothral was known" was changed to "perhaps marána's betrothal was known", and "having helped to capture kuthven's castle" was changed to "having helped to capture kuthen's castle". in chapter xi, "borká's aid" was changed to "borka's aid", and "jankó the dog-keeper" was changed to "jakó the dog-keeper". in chapter xii, a quotation mark was deleted after "must not?" in chapter xiii, "all danger was believed to be over the night" was changed to "all danger was believed to be over for the night". in chapter xvi, "in such numbers that great part of the country was re-populated" was changed to "in such numbers that a great part of the country was re-populated", and "and few but stragglers" was changed to "and but few stragglers". in chapter xix, a quotation mark was deleted before "if a thunder-bolt". in chapter xx, "whieh carried off many of those" was changed to "which carried off many of those", "after awhile some few of the tartar-maygars returned" was changed to "after awhile some few of the tartar-magyars returned", and the footer "jarrold & sons, limited, the empire press, norwich," at the bottom of the last page was changed to "jarrold & sons, limited, the empire press, norwich." the advertisement for jarrold & sons' six shilling novels was moved from the front of the book to the back. in the list of new and forthcoming books, "lady jermingham" was changed to "lady jerningham", and "baron nicolas jòsika" was changed to "baron nicolas jósika". any remaining inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation were present in the original text. by wit of woman by arthur w. marchmont _author of "when i was czar" "by snare of love" "a dash for a throne" etc etc_ illustrations by s. h. vedder london ward lock & co. limited 1906 contents chap. i from beyond the pale ii a chess opening iii my plan of campaign iv madame d'artelle v a night adventure vi gareth vii gareth's father viii count karl ix i come to terms with madame x a dramatic stroke xi plain talk xii his excellency again xiii getting ready xiv i elope xv an embarrassing drive xvi a wisp of ribbon xvii in the dead of night xviii the cost of victory xix a tragi-comedy xx my arrest xxi his excellency to the rescue xxii colonel katona speaks xxiii a greek gift xxiv what the duke meant xxv on the threshold xxvi face to face xxvii "this is gareth" xxviii the colonel's secret xxix a singular truce xxx the end illustrations "he held out his hand when madame presented him." "the two scoundrels pulled up at the sight of it." "throwing herself on her knees at the duke's feet." chapter i from beyond the pale "to john p. gilmore, jefferson city, missouri, u.s.a. "my dear brother-in-law,--for years you have believed me dead, and i have made no effort to disturb that belief. "i am dying now, alone in paris, far from my beloved country; unjustly degraded, dishonoured and defamed. this letter and its enclosure will not be despatched until the grave has closed over me. "to you i owe a debt of deep gratitude. you have taken and cared for my darling child, christabel; you have stood between her and the world, and have spared her from the knowledge and burden of her father's unmerited shame. you can yet do something more--give her your name, so that mine with its disgrace may be forgotten; unless--it is a wild thought that has come to me in my last hours, the offspring of my hopeless melancholy--unless she should ever prove to have the strength, the courage, the wit and the will to essay that which i have endeavoured fruitlessly--the clearance of my name and honour. "when ruin first fell upon me, i made a vow never to reveal myself to her until i had cleared my name and hers from the stain of this disgrace. i have kept the vow--god knows at what sorrow to myself and against what temptation in these last lonely years--and shall keep it now to the end. "the issue i leave to you. if you deem it best, let her continue to believe that i died years ago. if otherwise, give her the enclosed paper--the story of my cruel wrong--and tell her that during the last years of my life my thoughts were all of her, that my heart yearned for her, and that my last conscious breath will be spent in uttering her name and blessing her. "such relics of my once great fortune as i have, i am sending to you for my christabel. "adieu. "ernst von dreschler, count melnik." "to my daughter, christabel von dreschler. "my dearest child,--if you are ever to read these lines it will be because your uncle believes you are fitted to take up the task of clearing our name, from the stain of crime which the villainy of others has put upon it. but whether you will make the effort must be decided finally by yourself alone. for two years i have tried, with such strength as was left to me by those who did me this foul wrong, and i have failed. were you a son, i should lay this task upon you as a solemn charge; but you are only a girl, and left in your hands, it would be all but hopeless, because of both its difficulty and probable danger. i leave you free to decide: for the reason that if you have not the personal capacity to make the decision, you will not have in you the power to succeed. one thing only i enjoin upon you. if you cannot clear my name, do not bear it. "i have not strength to write out in full all the details of the matter, but i give you the main outline here and send in this packet many memoranda which i have made from time to time. these will give you much that you need. "at the time of your mother's death and your leaving hungary for the united states i was, as you may remember, a colonel in the austro-hungarian army, in possession of my title and estates, and in favour with one of the two most powerful of all the great slav nobles, ladislas, duke of kremnitz. i continued, as i believed, to enjoy his confidence for two years longer, up to the last, indeed. he was one of the leaders of the patriots--the great patriotic movement which you will find described in the papers i send you--the other being the hungarian magnate, duke alexinatz of waitzen. two of my friends, whose names you must remember, were major katona, my intimate associate, and colonel von erlanger, whom i knew less well. "if the patriots were successful, the hungarian throne was to be filled by duke alexinatz with reversion to his only son, count stephen; and it is necessary for you to understand that this arrangement was expressly made by duke ladislas himself. "so matters stood when, one day, some hot words passed between young count stephen and myself, and he insulted me grossly. two days later, major katona came to my house at night in great agitation. he declared that the count had sworn to shoot me, and that his father had espoused his side in the quarrel and threatened to have me imprisoned; and that duke ladislas, unwilling to quarrel with duke alexinatz, although taking my part in the affair, desired me to absent myself from buda-pesth until the storm had blown over. he pressed me to leave instantly; and, suspecting nothing, i yielded. i had scarcely left my house when the carriage was stopped, i was seized, gagged, and blindfolded, and driven for many hours in this condition, and then imprisoned. i believed that i was in the hands of the agents of duke alexinatz; and continued in this belief for six years, during the whole of which time i was kept a close prisoner. "then at length i escaped: my strength sapped, my mind impaired and my spirit broken by my captivity; and learned that i had been branded as a murderer with a price set on my head. "on the night when i had left, the young count stephen had been found shot in my house; my flight was accepted as proof of my guilt, and, most infamous of all, a confession of having murdered him had been made public with my signature attached to it. "that is the mystery, as it stands to-day. the god i am soon to meet face to face knows my heart and that i am innocent; but prove it i cannot. may he give you the strength and means denied to me to solve the mystery. "with this awful shadow upon me, i could not seek you out, let my heart ache and stab as it would with longing for a sight of your face and a touch of your hand. i thank god i have still been man enough--feeble as my mind is after my imprisonment--to keep away from you. "this sad story you will never know, unless your uncle deems it for the best. "that god may keep you happy and bless you is the last prayer of your unhappy father, "ernst von dreschler." * * * * * my uncle gilmore had been dead three months, having left me his fortune and his name, when, in sorting his old papers to destroy them, i came upon these letters. they were two years old; and it was evident that while my uncle had intentionally kept them from me, he had at the same time been unwilling to destroy them. my poor, poor father! chapter ii a chess opening "if your excellency makes that move i must mate in three moves." his excellency's long white fingers were fluttering indecisively above the bishop and were about to close upon it, when i was guilty of so presumptuous a breach of etiquette as to warn him. he was appropriately shocked. he fidgeted, frowned at me, and then smiled. it was one of those indulgent smiles with which a great man is wont to favour a young woman in his employment. "really, i don't think so," he replied; and having been warned by one whose counsel he could not condescend to rank very high, he did what most men would do under the circumstances. he made the move out of doggedness. i smiled, taking care that he should see it. the mate was perfectly apparent, but i was in no hurry to move. i had much more in view just then than the mere winning of the game. the time had arrived when i thought the minister and i ought to come to an understanding. "your excellency does not set enough store by my advice," i said slowly. "but there are reasons this evening. your thoughts are not on the game." "really, miss gilmore! i am sorry if i have appeared preoccupied." he accompanied the apology with a graceful, deprecatory wave of his white hand. he was very proud of the whiteness of his hands and the grace of many of his gestures. he studied such things. "i am not surprised," i said. "the solution of the mystery of those lost ducal jewels must naturally be disturbing." his involuntary start was sufficiently energetic to shake the table on which the board was placed, and to disturb one or two of the pieces. he looked intently at me, and during the stare i put the pieces upon their squares with unnecessary deliberation. then i lifted my eyes and returned his look with one equally intent. some of the family jewels of the duke ladislas of kremnitz had been stolen a few days before, and the theft had completely baffled the officials of the government from his excellency, general von erlanger, downwards. it had been kept absolutely secret, but--well, i had made it my business to know things. "it has been a very awkward affair," i added, when he did not speak. "shall we resume our game, miss gilmore?" the tone was stiff. he intended me to understand that such matters were not for me to discuss. i made the first move toward the mate and then said-"chess is a very tell-tale game, your excellency. the theft occurred seven days ago, and for six of them you have been so preoccupied that i have won every game. to-night you have been alternately smiling and depressed; it is an easy inference, therefore, that the solution of the mystery is even more troublesome than the mystery itself. in point of fact, i was sure it would be." instead of studying his move, he began to fidget again; and presently looked across the board at me with another of his condescending, patronizing smiles. "the loss you may have heard spoken of, but you cannot know anything more. what, pray, do you think the solution is?" it never entered his clever head that i could possibly know anything about it. "i think you have been an unconscionable time in discovering what was palpably obvious from the outset." he frowned. he liked this reply no better than i intended. then the frown changed to a sneer, masked with a bantering smile, but all the same unmistakable. "it is a serious matter for our government to fall under your censure, miss gilmore." "i don't think it is more stupid than other governments," i retorted with intentional flippancy. i was not in the least awed by his eminent position, while he himself was, and found it difficult therefore to understand me. this was as i wished. "americans are very shrewd, i know, especially american ladies, who are also beautiful. but such matters as this----" and he waved his white hand again loftily; as though the problem would have baffled the wisdom of the world--any wisdom, indeed, but his. now this was just the opening i was seeking. i had only become governess to his two girls in order to make an opportunity for myself. i used the opening promptly. "will your excellency send for your daughter, charlotte?" he started as if i had stuck a pin in him. if you wish to interest a man, you must of course mystify him. "for what purpose?" "that you may see there is no collusion." "i don't understand you," he replied. i knew that as clearly as i saw he was now interested enough to wish me to do so. i let my fingers dawdle among the chessmen during a pause intended to whet his curiosity, and then replied: "i wish you to ask her to bring you a sealed envelope which i gave her six days ago, the day after the jewels disappeared." "it is very unusual," he murmured, wrinkling his brows and pursing his lips. "i am perhaps, not quite a usual person," i admitted, with a shrug. he sat thinking, and presently i saw he would humour me. his brows straightened out, and his pursed lips relaxed into the indulgent smile once more. "you are a charming woman, miss gilmore, if a little unusual, as you say;" and he rang the bell. "you have not moved, i think," i reminded him; but he sat back, not looking at the board and not speaking until his daughter came. i understood this to signify that i was on my trial. "miss gilmore gave you a sealed envelope some days ago, charlotte," he said to her. "she wishes you to bring it to me. has it really any connexion with this case?" he asked, as soon as she had left to fetch it. i laughed. "how could it, your excellency? what could a girl in my position, here only a few weeks, possibly know about such a thing?" as this was the thought obviously running in his own mind, he had no difficulty in assenting to it politely. "then what does this mean?" he asked, with a little fretful frown of inquisitiveness. "i am only proving my self-diagnosis as a somewhat unusual person. will you move now?" he bent forward and scanned the pieces; but his thoughts were not following his eyes, and with an impatient gesture he leaned back again. i continued to study the board as though the game were all in all to me. "you are pleased to be mysterious, miss gilmore;" he said, his tone a mingling of severity, sarcasm and irritation. i was to understand that a man of his exalted importance was not to be trifled with. "i appreciate greatly your valuable services, but i do not like mysteries." i raised my eyes from the board as if reluctantly. "i am unlike your excellency in that. they have a distinct attraction for me. this has." i indicated the mate problem with my hand, but my eyes contradicted the gesture. he believed the eyes, and again moved uneasily in his chair. "it is naturally an attractive problem. i have moved, you know." he was a very legible man for all his diplomatic experience; and the little struggle between his sense of dignity and piqued curiosity was quite amusing. but i was careful not to show my amusement. nothing more was said until the envelope had been brought and charlotte sent away again. he toyed with it, trying to appear as if it were part of some silly childish game to which he had been induced to condescend in order to please me. "what shall i do with this?" "suppose you open it?" i said, blandly. he shrugged his shoulders, waved his white hand, lifted his eyebrows and smiled, obviously excusing himself to himself for his participation in anything so puerile; and then opened it slowly. but the moment he read the contents his manner changed completely. his clear-cut features set, his expression grew suddenly tense with astonishment, his lips were pressed close together to check the exclamation of surprise that rose to them; even his colour changed slightly, and his eyes were like two steel flints for hardness as he looked up from the paper and across the chessmen at me. i enjoyed my moment of triumph. "it is your excellency's move," i said again, lightly. "it is a most interesting position. this knight----" he waved the game out of consideration impatiently. "what does this mean?" he asked, almost sternly. "oh, that!" i said, with a note of disappointment, which i changed to one of somewhat simpering stupidity. "i was trying my hand at adapting the french proverb. i think i put it '_cherchez le comte karl el la comtesse d'artelle_,' didn't i?" "miss gilmore!" he exclaimed, very sharply. i made a carefully calculated pause and then replied, choosing my words with deliberation: "it is the answer to your excellency's question as to my opinion of the solution. if you have followed my formula, you have of course found the jewels. the count was the thief." "in god's name!" he cried, glancing round as though the very furniture must not hear such a word so applied. "it was so obvious," i observed, with a carelessness more affected than real. he sat in silence for some moments as he fingered the paper, and then striking a match burnt it with great deliberation, watching it jealously until every stroke of my writing was consumed. "you say charlotte has had this nearly a week?" "the date was on it. i am always methodical," i replied, slowly. "i meant to prove to you that i can read things." his eyes were even harder than before and his face very stern as he paused before replying with well-weighed significance: "i fear you are too clever a young woman to have further charge of my two daughters, miss gilmore. i will consider and speak to you later." "i agree with you, of course. but why later? why not now? my object in coming here was not to be governess to your children, but to enter the service of the government. this is the evidence of my capacity; and it is all part of my purpose. i am not a good teacher, i know; but i can do better than teach." he listened to me attentively, his white finger-tips pressed together, and his lips pursed; and when i finished he frowned--not in anger but in thought. presently a slight smile, very slight and rather grim, drew down the corners of his mouth. and then i knew that i had matriculated as an agent of the government. "shall we finish the game, your excellency?" "which?" he asked laconically, a twinkle in the hard eyes. "it is of course for your excellency to decide." "you are a good player, miss gilmore. where did you learn?" "i have always been fond of problems." "and good at guessing?" "it is not all guessing--at chess," i replied, meaningly. "one has to see two or three moves ahead and to anticipate your opponent's moves." a short laugh slipped out. "let us play this out. you may have made a miscalculation," he said, and bent over the board. "not in this game, your excellency." "you are very confident." "because i am sure of winning." he grunted another laugh and after studying the position, made a move. "i foresaw your excellency's move. it is my chance. check now, of course, and mate, next move." "i know when i am outplayed," he said, with a glance. "i resign. and now we will talk. you play a good game and a bold one, miss gilmore, but chess is not politics." "true. politics require less brains, the stakes are worth winning, and men bar women from competing." "it is rare to find girls of your age wishing to compete." "i am twenty-three," i interjected. "still, only a girl: and a girl at your age is generally looking for a lover instead of nursing ambitions." "i have known men of your excellency's age busy at the same sport," said i. "besides, i may have been a girl," i added, demurely; taking care to infuse the suggestion with sufficient sentiment. "and now?" he asked, bluntly. "i am still a girl, i hope--but with a difference." "you are not thinking of making a confidant of an old widower like me, are you?" "no, i am merely laying before you my qualifications." "you know there is no room for heart in political intrigue? tell me, then, plainly, what do you wish to do?" "to lend my woman's wit to your excellency's government for a fair recompense." "what _could_ you do?" there was a return to his former indulgent superiority in the question which nettled me. "i could use opportunities as your agents cannot." "how? by other clever guesses?" "it was no guess. i have seen the jewels in madame d'artelle's possession." he tried not to appear surprised, but the effort was a failure. "i have been entertaining a somewhat dangerous young woman in my house, it seems," he said. "it was ridiculously easy, of course." "perhaps you will explain it to me." "a conjuror does not usually give away his methods, your excellency. but i will tell this one. feeling confident that count karl had stolen the jewels, and that his object would only be to give them to the countess, i had only to gain access to her house to find them. i found a pretext therefore, and went to her, and--but you can probably guess the rest." "indeed, i cannot." it was my turn now to indulge in a smile of superiority. "i am surprised; but i will make it plainer. i succeeded in interesting her so that she kept me in the house some hours. i was able to amuse her; and when i had discovered where she kept her chief treasures, the rest was easy." "you looked for yourself?" "you do me less than justice. i am not so crude and inartistic in my methods. she showed them to me herself." "miss gilmore!" disbelief of the statement cried aloud in his exclamation. "why not say outright that you find that impossible of credence? yet it is true. i mean that i led her to speak of matters which necessitated her going to that hiding-place, and interested her until she forgot that i had eyes in my head, so that, in searching for something else, she let me see the jewels themselves." "could you get them back?" he asked, eagerly. i drew myself up and answered very coldly. "i have failed to make your excellency understand me or my motives, i fear. i could do so, of course, if i were also--a thief!" "i beg your pardon, miss gilmore," he exclaimed quickly, adding with a touch of malice. "but you so interested me that i forgot who you were." "it was only an experiment on my part; and so far successful that i won the countess' confidence and she has pressed me to go to her." "you didn't refer her to me for your credentials, i suppose?" he said, his eyes lighting with sly enjoyment. "she asked for no credentials." "do you mean that you talked her into wanting you so badly as to take you into her house without knowing anything about you?" "may i remind your excellency that i was honoured by even your confidence in giving me my present position without any credentials." he threw up his hands. "you have made me forget that in the excellent discretion with which you have since justified my confidence. i have indeed done you less than justice." "the countess thinks that, together, we should make a strong combination." "you must not go to her, miss gilmore--unless at least----" he paused, but i had no difficulty in completing his sentence. "that is my view, also--unless at least i come to an understanding with you beforehand. it will help that understanding if i tell you that i am in no way dependent upon my work for my living. i am an american, as i have told you, but not a poor one; and my motive in all this has no sort of connexion with money. as money is reckoned here, i am already a sufficiently rich woman." "you continue to surprise me. yet you spoke of--of a recompense for your services?" "i am a volunteer--for the present. i shall no doubt seek a return some time; but as yet, it will be enough for me to work for your government; to go my own way, to use my own methods, and to rely only upon you where i may need the machinery at your disposal. my success shall be my own. if i succeed, the benefits will be yours; if i fail, you will be at liberty to disavow all connexion between us." he sat thinking over these unusual terms so long that i had to dig in the spur. "the countess d'artelle is a more dangerous woman than you seem at present to appreciate. she is the secret agent of her government. she has not told me that, or i should not tell it to you; but i know it. should i serve your government or hers? the choice is open to me." he drew a deep breath. "i have half suspected it," he murmured; then bluntly: "you must not serve hers." "that is the decision i was sure you would make, general. we will take it as final." "you are a very remarkable young woman, miss gilmore." "and now, a somewhat fatigued one. i will bid you good-night. i am no longer your daughter's governess, but will remain until you have found my successor." "you will always be a welcome guest in my house," and he bade me good-night with such new consideration as showed me i had impressed him quite as deeply as i could have wished. perhaps rather too deeply, i thought afterwards, when i recalled his glances as we parted. chapter iii my plan of campaign when my talk with general von erlanger over the chess board took place, i had but recently decided to plunge into the maelstrom whose gloomy undercurrent depths concealed the proofs of my father's innocence and the dark secret of his cruel wrongs. my motive in coming to pesth was rather a desire to gauge for myself at first hand the possibility of success, should i undertake the task, than the definitely formed intention to attempt it. i had studied all my father's papers closely, and in the light of them had pushed such inquiries as i could. i had at first taken a small house, and as a reason for my residence in the city had entered as a student of the university. i was soon familiar with the surface position of matters. duke alexinatz was dead: his son's death was said to have broken his heart; and duke ladislas of kremnitz was the acknowledged head of the slavs. major katona was now colonel katona, and lived a life of seclusion in a house in a suburb of the city. colonel von erlanger had risen to be general, and was one of the chief executive ministers of the local hungarian government--a very great personage indeed. the duke had two sons, karl the elder, his heir, and gustav. karl was a disappointment; and gossip was very free with his name as that of a morose, dissipated libertine, whose notorious excesses had culminated in an attachment for madame d'artelle, a very beautiful frenchwoman who had come recently to the city. of gustav, the younger, no one could speak too highly. he was all that his brother was not. as clever as he was handsome and as good as he was clever, "gustav of the laughing eyes," as he was called, was a favourite with every one, men and women alike, from his father downwards. he was such a paragon, indeed, that the very praises of him started a prejudice in my mind against him. i did not believe in paragons--men paragons, that is. cynicism this, if you like, unworthy of a girl of three and twenty; but the result of a bitter experience which i had better relate here, as it will account for many things, and had close bearing upon what was to follow. as i told general von erlanger, i am not a "usual person;" and the cause is to be looked for, partly in my natural disposition and partly in my upbringing. my uncle gilmore was a man who had made his own "pile," and had "raised" me, as they say in the south, pretty much as he would have "raised" a boy had i been of that sex. his wife died almost directly after i was taken to jefferson city; but not before my sharp young eyes had seen that the two were on the worst of terms. his nature was that rare combination of dogged will and kind heart; and his wife perpetually crossed him in small matters and was a veritable shrew of shrews. he was "taking no more risks with females," he told me often enough, with special reference to matrimony; and at first was almost disposed to send me back to pesth because of my sex. that inclination soon changed, however; and all the love that was in his big heart was devoted to my small self. but he treated me much more like a boy than a girl. i had my own way in everything; nothing was too good for me. in a word, i was spoiled to a degree which only american parents understand. "old gilmore's heiress" was somebody in jefferson city, i can assure you; and if i gave myself ridiculous airs in consequence, the fault was not wholly my own. i am afraid i had a very high opinion of myself. i did what i liked, had what i wished, went where i pleased, and thought myself a great deal prettier than i was. i was in short "riding for a fall;" and i got it--and fell far; being badly hurt in the process. the trouble came in new york where i went when i was eighteen; setting out with the elated conviction that i was going to make a sort of triumphal social progress over the bodies of many discomfited and outclassed rivals. but i found that in new york i was just one among many girls, most of them richer and much prettier than i: a nobody with provincial mannerisms among heaps of somebodies with an air and manner which i at first despised, then envied, and soon set to work at ninety miles an hour speed to imitate. i had all but completed this self-education when my trouble came--a love trouble, of course. i became conscious of a great change in myself. up to that point i had held a pretty cheap opinion of men in general, and especially of those with whom i had flirted. but i realized, all suddenly, the wrongfulness of flirting. that was, i think the first coherent symptom. the next was the painful doubt whether a very handsome austrian, the count von ostelen, was merely flirting with me. i knew german thoroughly, having spoken it in my childhood; and i had ample opportunities of speaking it now with the count. we both made the most of them, indeed; until i found--i was only eighteen, remember--that the world was all brightness and sunshine; the people all good and true; and the count the embodiment of all that a girl's hero should be. i was warned against the count, of course: one's intimate friends always see to that; but the warnings acted as intelligent persons will readily understand--they made me his champion, and plunged me deeper than ever into love's wild, entrancing, ecstatic maze. to me he became not only the personification of manly beauty and strength, but the very type of human nobility, honour, and virtue. to think such rubbish about any man, one must of course have the fever very badly; and i had it so intensely that, when he paid me attentions which made other girls tremble with anger and envy, i was so happy that i even forgot to exult over them. i must have been very love sick for that. i came to laugh at it afterwards--or almost laugh--and to realize that it was an excellent discipline for my silly child's pride: but to learn the lesson i had to pass through the ordeal of fire and passion and hot scalding tears that go to the hardening of a young heart. he had been merely amusing himself at the expense of a "raw miss from the west;" and the knowledge came to me as suddenly as the squall will strike a yacht, all sails standing, and strew the proud white canvas a wreck on the waves. at a ball one night we had danced together as often as usual, and when, as we sat out a waltz, he had asked me for a ribbon or a flower, i had been child enough to let him see all my heart as i gave them to him. love was in my eyes; and was answered by words and looks from him which set me in a very seventh heaven of ecstatic delight. then, the next day, crash came the dream-skies all about me. i was riding in the central park and he joined me. i saw at once he was changed; and my glad smile died away at his constrained formal greeting. he struck the blow at once, with scarcely a word of preamble. "i am leaving for europe to-morrow, miss von dreschler," he said. "i have enjoyed new york immensely." the chill of dismay was too deadly to be concealed. i gripped the pommel of the saddle with twitching, strenuous fingers. "you have been called away suddenly?" i asked; my instinct being thus to defend him even against himself. he paused, as if hesitating to use the excuse i offered. "no," he answered. "it has been arranged for weeks. these things have to be with us, you know." in a flash his baseness was laid bare to me; and the first sensation of numbing pain dumbed me. i had not then acquired the art of masking my feelings. but anger came to my relief, as i realized how he had intentionally played with me. i knew what a silly trusting fool i had been; and knew too that had i been a man, i would have struck him first and killed him afterwards for his dastardly treachery. i was like a little wild beast in my sudden fury. he saw something of this; for his eyes changed. "i am so sorry," he said. as if a lip apology were sufficient anã¦sthetic for the stabbing pain in my heart. "for what, count von ostelen?" i asked, lifting my head and looking him squarely in the eyes. the question disconcerted him. "i did not know----" he stammered, and stopped in confusion. "did not know what?" i asked; and he was again so embarrassed by the direct challenge that he kept silent. his embarrassment helped me; and i added: "i think your going is the best thing for all concerned, count, except perhaps for the unfortunate country to which you go. _bon voyage!_" and with that i wheeled my horse round and rode away. it was months before the wound healed; months of sorrow, self-discipline and rigidly suppressed suffering. i took it fighting, as our missouri men say. no one saw any difference in me. my moods were as changeable, my manner as frivolous, my words as light and my smiles as frequent as before; and i was as careful not to over-act the frivolous part as i was to hide the truth. it was a period of as hard labour as ever a convict endured in sing-sing prison. but i won. not a soul even suspected the canker in my heart which had changed the point of view of all things in life for me. i came in the end to be glad of the stern self-discipline which had made me a woman before my girlhood had fully opened. i learnt the lesson thoroughly, and never again would i be tempted to trust myself to any man's untender mercies. i grew very tired of a girl's humdrum routine life. i longed for activity and adventure. i wanted to be doing something earnest and real, to pit myself against men on equal terms; and for this i sought to qualify myself both physically and mentally. i travelled through the states alone; meeting more than once with adventures that tested my nerve and courage. i made a trip to europe; and when my uncle insisted upon sending a good placid dame to chaperone me, i found occasion to quarrel with her on the voyage out so that i might even sample europe by myself. unconsciously, i was fitting myself for the work which my father's letters were to lay upon me; and when in paris on that trip i had an adventure destined to prove of vital import to that task. the big hotel in which i was staying caught fire one night, and the visitors, most of them women and elderly men, were half mad with panic. i was escaping when i found crouching in one of the corridors, fear-stricken, helpless, and hysterical, a very beautiful woman whom i had seen at the dinner table, the laughing centre of a noisy and admiring crowd of men. i first shook some particles of sense into her and then got her out. it was a perfectly easy thing to do without any risk to me; but she said i had saved her life. probably i had: for she might have lain there till she was suffocated by the smoke; and she insisted upon showering much hysterical gratitude upon me; and then wished to make me her close friend. she was a madame constans; and, as i can be cautious enough upon occasion, i had some inquiries made about her from our embassy. the caution was justified. she was a secret government agent; a police spy with a past. i parted from her therefore amid vivid evidences of affection from her and vehement protestations that, if ever she could return the obligation, her life would willingly be at my disposal. i accepted her declarations at their verbal worth and expected never to see her again. but the fates had arranged otherwise; and it was with genuine astonishment that when madame d'artelle was pointed out to me one day driving in the stadwalchen of pesth, i recognized her as madame constans. this fact set me thinking. what could she be doing in buda pesth? why was she coiling the net of intrigue round the young count--the future duke? was she still a secret government agent promoted to an international position? who was behind her in it all? these and other questions of the kind were started. then came the mysterious theft of the ducal jewels; and through my instinct, or intuition, call it by what term you may, that which was a mystery to so many became my key to the whole problem. count karl was in the toils of the lovely french-woman; he was one of the very few persons who had access to the jewels; he was admittedly a man of dissipated habits; and it was an easy deduction that she had instigated the robbery; more to test the extent of her power over him, perhaps, than because she coveted the jewels. there was much more than mere vulgar theft in it; that was but one of the coils she threw round him. she was in the hungarian capital because others had sent her to find out secrets; and she was drawing the net about his feet to ruin him for other and greater purposes. here then was my course ready shaped for me. i had entered the minister's household to win his confidence as a possible means to the end i had in view; but the study of my father's papers had shown me that the general might have had a hand in the grim drama, and in such an event i might find my way blocked. but if i took the field against madame d'artelle and cut the meshes of the net of ruin being woven round count karl, i should have on my side the future duke, the man with the power in his hands, and himself quite innocent of all connexion with my father's fate. success might easily lie that way. i acted promptly. i went to madame d'artelle's; and the interview was one which would have greatly interested his excellency. i posed as the student and governess with my own way to make in the world; and the frenchwoman, eager to buy my silence and wishing to separate me from the minister, urged me to trust to her to advance my interests, and to live with her in the meantime. i consented, of course; and it was then i spoke out to general von erlanger. thus with one stroke i established close relations with two sides in the intrigue. it was with a feeling of some inward satisfaction at the progress i was making that i went to stay in madame d'artelle's house; and, as i had not yet seen the man whom i planned to deliver from her hands, i looked forward with much curiosity and interest to meeting him. i should need to study him very closely; for i was fully alive to the infinite difficulties of what i had undertaken to do. but those difficulties were to prove a hundred-fold greater than i had even anticipated; and my embarrassment and perplexity were at first so great, that i was all but tempted to abandon the whole scheme. i was sitting with madame d'artelle one afternoon reading--i kept up the pretence of studying--when count karl was announced. i rose at once to leave the room. "don't go," she said. "i wish to present you to the count." "just as you please," i agreed, glad of the chance, and resumed my seat. he was shown in, and as i saw him i caught my breath, my heart gave a great leap, and i felt a momentary chill of dismay. count karl was no other than the count von ostelen--the man whose treatment of me five years before in new york had all but broken my heart and spoilt my life. here was a development indeed. chapter iv madame d'artelle for a moment the situation oppressed me, but the next i had mastered it and regained my self-possession. i was not recognized. karl threw a formal glance at me as madame d'artelle mentioned my name, and his eyes came toward me again when she explained that i was an american. i was careful to keep my face from the light and to let him see as little of my features as possible. but i need not have taken even that trouble. he did not give me another thought; and i sat for some minutes turning over the pages of my book, observing him, trying to analyze my own feelings, and speculating how this unexpected development was likely to affect my course. my first sensation was one which filled me with mortification. i was angry that he had not recognized me. i told myself over and over again that this was all for the best; that it made everything easier for me; that i had no right to care five cents whether he knew me or not; and that it was altogether unworthy of me. yet my pride was touched: i suppose it was my pride; anyway, it embittered my resentment against him. it was an insult which aggravated and magnified his former injury; and i sat, outwardly calm, but fuming inwardly, as i piled epithet upon epithet in indignant condemnation of him until my old contempt quickened into hot and fierce hatred. i felt that, come what might, i would not stir a finger to save him from any fate to which others were luring him. but i began to cool after a while. i was engaged in too serious a conflict to allow myself to be swayed by any emotions. i could obey only one guide--my judgment. here was the man who of all others would be able by and by to help me most effectively: and if i was not to fail in my purpose i must have his help, let the cost be what it might. it was surely the quaintest of the turns of fate's wheel that had brought me to pesth to save him of all men from ruin; but i never break my head against fate's decrees, and i would not now. so i accepted the position and began to watch the two closely. karl was changed indeed. he looked not five, but fifteen, years older than when we had parted that morning in the central park. his face was lined; his features heavy, his eyes dull and spiritless, and his air listless and almost preoccupied. he smiled very rarely indeed, and seemed scarcely even to listen to madame d'artelle as she chattered and laughed and gestured gaily. the reason for some of the change was soon made plain. wine was brought; and when her back was toward him i saw him look round swiftly and stealthily and pour into his glass something from a small bottle which he took from his pocket. i perceived something else, too. madame d'artelle had turned her back intentionally so as to give him the opportunity to do this; for i saw that she watched him in a mirror, and was scrupulous not to turn to him again until the little phial was safely back in his pocket. so this was one of the secrets--opium. his dulness and semi-stupor were due to the fact that the previous dose was wearing off; and she knew it, and gave him an opportunity for the fresh dose. i waited long enough to notice the first effects. his eyes began to brighten, his manner changed, he commenced to talk briskly, and his spirits rose fast. i feared that under the spur of the drug his memory might recall me, and i deemed it prudent to leave the room. i had purposely held my tongue lest he should recognize my voice--the most tell-tale of all things in a woman--but now i rose and made some trivial excuse to madame d'artelle. as i spoke i noticed him start, glance quickly at me, and pass his hand across his forehead; but before he could say anything, i was out of the room. i had accomplished two things. i had let him familiarize himself with the sight of me without associating me with our former relations; and i had found out one of the secrets of madame's influence over him--her encouragement of his drug-taking. but why should she encourage it? it seemed both reasonless and unaccountable. did she care for him? i had my reasons for believing she did. yet if so, why seek to weaken his mind as well as destroy his reputation? i thought this over carefully and could see but one answer--she must be acting in obedience to some powerful compelling influence from outside. who had that influence, and what was its nature? when i knew that karl had gone i went down stairs and had another surprise. i found madame d'artelle plunged apparently in the deepest grief. she was a creature of almost hysterical changes of mood. "what is the matter?" i asked, with sparse sympathy. "don't cry. tears spell ruin to the complexion." "i am the most miserable woman in the world," she wailed. "then you are at the bottom of a very large class. tears don't suit you, either. they make your eyes red and puffy. a luxury even you cannot afford, beautiful as you are." "you are hateful," she cried, angrily; and immediately dried her eyes and sat up to glare at me. i smiled. "i have stopped your crying at any rate." "i wish to be alone." "i think you ought to be very grateful to me. look at yourself;" and i held a hand mirror in front of her face. she snatched it from me and flung it down on the sofa pillow with a little french oath. "be careful. to break a mirror means a year's ill luck. a serious misfortune for even a pretty woman." "i don't believe you have a grain of sympathy in your whole heart. it must be as hard as a stone." "my dear henriette, the heart has nothing to do with sympathy or any other emotion. it is just the blood pump. i have not read much physiology but...." "_nom de dieu_, spare me your science," she cried, excitedly. i laughed again without restraint. "we'll drop physiology, then. but i know other things, and now that i have brought you out of the tear stage, we'll talk about them if you like. i agree with you that it is most exasperating and bitterly disappointing." her face was a mask of bewilderment as she turned to me swiftly. "what do you mean?" the question came after a pause. "it is so ridiculously easy. i mean what you were thinking about when the passion of tears came along. what are you going to do about it?" i had seated myself and taken up a book, and was turning over the leaves as i put the question. she jumped up excitedly and came and stood over me, her features almost fiercely set as she stared down. "what do you mean? you shall say what you mean. you shall." "not while you stand there threatening me with a sort of wild glare in your eyes. i don't think it's fair to be angry with me just because you can't do what you wish." she stretched out her hands as if she would shake me in her exasperation. then she laughed, a little wildly, and went back to her seat on the couch. "what was in my thoughts then?" "at the foundation--the inconvenience of your religious convictions as a member of the roman catholic church." "you are mad," she cried, with a toss of her shapely head and a ringing laugh. but as the laugh died away her eyes filled with sobering perplexity. "at the foundation," she said slowly, repeating my words. "you are a poor thought-reader. what else was i thinking of?" i paused to give due significance to my next words, and looked at her fixedly as i spoke. "of your marriage with m. constans; and that in your church, marriage is a sacrament." "you are a devil," she exclaimed, with fresh excitement, almost with fury indeed. "say what you mean and don't torment me." "the count has been urging you to marry him of course, and----" "you have been listening. you spy." the last vestige of her self-control was lost as she flung the words at me. i paused. i never act impetuously with hysterical people. with studied deliberation i closed my book, having carefully laid a marker between the pages, and looked round as if for anything that might belong to me. then i rose. her eyes watched me with growing doubt and anxiety. "i shall be ready to leave the house in about an hour, madame," i said icily, and walked toward the door. she let me get close to it. "what are you going to do?" my answer was a cold smile, in which i contrived to convey a threat. i knew how to frighten her. she jumped up and rushed to the door and stood with her back against it--as an angry, over-teased child will do. "you shall not go. you mean to try and ruin me." i had known before that she was afraid of me; but she had never shown it so openly. "yes, i shall do my best." i spoke so calmly and looked her so firmly in the face that she was convinced of my earnestness. "i didn't mean what i said," she declared. "it is too late for that," i replied, with a sneer of obvious distrust and disbelief. she had very little courage and was a poor fighter. her only weapon was her beauty; and it was useless of course against me. her eyes began to show a scared, hunted expression. "don't go. forgive me, christabel. i didn't mean it. i swear i didn't. you angered me, and you know how impetuous i am." "i am surprised you should plead thus to--a spy, madame." "but i tell you i didn't mean it. christabel, dear christabel, i know you are not a spy. don't make so much of an angry word. come, let us talk it over. do, do"; and she put her arm in mine to lead me back to my chair. i let her prevail with me, but with obvious reluctance. "why are you so afraid of me?" i asked. "i am not afraid of you; but i want you to stay and help me." i sat down then as a concession and a sign that i was willing to talk things over; and she sat near me, taking care to place her chair between me and the door. "if that is so, it is time that we understood one another. perhaps i had better begin. you cannot marry count karl." "i love him, christabel." "and monsieur constans--your husband?" "don't, don't. he deserted me. he is a villain, a false scoundrel. don't speak of him in the same breath with--with the man i love." "he is your husband, madame." she moaned and waved her arms despairingly. "i am the most wretched woman on earth. i love him so." "and therefore encourage him to take opium. i do not understand that kind of love. had you not better tell me the truth?" "i shall save him. you don't understand. my god, you don't understand at all. the only way i can save him is to do what he asks." "who is it that is forcing your hand?" she winced at the question, as if it were a lancet thrust. "you frighten me, christabel, and mystify me." "no, no. it is only that you are trying to mystify me, and are frightened lest i should guess your secret. let us be fair to one another. i have an object here which you cannot guess and i shall not tell you. you have an object which i can see plainly. you have been brought here to involve count karl in a way which threatens him with ruin, and you have fallen in love with him--or think you have. you are now anxious to please your employer and also secure the man you love from the ruin which threatens him. he has asked you to marry him; and a crisis has arisen which you have neither the nerve to face nor the wit to solve." "_nom de dieu_, how you read things!" she exclaimed under her breath, her eyes dilated with wonder and fear. "but for my presence you would marry him; and trust to fate to avoid the discovery being made that m. constans is still alive. to yourself you would justify this by the pretence that if you were once the count's wife you could check instead of encourage his opium habit and so save him. who then is it with the power to drive you into this reckless crime?" she was too astounded to reply at once, but sat staring at me open mouthed. suddenly she changed, and her look grew fierce and tense. "who are you, and what is your motive in forcing yourself upon me here?" "i depend on my wits to make a way for me in the world, madame; and i take care to keep them in good condition. but i am not forcing myself upon you. i am ready to go at this moment--if you prefer that--and if you think it safer to have me against you." "_mon dieu_, i believe i am really afraid of you." "of me, no. of the knowledge i have, yes. and you will do well to give that fear due weight. you have been already induced to make one very foolish move. to receive stolen jewels is a crime, even when the thief is----" "how dare you say that!" "you forget. the day i came first to you you had occasion to go to the secret drawer in the old bureau in your boudoir, and i saw them there. you are a very poor player, madame, in such a game as this." the colour left her cheeks, and hate as well as fear was in her eyes as she stared helplessly at me. "it is all your imagination," she said, weakly. i smiled. "it can remain that--if you wish. it is for you to decide." "what do you mean?" "you had better trust me. you can begin by telling me what and whose is this evil influence behind you?" a servant interrupted us at that moment. "his excellency count gustav is asking for you, madame." she gave a quick start, and flashed a look at me. "i will go to him," she answered. i had another intuition then. i smiled and rose. "so that is the answer to my question. you may wish to consult him, madame. i will see you afterwards; and will use the interval to have my trunks packed in readiness to leave the house should he deem it best." "i am right. you are a devil," she cried, with another burst of impetuous, uncontrollable temper. i turned as i reached the door. "should he decide that i stay, madame, and wish to see me, i shall be quite prepared." i went out then without waiting for any reply. chapter v a night adventure i felt completely satisfied with the result of my conversation with madame d'artelle. i had had some qualms about the manner in which i had entered her house; feeling, it must be confessed, something like a spy. but our relations would now be changed. it would be at most an alliance of hostility. i should only remain because she would deem it more dangerous for me to leave; she would trust me no further than she dared; and as i had openly acknowledged that i had an object of my own in view, i need no longer have any scruples about staying. i had made excellent use of my opportunities, moreover; and if my last shaft had really hit the bull's-eye--that the influence behind her was that of karl's brother--the discovery would be of the utmost value. could it be count gustav? instead of packing my trunks i sat trying to answer that question and the others which flowed from it. i had always heard him spoken of not only as a man of high capacity and integrity but as a staunch friend to his brother karl. yet he was a man; and he might be as false as any other. i would take no man's good faith for granted. there was the crucial fact, too, that karl's ruin meant gustav's advantage. every one expressed regret that karl and not gustav was to be the future duke; and if others felt this, was gustav himself likely to hold a different opinion? from such an opinion it was no doubt a far cry to form a deliberate plot to secure the dukedom; but gustav was no more than a man; and men had done such things before. i hoped they would send for me, that i might judge for myself. i could understand how my interference with such a scheme, if he had formed it, would rouse his resentment; and the difficulty it would present. to send me out of the house would in his view be tantamount to giving away the whole scheme at once to general von erlanger; and i settled it with myself therefore that, if he was really at the back of the plot, he would be as eager to see me as i was to see him. an hour passed and i was beginning to think i was wrong, when madame's french maid came to my room, saying that her mistress would very much like to speak to me. "where is she, ernestine?" "in the salon, mademoiselle." "alone?" "m. le comte gustav is with her." "i will go to her," i said; and as she closed the door i laughed. i was not wrong, it seemed, but very much right; and i went down to meet them with the confidence borne of the feeling that i knew their object while they were in ignorance of mine. people did the count no less than justice in describing him as a handsome man. he had one of the handsomest faces i had ever looked upon; eyes of the frankest blue, a most engaging air, and a smile that was almost irresistibly winning. he held out his hand when madame presented him, and spoke in that ingratiating tone which is sometimes termed caressing. [illustration: "he held out his hand when madame presented him."] "i have desired so much to know madame d'artelle's new friend, miss gilmore. i trust you will count me also among your friends." "you are very kind, count. you know we americans have a weakness for titles. you flatter me." i was intensely american for the moment, and almost put a touch of the western twang in my accent. "you are really american, then?" "you bet. from missouri, jefferson city: as fine a town in as fine a state as anywhere in the world. not that i run down these old-world places in europe. have you been in the states?" "to my regret, no." "ah, then you haven't seen what a city should be. fine broad straight streets, plenty of air space, and handsome buildings." "i know that american women are handsome," he replied, with a look intended to put the compliment on me. but i was not taking any. "i guess we reckon looks by the dollar measure, count. you should see our girls at home." "you must regret living away from your country." "every man must whittle his own stick, you know, and every woman too. which means, i have to make my own way." "you are more than capable, i am sure." "i can try to plough my own furrow, sure." "you have come to pesth for that purpose?" "yes--out of the crowd." "what furrow do you think of ploughing here?" "well, just at present i'm in madame's hands, you see. and i think we're getting to understand one another, some. though whether we're going to continue to pull in the same team much longer seems considerably doubtful." "i am very anxious to help you, christabel, dear," put in madame d'artelle; and i knew from that "dear," pretty much what was coming. "it would give me much pleasure to place what influence i have at your disposal, miss gilmore." "i must say i find everybody's real kind," i answered, demurely. "there is general von erlanger saying very much the same thing." "you speak german with an excellent idiom," said the count, with a pretty sharp look. "one is tempted to think you have been in europe often before." i laughed. "i was putting a little american into the accent, count, as a matter of fact. i have a knack for languages. i know magyar just as well. and french, and italian, and a bit of russian. i'm a student of comparative folk lore, you know; and i'm getting up turkish and servian and greek." "but surely you have been much in europe?" "i was in paris three years ago;" and at that madame d'artelle looked away. "so madame told me," he said, suggestively. "it was there you met, of course. it was there you made your mistake about her, i think." "what mistake was that?" "that madame's husband was still alive." so he was a scoundrel after all, and this was to be the line of tactics. "oh, that is to be taken as a mistake, is it?" i said this just as though i were ready to fall in with the suggestion. "not taken as a mistake, miss gilmore. it is a mistake. we have the proofs of his death." "'we'?" i rapped back so sharply that he winced. "madame has confided in me," he replied. "well, from all accounts she has not lost much; and must be glad to be free to marry again." his eyes smiled. "you are very quick, miss gilmore." "i am not so quick as madame," i retorted; "because she has got these proofs within the last hour. it is nothing to me, of course; but i don't think we are getting on so quickly to an understanding as we might." "you know that i am my brother's friend as well as madame's in this?" "what does that mean?" "in regard to the marriage on which my brother's heart is so deeply set. you are willing to help it also?" "how can it concern me? what for instance would happen to me if i were not?" i paused and then added, significantly: "and what also if i were?" "i think we shall arrive at a satisfactory understanding," he answered, with obvious relief. "those who help my family--a very powerful and influential one, i may remind you--are sure to secure a great measure of our favour." "i desire nothing more than that," said i, with the earnestness of truth--although the favour which i needed was not perhaps in his thoughts. "madame would of course like to know a good deal about all who co-operate with her," he declared, very smoothly and suggestively. "what do you wish to know about me; and what do you wish me to do?" "americans are very direct," he replied, bowing. "she would leave you to tell us what you please, of course, and afford such means as you think best for her to make inquiries." "every one in jefferson city knew my uncle, john p. gilmore, knows that he educated me, and that what little money he left came to me. my father was a failure in life, and my mother died when i was a little child. i'm afraid i haven't made much history so far. and that's about all there is to it. what matters to me is not the past but the present and, perhaps, the future." "you have no friends in pesth?" "none, unless you count general von erlanger; i was his children's governess and used to play chess with him." "and your motive in coming here?" there was a glint in his eyes i did not understand. "i thought i had told you. i am a student in the university." "that is all?" i laughed. "oh no, indeed it isn't. i am just looking around to shake hands with any opportunity that chances to come my way. i am a soldieress of fortune. that's why i came to madame d'artelle. not to study folk lore." "in paris you were not a student?" "oh, you mean i was better off then? my uncle gilmore was alive; and we all thought he was rich." "pardon my inquisitiveness yet further. you know new york well?" this was the scent, then. "i know fifth avenue, have walked about broadway, and once stood in a whirl of amazement on brooklyn bridge. but i haven't a friend in the whole city." "were you there five years ago?" i affected to search my memory. "that would be in ninety-five. i was eighteen. i have been about so much in the states that my flying visits to new york are difficult to fix. was that the year i went to california? if so, i did not go east as well, and yet i fancy i did. no, that was to chicago and down home through st. louis." "i mean for a considerable stay in new york?" "oh, i shouldn't forget that. that was three years ago before i started for paris," i said, laughing lightly. "i had the time of my life then." "did you ever meet a miss christabel von dreschler?" where was he leading me now? what did he know? i shook my head meditatively. "i have met hundreds of girls but i don't remember her among them." "she must resemble you closely, miss gilmore, just as she has the same christian name. my brother knew her and declares that you remind him of her." i laughed lightly and naturally. "i should scarcely have believed he had eyes or thoughts for any woman except madame d'artelle." "pardon me if i put a very plain question. you have acknowledged to be seeking your fortune here. you are doing so in your own name? you are not miss von dreschler?" i took umbrage at once and showed it. i rose and answered with all the offended dignity i could assume. "when i have cause to hide myself under an alias, count, it will be time to insult me with the suggestion that i am ashamed of my own name of gilmore." he was profuse in his apologies. "please do not think i intended the slightest insult. nothing was farther from my thoughts. i was merely speaking out of my hope that that might be the case. i am exceedingly sorry. pray resume your seat." i had scored that game, so i consented to be pacified and sat down again. i was curious to see what card he would play next. he pulled at his fair moustache in some perplexity. "you expressed a desire just now to have the advantage of my family's influence, miss gilmore." "am i to remain with madame, then?" i asked, blandly. "of course you are, dear," she answered for herself. "you are willing to help her and my brother in this important matter?" said the count. "how can i help? i am only a stranger. and i should not call it helping any one to connive at a marriage when one of the parties is already married. i would not do that." the handsome face darkened; and in his impatience of a check he made a bad slip. "our influence is powerful to help our friends, miss gilmore, and not less powerful to harm our antagonists." i laughed, disagreeably. "i see. a bribe if i agree, a threat if i do not. and how do you think you could harm an insignificant person like me? i am not in the least afraid of you, count." "i did not mean to threaten," he said, rather sullenly, as he saw his mistake. "you can do us neither harm nor good for that matter. you are labouring under a mistake as to madame d'artelle's husband--her late husband; and by speaking of the matter might cause some temporary inconvenience and slander. we do not wish you to do so. that is all. "i have not yet been shown that it is a mistake." "the proofs shall be given to you." he spoke quite angrily. "in the meantime if you speak of the matter, you will offend and alienate us all." "it seems a very lame conclusion for all this preamble," i answered, lightly, as i got up. "produce the proofs and i of course have no more to say. but until they are produced i give no pledge to hold my tongue;" and without troubling myself to wait for a reply, i left the room. i had obtained the information i needed as to the power behind madame d'artelle, and i had something to do. they intended to produce proofs of m. constan's death, and i resolved to get the proof that he was still living. leaving a message for madame that i had to go to the university for an evening lecture, i drove to the house which i had taken on coming to pesth. in passing through paris i had seen the friend who had formerly given me the information about madame, and i now telegraphed to him that i must know the whereabouts of m. constans at once, and that no expense was to be spared in getting the information. i had brought three servants with me from home, john perry and his wife and their son, james. the last was a sharp, clever young fellow, and he was now in paris where i had sent him to get information about madame d'artelle. i wired to him also, telling him what further information i needed; and i instructed him to help in the matter and wire me the instant m. constans had been traced. that done i set out to return to madame's. i was not nervous at being out alone at such a time, night prowling having long been a habit with me. i was perfectly able to take care of myself, too; for at home i had been accustomed to carry a revolver, and was an excellent shot. if any one interfered with me, it was not i who was likely to come worse off. i think it is just nonsense that girls must always be "seen home" in the dark. it is a good excuse for flirtation, possibly; but an extremely undignified admission of inferiority. a humiliation i have never countenanced and never will. the night was fine and clear, and a bright moon was nearly at the full; so i turned out of my way a little to a very favourite spot of mine--the great suspension bridge which constitutes the hyphen between buda and pesth. my house was close to the bridge in that part of pesth known as the "inner town;" and i strolled across to a point on the buda side from which a glorious view can be had of the stately danube. i stood there in the deep shadow of the high suspension arches, gazing at the dotted lights along the quays, across the flat country on the pesth side, up the river toward the witching margaret island, and away to the old hilly buda on my left, with the blocksberg and its citadel keeping its frowning watch and ward over all. there is not much poetry in my nature; but the most prosaic and commonplace soul must feel a quickening of thought and sentiment at the appeal of that majestic waterway and its romance-filled setting. i did that night; and stood there, thinking dreamily, until i was roused abruptly by the sound of laughter. i recognized the voice of count gustav; and glancing round saw him on the other side of the bridge with a companion. he stooped a second and pointed down the river; and as they walked on, i heard her laugh sweetly in response. i was considering what to do, when i caught the sound of footsteps, and shrank into the shadow of the deep buttress as two men came slouching past me stealthily; and i heard enough to tell me they were following count gustav. i let them pass and then followed in my turn. the count and his companion left the bridge, turned to the right, and presently entered the old garden of buda--a deserted spot enough at such an hour. presently, as the two reached an open place, i saw the count hesitate, glance about him, stand a moment, and take off his hat. then they continued their walk. i was struck by the action. it looked as though it might have been a signal; for the next moment the two men quickened their pace and closed up to the pair. a momentary scuffle followed; the girl gave a half-smothered cry for help; and then the count came running past me, making for the bridge at the top of his speed. he had left his companion in the hands of the two men. convinced now that mischief was on foot, i resolved to see the matter through. i hid myself as the men came hurrying back with the girl, half-leading, half-carrying her; and i noticed that her face was closely muffled. near the entrance to the place they halted, and drew back under the shadow of the trees. they stood there some moments, when one of them went out into the road and stood listening. i heard in the distance the sound of wheels, and guessed it was a carriage for which the two were waiting. clearly, if i was to make an attempt to save the girl, i must act at once; and to save her and learn her story, i was now determined. i took a deep breath, as one will when about to plunge into a cold stream, and keeping my hand on my revolver i darted across to where the girl and her one captor stood. it was a point in my favour that the two men were just then separated. he did not hear my footsteps until i was close to him, and gave a great start of surprise when i spoke. "let my friend go at once," i said, in a loud, firm tone. the man's start was the girl's opportunity. snatching her arm out of his grasp, she rushed to me, tearing at the wrapper which covered her face. the man swore and called his companion, who ran swiftly back. a couple of words were exchanged hurriedly between them, and then they came at me, one of them brandishing a heavy stick and threatening me. the girl uttered a sharp cry of fear. i whipped out my revolver, and the two scoundrels pulled up at the sight of it. [illustration: "the two scoundrels pulled up at the sight of it."] "if you make me fire i shall not only shoot you," i called, "but bring the police up, and you'll have to explain this to them." and as we stood thus, the carriage drove up. chapter vi gareth i was quite as anxious to avoid police interference as the men themselves could be; but i knew the threat was more likely to drive them off than any other. to recover the girl, they would have bludgeoned me readily enough, if they could have done it without being discovered; but my weapon made that impossible. moreover, they liked the look of the business end of the revolver as little as many braver men. the stick was lowered; they whispered together, and then tried to fool me. they began to edge away from one another, so as to be able to rush in from opposite directions. "you stand just where you are, or i fire, right now," i called. they stopped and swore. "can't a man take his own daughter home?" growled one of them. "i am not his daughter," protested the girl. "i know that. don't be afraid, i shan't give you up." "who are you to interfere with us?" asked the other. "i'm a man in woman's clothes," i answered, intending this tale to be carried to their employer. "and i'll give you five seconds to clear. you get into that carriage and drive off, the lot of you together, or i'll bring the police about your ears. now, one, two, if you let me count to five, you'll eat nothing but prison fare for a year or two. off with you;" and emboldened by my success i made a step toward them. it was good bluff. they shrank back; then turned tail and scurried to the carriage, swearing copiously, and drove off in the direction of old buda. i watched the vehicle until the darkness swallowed it, and then hurried with my companion in the opposite direction. we recrossed the bridge and made for my house. when we were near it i stopped, and she began to thank me volubly and with many tears. "don't thank me yet. tell me where you wish to go." "i have nowhere to go in pesth, sir," she answered. i smiled at her mistake. "let me explain. i said that about my being a man to frighten those ruffians. i am a girl, like yourself, and have a home close by. if you like to come to it, you will be quite safe there." "i trust you implicitly," she said, simply; and with that i took her to my house. as we entered i managed to draw out a couple of hairpins, so that when i took off my hat, my hair came tumbling about my shoulders in sufficient length to satisfy her of my sex. she was quick enough to understand my reason; and with a very sweet smile she put her arm round my waist and kissed me on the cheek. "i did not need any proof, dear," she said. "but you are wonderful. how i wish i were you. so brave and daring." "you are very pretty, my dear," i answered, as i kissed her. she was; but very pale and so fragile that i felt as if i were petting a child. "i am so wretched," she murmured, and the tears welled up in her great blue eyes. "if i were only strong like you!" "you shall tell me your story presently; but first i have something to do. sit here a moment." i went out and told mrs. perry to get us something to eat and to prepare a bed for my friend; and i wrote a hurried line to madame d'artelle that i was staying for the night with a student friend, and sent it by mr. perry. when i went back the girl was sitting in a very despondent attitude, weeping silently; but she started up and tried to smile to me through her tears. then i made a discovery. she had taken off her gloves, and on her left hand was a wedding ring. "how can i ever thank you?" she cried. "first by drying your tears--things might have been much worse with you, you know; think of that; then by having some supper; i am positively famished; and after that, if you like, you can tell me your story, and we will see whether, by putting our heads together, we cannot find a way to help you further." "i am afraid----" and she broke down again. with much persuasion i induced her to eat something and take a little wine; and this seemed to cheer her. she dried her eyes and as we sat side by side on a couch, she put her hand in mine and gradually nestled into my arms like a weary wee child. "i'll begin," i said. "my name is christabel gilmore. i'm an american, and a student at the university here;" and i added some details about the states and so on; just talking so as to give her time to gather confidence. "you haven't told me your name yet," i said, presently. "i am the countess von ostelen. you have heard the name?" she said, quickly, at my start of surprise. "i was surprised, that is all. yes. i knew the name years ago in america. i knew the count von ostelen." "he is my husband," she said, very simply. "my christian name is gareth. you will call me by that, of course." with a sweet little nervous gesture she slipped her arm away and began to finger her wedding ring. "i had seen that, my dear." "your eyes see everything, christabel;" and her arm came about me again and her head rested on my shoulder. i sat silent for a few moments in perplexity. if she were karl's wife, how came his brother to have been----what a fool i was! of course the thing was plain. gustav was the husband, and he had used his brother's name. my heart was stirred, and my intense pity for her found vent in a sigh. "why that sigh, christabel?" her sweet eyes fastened upon my face nervously, and i kissed her. "the sigh was for you, child, not for myself. had you not better tell me everything? have you your husband's likeness?" "i had it here in a locket," she said, wistfully, as she drew a chain from her bosom. "but to-day he said the locket was not good enough for me. i wish i had kept it now. you would have said he was the handsomest man you had ever seen. oh, how selfish i am," she broke off, with a quick cry of distress and sat up. "what is the matter?" "i never thought of it. he was with me when those men attacked us. oh, if he should have been hurt!" "you can make your mind easy about that," i said, a little drily. "i saw the attack and that he escaped." "he is so brave. he would have risked his life for me." "i saw him--get away, dear," i replied. i nearly said run away; but could not yet undeceive her. "if anything had happened to him, it would have killed me. i would rather have died than that." then with a change of manner she asked: "did you see his face, christabel?" "yes, in the moonlight, but he passed me quickly." "but you saw he was handsome?" "one of the handsomest men i have ever seen," i assented, to please her. "yes, yes. that is just it, and as good as he is handsome." "i could not see that, of course," i answered; and then was silent. i was growing very anxious as i saw the problem widening and deepening. poor trustful little soul! how should i ever break the truth to her and not break her heart at the same time? there was a long pause, which she broke. "oh, how i hope he has really escaped, as you say." "how came you to be where i saw you?" i asked. this reminded her, as i intended, that she had told me nothing yet. "i said i was selfish, christabel, didn't i? i had quite forgotten i had told you nothing. i will tell you: but you must first give me a promise not to repeat it. our marriage is only a secret so far, you know." "on my honour, i will do nothing to harm you. why is your marriage a secret?" "my husband is afraid of his father's anger. you see, karl--" "karl?" i exclaimed, involuntarily. "that is my husband's name," she replied, with a touch of rebuke and pride. he had taken his brother's christian name, it seemed. "of course," i agreed. "my husband is a count, but as yet only a poor one, dependent upon the good will of his father who wishes him to marry some one else. so we dare not let it be known yet that we are married." "but your own friends know?" i said. she seemed to resent this in some way as a reflection upon her husband. "i have no friends in pesth except my dear father. he is alive and i know he loves me; but i don't know why, i have never lived at home for more than a week or so at a time. i did wish to tell him; but karl would not let me--i mean, we decided it was better not until the truth could be told to all." then she showed me her innocent heart again. "it is when i think of my father that i am so wretched. he will believe i have deserted him so cruelly;" and her eyes were full of tears again. "who is your father, dear?" "colonel katona. my dear, dear father!" and her grief so overcame her that my fresh start of surprise passed unnoticed. he had been that friend of my father's who was believed to hold the secret of the great wrong in his keeping. and it was his daughter whom i had thus saved. her tears passed soon, like a summer storm. she was a creature of strangely variable moods. "i know, of course, that karl was right. my father is a stern, gloomy and sometimes hard man. he would have forced us to announce the marriage; and then karl would have been ruined." "but did not your father know that he wished to marry you?" "oh, no," she cried, smiling now. "that was the lovely part of it. he never saw karl. i meant it to be a surprise. i was at tyrnau, staying with friends, when we met, and it was all settled in a few weeks. you see karl loved me and i loved him, and--that was all." "you were married at tyrnau?" she shook her head gaily. "no. it was such fun. we ran away together, and were married by a friend of karl's in his house at sillien, in the mountains. a heaven of a place. my home is there. oh, the loveliest of homes, christabel. you will say so when you see it." "i may never see it, my dear." "oh, but of course you will. you will come and stay with me. you will be my dear friend always; and karl's too, when he knows how you saved me to-night. and it will never be lonely there any more." "how came you to be in pesth to-night then?" i asked, smothering the sigh which her last words impelled. "i suppose i did wrong to come. a wife should obey her husband, of course, but i couldn't help it. you see, lately his father has kept karl so much here that i have scarcely seen him; and something is going to happen; i shan't be alone then; and--you understand, i wanted to let my father know i was married before my child was born. i wrote this to karl, and--it was naughty and wicked of me, i know--but when he would not consent, i came to pesth to-day and surprised him." "yes, i think i understand," said i. it was easy to read now, indeed. her visit meant discovery for him, and he had improvised the means of getting rid of her which i had prevented. "he was very angry, i suppose?" "at first, yes. he tried to make me go back to sillien; but i could not. i could not, could i, christabel? and when he saw i was in earnest--i can be firm when i will"--and she made a great effort to look resolute and determined--"and said i would go to my father to-morrow, he gave in and kissed me, and agreed to take me to his father and admit everything. we were on our way there when we were attacked. i knew his love for me would conquer in the end. how delighted he will be when he knows that after all i am safe." "you will see him to-morrow and tell him. you know where to find him in the city here?" her face clouded. "that is a strange thing. he was so afraid of his father's anger that he dared not let me write to his home. he gave me an address in the altgasse, but it is only a place where letters are received. but i shall find him, of course, easily." "would you take my advice, if i gave it?" "in that, oh yes, of course. i know you are clever." "it is to go straight to your father, colonel katona, and tell him all." "oh, no, no, no, i dare not now," she cried, shrinking timidly. "karl made me take an oath to-day on the holy crucifix that, whatever happened, i would never tell my father without his permission." "why?" "because no one but karl must break the news of our marriage to his father. no, no. i dare not. i dare not. i cannot break my oath. i should be false to the holy church." and at the mere thought of it she began to tremble. it was clever; a stroke of almost diabolical cleverness; knowing the simple, trusting child, to close her lips by such an oath. "you will not betray us?" she cried, taking alarm at my silence and serious expression. "you are my friend?" "yes, i am your friend, my dear, and will always be, if you want one." she was a very tender little thing, and as i kissed her she threw her arms round my neck and clung to me. "and now, i'll give you some other advice--to go to bed; and after a night's rest, i daresay we shall see our way." after i had seen her into bed and shown her that her room opened into mine, i went downstairs to think over all she had told me, all the tangle of trouble ahead for her, and its possible effects upon my course. it was quite late when at length i went to bed; and i was lying unable to sleep in my perplexed anxiety when i heard her call out as if in fear. i started up and then she came running into my room. "are you awake, christabel?" "what is it, dear?" "i have had a dream and am frightened. let me come to you." and just like a child she crept into my bed and into my arms. "i dreamt that karl was dead and that my father had killed him," she moaned. "and he was going to kill me and my child when i screamed out and woke." was it an omen? the thought stayed with me long after i had calmed her fright and soothed her to sleep. god help the helpless, trustful, clinging child! it might well be an omen, indeed. my heart was heavy for her and her trouble. chapter vii gareth's father the next day was a busy one for me, for i had to find a place in which gareth could remain safely hidden. this i felt to be impracticable in my present house. i had rented it on first coming to pesth, and it was recorded as my address in the register of the university. it was, of course, certain that count gustav would have every possible inquiry made about me; and if he or his agents came to the house, gareth's presence would at once become known. fortunately, i had already commenced some negotiations to take a villa in a secluded part of the hilly district of buda; and my first step that morning was to go out and complete the matter, so that i could remove that day. i wrote to madame d'artelle that i was called out of pesth, and should return to her on the following day. i knew quite enough of count gustav already to be fully aware that my discovery of his secret in regard to gareth might prove a source of danger to me. discreetly used, it might be of the most vital importance for my purposes. but he was a very formidable antagonist; and unless i acted with the utmost wariness and caution, i knew he would beat me. if i had read his actions aright, he would go to any length to prevent the secret of his marriage getting known; and until i was quite prepared for emergencies, i must guard my knowledge of it jealously. i was to score the first point. the next morning brought me news from paris--a telegram from james perry telling me the whereabouts of m. constans. i should therefore have that knowledge to take with me to madame d'artelle's. with gareth, however, i had some difficulty. the view she took of count gustav was of course diametrically opposed to mine. this was natural enough. to her he was just the loving husband who would be in an agony of suspense until he knew of her safety. the belief that he was suffering such suspense added to her own grief and worry; and during the day we were removing to the villa she was very impatient of the delay involved. she was ill both in body and mind; and how to deal with her caused me much thought and anxiety. to tell her what i was convinced was the truth in regard to the count was impossible, even had i wished to do so. she would not have accepted me as a witness against her faith in him. moreover, i had no wish to break down that faith yet. what i desired, rather, was to find means to compel him to do her justice; and unwittingly she made that task, hard as it was, more difficult by her attitude. i repeated my urgent advice--that she should go to her father and tell him everything; but she would not listen to me. on the contrary, she declared that no earthly consideration would induce her to break the solemn vow she had taken; and nothing i could say made the slightest impression upon that resolve. i could not tell her what i knew well enough was the case--that unless she took that course she would be in danger. i was convinced that count gustav would have a very sharp search made for her and that, if he discovered her, he would contrive to get her to a place where she would be prevented from causing him any trouble. but her faith in him was unshakable. "i shall show myself in the streets," she said, smiling, "and go everywhere until i meet him. he will be desperate until he knows i am safe." i had to frighten this intention away. "what will happen if you do is this," i told her. "either your father will meet you; or the men who attacked you will see you, and in order to prevent your accusing them will make away with you. if you will trust me to make this search for you, i will do it; but only on condition that you promise me not to stir from the house unless i am with you." scared in this way, she at length was induced to give the promise. it was at best but an unsatisfactory compromise; and more than once i debated with myself whether, in her interests, i should not be justified in breaking the pledge of secrecy and going to colonel katona myself. but i put that course aside for the moment and set out for madame d'artelle's house. i had not been two minutes with her before i saw that a considerable change had come over the position in my absence. she was so affectionate that i knew she was deceiving me. she over-acted her new role outrageously. she overwhelmed me with kisses and caresses, called heaven to witness how much she had missed me, and declared she had been inconsolably miserable in my absence. considering the terms on which we had parted, i should have been a mole not to have seen that this was false. she was so afraid of offending me indeed, that she scarcely dared to show a legitimate curiosity as to the cause of my absence. she had obviously been coached by count gustav; and when a man coaches a woman, he generally makes her blunder. i could see that she was quivering to know what i had been doing, and on tenterhooks lest i had been working against her. i thought it judicious, therefore, to frighten her a little; and when the due moment came i asked, significantly: "have you the proofs yet of m. constan's death?" "you are not going to talk of disagreeable things directly you get back, are you?" "his death would not be disagreeable to you, henriette?" "you cannot guess what i have endured from that man. i tell you, christabel, he is a man to raise the devil in a woman." "a good many men can do that," i said, sententiously. "but if he is dead he can raise no more devils in either man or woman. where did he die and when?" "it does not matter to me now whether he is dead or living. you have had your way. i shall not marry count karl." "and your gratitude to me for this is the reason of your kisses and caresses on my return?" she was very easy to stab; and her eyes flashed with sudden anger. she was too angry indeed to reply at once. "you are a very singular girl, christabel--very difficult to love," she said, as if to reproach me. "easier to hate, perhaps; but you should not pretend to love me. we need not make believe to love each other, henriette. i do not love you. i saved your life in paris, and when i found you here you wished me to come into your house because you thought you could more easily prevent my saying what i knew about you. that has more to do with fear than love--much more. and it does not seem to have occurred to you that i too might have a selfish motive in coming." "what was it?" she rapped the question out very sharply. "for one thing i thought it would be interesting to know what the information was which your employers in france wished you to obtain." "then you are a spy, after all?" she cried, angrily. "no. a spy, in the sense you mean, is a person paid by employers to obtain information--as the police used to pay madame constans in paris. i have no employers. i am seeking my own way, and acting for myself. you will see the difference. now will you tell me what you were sent here to do?" "you are right in one thing, christabel--you are easier to hate than to love." "that does not answer my question." "i am no spy." "henriette! i have been in communication with paris since i saw you, and a special messenger is now on his way here to me with full tidings. let us be frank with one another. you promised to advance my fortunes: count gustav has made the same promise--why then should you try to deceive me? it is not playing the game fairly." "i have not tried to deceive you." "henriette!" i cried again, this time with a laugh. "what! when you have changed your plans entirely within the last few hours?" she could not suppress a start at this, and tried to cover it with a laughing suggestion of its absurdity. "you are ridiculous--always finding mysteries," she said. "finding them _out_, you mean," i retorted, slowly and significantly. "will you leave me to do this now, or will you tell me frankly?" "there is no new plan." "you will find it not only useless but unsafe to attempt to deceive me. i know already much of the new plan and within a few hours shall know all." she had been already so impressed by the discoveries i had made that she was quite prepared to believe this bluff; and she was so nervous and agitated that she would not trust herself to speak. i paused some moments and then said with impressive deliberation: "henriette, our relative positions here are changing fast. i came here that you might help me to push my fortunes. i know so much and am so much better and stronger a player than you, that either i shall leave you altogether to carry my knowledge to those who need it badly, or i shall stay to protect you and your fortunes from the man who is threatening both. think of that while i go upstairs to my room; and think closely, for your future--ruin or success--is the stake at issue; and one false step may cost you everything." "you mean to threaten me?" she cried, half nervously, half in bravado. "it is more an offer of help than a threat; but you can regard it as you please;" and i went out of the room. i ran up hastily to my room full of a new idea which had just occurred to me; but fortunately not so preoccupied as to keep my eyes shut. as i passed madame d'artelle's room the door was not quite closed, and through the narrow slit i caught a glimpse of ernestine. she was vigorously dusting some object that was out of my line of sight. i am accustomed to study trifles; they often act as finger posts at the forked roads of difficulty and point the proper way. ernestine was a very particular lady's maid indeed, and never dreamt of dusting out rooms. why then was she so busy? i paused and managed to get a peep at the object of her unusual industry. it was a travelling trunk; large enough to hold a big suggestion for me. i pushed the door open. "good-morning, ernestine. i've come back, you see," i said, smiling. "ah, good-morning, mademoiselle gilmore. i am glad to see you." ernestine was very friendly to me. i had bought her goodwill. "madame and i have been talking over our arrangements," i said, lightly. "it is all rather sudden. do you think you will have time to alter that black silk bodice for me before we start?" "i'm afraid not, mademoiselle. you see every thing has to be packed." "of course it has. if i had thought of it, i would have left it out for you before i went, the day before yesterday." "if i had known i would have asked you for it, mademoiselle. but i had not a hint until this morning." "come up and see if we cannot contrive something. a bertha of old lace might do for the time." i did not wish madame to catch me in her room, so ernestine and i went on to mine. we talked dress for a couple of minutes and, as i wished her not to speak of the conversation, i said that as the alteration could not be made, i might as well give her the dress. it was nearly new, and delighted her. "i suppose you'll be ready in time? you are such a clever packer. but the time is short." she repudiated the suggestion of being behind. "i have all to-day and part of to-morrow. i could pack for you as well," she cried, with a sweep of her hand round the room. "never mind about that. i may not go yet." "oh no, of course not;" and she laughed archly. "they will not want mademoiselle la troisiã¨me." "_mã¨chante_," i cried, dismissing her with a laugh, as though i fully understood the joke. and in truth she had given me a clue which was very cheap at the price of a silk dress. instinct had warned me of the change in the position, and now i began to understand what the new plan was. madame had made her avowal about not marrying karl much too clumsily; and the dusting of that travelling trunk, coupled with ernestine's sly reference to "mademoiselle la troisiã¨me," was too clear to be misunderstood. they meant to hoodwink me by an apparent abandonment of the marriage; and then make it clandestinely. i laughed to myself as i left the house to hurry up my own plan. having made sure that i was not being followed, i hailed a carriage and drove to the neighbourhood where colonel katona lived. i finished the distance on foot, and scanned the house closely as i walked up the drive. it was a square, fair-sized house of two floors, and very secluded. most of the blinds were down, and all the windows were heavily barred and most of them very dirty. it might well have been the badly-kept home of a recluse who lived in constant fear of burglars. yet colonel katona was reputed a very brave man. barred windows are as useful however, for keeping those who are inside from getting out, as for preventing those who are out from getting in; and i remembered gareth's statement that she had scarcely ever lived at home. why? when i rang, a grizzled man, with the bearing of an old soldier, came to the door and, in answer to my question for colonel katona, told me bluntly i could not see him. "i am a friend of his daughter and i must see the colonel," i insisted. he shut me outside and said he would ask his master. why all these precautions, i thought, as i waited; and they strengthened my resolve not to go away without seeing him. but my use of gareth's name proved a passport; and presently the old soldier returned and admitted me. he left me in a room which i am sure had never known a woman's hand for years; and the colonel came to me. he had as stern and hard a face as i had ever looked at; and it was difficult to believe that the little shrinking timorsome child who had nestled herself to sleep in my arms the night before could be his daughter. the colouring pigment of the eyes was identical; but the expression of gareth's suggested the liquid softness of a summer sky, while those which looked down at me were as hard as the lapis lazuli of the alps. "accept my excuses for your reception, miss gilmore. i am a recluse and do not receive visitors as a rule; but you mentioned my daughter's name. what do you want of me?" i assumed the manner of a gauche, stupid school-girl, and began to simper with empty inanity. "i should never have taken you for gareth's father," i said. "i think you frighten me. i--i--what a lovely old house you have, and how beautifully gloomy. i love gloomy houses. i--i----" he frowned at my silliness; and i pretended to be silenced by the frown. "what do you know of my--of gareth?" "please don't look at me like that," i cried, getting up as if in dismay and glancing about me. "i didn't mean to disturb you, sir--colonel, i mean. i--i think i had better go. but gareth loved you so, and loved me, and--oh----" and i stuttered and stammered in frightened confusion. if she has a really stern man to deal with, a girl's strongest weapon is generally her weakness. his look softened a little at the mention of gareth's love for us both, as i hoped it would. "don't let me frighten you, please. i am a gruff old soldier and a stern man of many sorrows; but a friend of gareth's is a friend of mine--still;" and he held out his hand to me. the sorrow in that one syllable, "still," went right to my heart. "i am very silly and--weak, i know," i said, as i put my hand timidly into his and met his eyes with a feeble smile. i could have sighed rather than smiled; for at that moment everything seemed eloquent to me of pathos. the dingy, unswept room, the dust accumulating everywhere, his unkempt hair and beard, his shabby clothes, the dirt on the hand which closed firmly on mine--everywhere in everything the evidences of neglect; the silent tribute to a sorrow too absorbing to let him heed aught else. "what can i do for you?" he asked much more gently, after a pause. "oh please," i cried, nervously. "let me try and collect my poor scattered wits. i ought not to have come, i am afraid." "don't say that. i am glad you have come. what could i be but glad to see one who was a friend of gareth's?" "_was_ a friend. is a friend, i hope, colonel, and always will be. she always wanted me to come and see her home--but she was hardly ever here, was she? so she couldn't ask me." sharp, quick, keen suspicion flashed out of his eyes, but i was giggling so fatuously that it died away. "part of my sorrow and part of my punishment," he murmured. i misunderstood him purposely. "yes, she always looked on it as a kind of punishment. you see, she loved you so--and then of course we girls, you know what girls are, we used to tease her about it." he winced and passed his hand across his fretted brows as if in pain. "you don't know how it hurts me to hear that," he said, simply. "god help me. when did you see her last?" i knew the anguish at the back of the eager look which came with the question. but i laughed as if i knew nothing. "oh, ages ago now. months and months--six months quite." "where? my god, where?" the question leaped from him with such fierceness, that i jumped up again as if in alarm. "oh, colonel katona, how you frighten me!" "no, no, i don't wish to frighten you. but this is everything to me. twelve months ago she disappeared from tyrnau, miss gilmore, lured away as i believe by some scoundrel; and i have never seen or heard of her from that time. you have seen her since, you say--and you must tell me everything." it was easy to heap fuel on fire that burned like this; and i did it carefully. i affected to be overcome and, clapping hands before my face, threw myself back into my chair. "you must tell me, miss gilmore. you must," he said, sternly. "no, no, i cannot. i cannot. i forgot. i--i dare not." "do you know the scoundrel who has done this?" "don't ask me. don't ask me. i dare not say a word." "you must," he cried, literally with terrifying earnestness. "no, no. i dare not. i see it all now. oh, poor gareth. poor, dear gareth." "you must tell me. you shall. i am her father, and as god is in heaven, i will have his life if he have wronged her." i did not answer but sat on with my face still covered, thinking. i had stirred a veritable whirlwind of wrath in his heart and had to contrive to calm it now so as to use it afterwards for my own ends. chapter viii count karl colonel katona's impatience mounted fast; and when he again insisted in an even more violent tone that i should tell him all i knew, i had to fall back upon a woman's second line of defence. i became hysterical. i gurgled and sobbed, choked and gasped, laughed and wept in regulation style; and then, to his infinite confusion and undoing, i fainted. at least i fell back in my chair seemingly unconscious, and should have fallen on the floor, i believe in thoroughness, had he not caught me in his rough, powerful arms and laid me on a sofa. i can recall to this day the fusty, mouldy smell of that couch as i lay there, while he made such clumsy, crude efforts as suggested themselves to him as the proper remedies to apply. he chafed and slapped my hands, without thinking to take off my gloves; he called for cold water which the soldier servant brought in, and bathed my face; lastly he told the man to bring some brandy, and in trying to force it between my teeth, which i clenched firmly, he spilt it and swore at his own clumsiness. then, fearing he would try again and send me out reeking like a saloon bar, i opened my eyes, rolled them about wildly, began to sob again, sat up, rambled incoherently and asked in the most approved fashion where i was. i took a sufficiently long time to come round, and was almost ashamed of my deceit when i saw how really anxious and self-reproachful he was. but i had forged an effective weapon; and had only to show the slightest disposition to "go off" again, to make him abjectly apologetic. i always maintain that a woman has many more weapons than a man. he can at best cheat or bribe; while a woman can do all three, and in addition can wheedle and weep and, at need, even faint. it was a long time before i consented to talk coherently; and during the incoherent interval i managed to introduce my father's name. "i am getting better. oh, how silly you must think me," i murmured. "it was my fault. i was too violent," he said. "i am not used to young ladies." "oh dear, oh dear, i am so ashamed. but she told me you were a very violent man. i wish i hadn't come." "who told you? gareth?" "no, no. in america. miss von dreschler. oh, what have i said?" i cried, as he started in amazement. "oh, don't look so cross. i didn't know you'd be so angry;" and i began to gasp, spasmodically. "i am not angry," he said, quickly. "what name did you say?" "that horrible girl with the red hair. i don't suppose you've ever seen her, in america. she said you were a villain and had been her father's friend; colonel von dreschler, he was. she said you'd kill me. but i'm sure you're kind and good, or dear gareth would never be your daughter. she said horrible things of you. that you'd ruined her father and imprisoned him; and much more. but of course she would say anything. she was jealous of my friendship with gareth, and red haired. and i don't know what i'm saying, but she was really a wicked girl. and, oh dear, if it's true, i wish i hadn't come. give me some water please, or i know i shall go off again." i gabbled all this out in a jerky, breathless way, pausing only to punctuate it with inane giggles and glances of alarm; and at the end made as if i were going to faint. had i been in reality the giggling idiot i pretended, i might well have fainted at the expression which crossed his stern, sombre face. at the mention of my father and his imprisonment, he caught his breath and started back so violently that he stumbled against a chair behind him and upset it; and only with the greatest effort could he restrain himself from interrupting me. he was trembling with anger as he handed me the water i asked for; and when he had put down the glass, he placed a chair and sat close to me. "do you mean that colonel von dreschler's daughter knows gareth?" "oh, yes, of course." "mother of heaven, i see it now," he murmured into his tangled beard. "it is he who has taken her away. what do you know of this?" "oh, colonel katona, what on earth could he want to do that for? besides, how could he?" i cried, with an empty simper. "you don't understand, miss gilmore. can you tell me where to find this girl--miss von dreschler." "oh yes. in jefferson city, missouri. i come from there. it's a long way off, of course; but it's just the loveliest town and well worth a visit;" and i was babbling on when he put up his hand and stopped me. "peace, please. and do you know colonel von dreschler?" "lor', how could i? he's been dead ever so long. two years and more, that horrid little red-haired thing said. but of course she may have been fibbing." he stared down at me as if to read the thoughts in my brain; his look full charged with renewed suspicion. but i was giggling and trying to put my hat straight; and with a sigh he tossed up his hand and rose. "i can't understand you," he said. "can you tell me anything about gareth, when you saw her last?" "not much, i'm afraid. i have such a silly memory. it must be quite six months ago--yes, because, i had this hat new; and i've had it quite six months." "where was it?" he asked, growing keener again. "karlsbad; no, marienbad; no, tyrnau; no, vienna; i can't remember where it was, but i have it down in my diary. i could let you know." "did she--she speak of me?" "oh yes. she said she was happy and would have been quite happy if only she could have let you know where she was." "why couldn't she?" "i suppose he wouldn't let her; but i'm sure----" "what he? for heaven's sake, try to speak plainly, miss gilmore. do you mean she was with any one?" "i don't know. i only know what we thought. oh, don't look like that or i can't say any more." his eyes flashed fire again. "tell me, please," he murmured restraining himself. "we thought she had run away with him." i said that seriously enough. he paused, nerving himself for the next question. it came in a low, tense, husky voice. "do you mean she was--married?" i hung my head and was silent. "'fore god, if any one, man or woman dares to hint shame of my child----" he burst out, and stopped abruptly. it was time to be serious again, i felt, as i answered, "i love gareth dearly, and would say no shame of her. if i can help you to find her and learn the truth, will you have my help?" "help me, and all i have in the world shall be yours. and if any one has wronged her, may i burn in hell if i do not make his life the penalty." the vehement, concentrated earnestness of the oath filled me with genuine awe. a tense pause followed, and then, recovering myself, i began to display anew my symptoms of hysterics. this time i was not going to get well enough to be able to speak of the matter farther; and i declared i must go away. i was going to play a dangerous card; and when he asked me when he should see me again, i told him that if he would come that afternoon to me--i gave him madame d'artelle's address--i would tell him all i could. i went away well satisfied with the result of my visit; and then planned my next step. it was to be a bold one; but the crisis called for daring; and if i was to win, i must force the moves from my side. i walked back, glad of the exercise and the fresh air, and as i was passing through the stadtwalchen, busily occupied with my thoughts, i met count karl. he was riding with an attendant and his look chanced to be in my direction. he stared as if trying to recollect me, then he bowed. i responded, but he passed on; and i concluded he had not placed my features in his muddled memory. but a minute later i heard a horse cantering after me; and he pulled up, dismounted, and held out his hand. "you are madame d'artelle's friend, miss gilmore?" "yes," i said, scarce knowing whether to be glad or sorry he had come after me. "may i walk a few steps with you?" "certainly, if you wish." "take the horses home," he said as he gave the reins to the servant. "i have been wishing to speak to you alone, miss gilmore. shall we walk here?" and we turned into a side path at the end of which some nursemaids and children were gathered about the fountains. he did not speak again for some moments, but kept staring at me with a directness which, considering all things, i found embarrassing. "would you mind sitting down here?" he asked, as we reached a seat nearly hidden by the shrubbery. "not in the least," i agreed; and down we sat. "you will think this very singular of me," he declared after a pause. "one person could not very well be plural," i said inanely; and he frowned at the irrelevant flippancy. "i am a student you know, and therefore appreciate grammatical accuracy." "i wish to ask you some questions, if i may." "they appear to be very difficult to frame. you may ask what you please." "i wish you would smile," he said, so unexpectedly that i did smile. "it is perfectly marvellous," he exclaimed with a start. i knew what that meant. in the old days he had talked a lot of nonsense about my smile. "if i smile it is not at the waste of your life and its opportunities, count karl," i ventured. "opportunities!" he repeated with a laugh. "i have seized this one at any rate. i have been thinking about you ever since i saw you two days ago at madame d'artelle's." "why?" i asked pointedly. "that is a challenge. i'll take it up. because your name is christabel. is it really christabel?" "my name seems to cause considerable umbrage," i said, with a touch of offence. "two days ago your brother not only doubted the christabel, but wished to give me a fresh surname as well, von decker or discher, or dreschler, or something." he frowned again. "gustav is a good fellow, but he should hold his tongue. you're so like her, you see, and yet so unlike, that----" he finished the sentence with a cut of his riding whip on his gaiters. "i am quite content to be myself, thank you," i declared with a touch of coldness. "your voice, too. it's perfectly marvellous." "may i ask what all this means?" i put the question very stiffly. "chiefly that i'm an idiot, i think. but i don't care. i'm long past caring. life's only rot, is it?" "not for those who use it properly. it might be a glorious thing for a man in your position and with your future." "ah, you're young, you see, miss gilmore," he exclaimed, with the self-satisfaction of a cynic. "i suppose i thought so once, but there's nothing in it." "there's opium," i rapped out so sharply that he gave a start and glanced at me. then he smiled, heavily. "oh, you've found that out, eh; or somebody has told you? yes, i can't live without it now, and i don't want to try. what does it matter?" and he jerked his shoulders with a don't-care gesture. "i should be ashamed to say that." "i suppose you would. i suppose you would. i should have been, at one time, when i first began; but not now. besides, it suits everybody all right. you see, you don't understand." "i have no intention of trying it." "no, don't. it's only hell a bit before one's time. but i didn't stop you to talk about this. i don't quite know why i did stop you now;" and he ran his hand across his forehead as if striving to remember. a painful gesture, almost pathetic and intensely suggestive. "i suppose it was just a wish to speak to you, that's all," he said at length, wearily. "oh, i know. you reminded me so much of--of another christabel of the name you mentioned, christabel von dreschler, that i wondered if you could be any relation. you _are_ an american, are you not?" "yes. but that is not an american name." "but she was american. i knew her in new york years ago. lord, what long years ago. you are not a relation of hers?" "i have no relative of that name, count karl." "i wish you had been one." "why?" "that's just what i've been asking myself these two days. it wouldn't have been any good, would it? and yet--" he sighed--"yet i think i should have been drawn to speak pretty freely to you." "about what?" he turned at the pointed question and looked quizzically at me. "i wonder. you're so like her, you see." "were you in love with her, then?" he started resentfully at the thrust. coming from me it must have sounded very much like impertinence. "miss gilmore, i----" then he smiled in his feeble, nothing-matters manner. "of course that's a question i can't answer, and you oughtn't to ask. but life's much too stupid for one to take offence when it isn't meant. and i don't suppose you meant any, did you?" "no, on the contrary. i should very much like to be your friend," i said, very earnestly. "would you? i daresay you would. lots of people would like to be the friend of the duke ladislas' eldest son. if they only knew! what humbug it all is." "i am not a humbug," i protested. "i daresay you have a motive in that clever little brain of yours. no clever people do anything without one, and they both agree you're clever and sharp. i wonder what it is. tell me." "'they both?'" i repeated, catching at his words. his face clouded with passing doubt and then cleared as he understood. "i'm getting stupid again; but you don't get stupid. you know what henriette and gustav are in my life. you've spotted it, of course. it saves a heap of trouble to have some one to think for you. you mayn't believe it--you like to think for yourself; but it does, a regular heap of bother. and after all, the chief thing in life is to dodge trouble, isn't it?" "no." i said it with so much energy that he laughed. "that's only your point of view. you're american, you see. but i'm right. i hate taking trouble. of course i know things. they think i don't, but i do. and i don't care." "what things do you know?" he stopped hitting his boots with his whip and looked round at me, paused, and then shook his head slowly. "you don't understand, and it wouldn't do you any good if you did." but i did understand and drove the spur in. "i don't understand one thing--why the elder son should think his chief object in life is to make way for the younger brother." he leant back on the seat and laughed. "they're right. you have a cute little head and no mistake. that's just it. i'm not surprised gustav warned me against you. but he needn't. i shouldn't let you worry me into things. i'm glad i spoke to you, though. you've got old fox erlanger round that little finger of yours, too, haven't you?" "i was governess to general von erlanger's daughter." "and played chess with the old boy. i know;" and he laughed again. "and he sent you to look after henriette, eh?" "no. i knew madame d'artelle in paris, years ago; and i went to her thinking her influence would help me." "did you? i'm not asking. but if you did, you can't be so clever as they think. she hasn't any influence with any one but me--and i don't count. i never shall either." "whose fault is that but your own?" "i don't want to. i don't care. if i did care, of course----" the momentary gleam of energy died out in another weary look and wave of the hand. he waited and then asked. "but won't you tell me that motive of yours, for wanting to be my friend, you know?" "i did not say i had one." "i hoped you might want me to do something for you." "why?" "because you might do something for me in return." "i'll promise to do that in any case." "ah, they all say that. the world's full of unselfish people willing to do things for a duke's son," he said, lazily. "what is it you wish me to do?" "you have friends in america, of course?" "yes." "do you think they could find that other girl--the one you're like, christabel von dreschler?" "yes, i've no doubt they could." "well, i'd like to hear of her again." "would you like her to know what your life is and what you have become?" that made him wince. "by god, that hurts!" he muttered, and he leant back, put his hand to his eyes, and sat hunched up in silence. presently he sighed. "you're right. i'm only a fool, am i?" "if she cared for you, it might have hurt _her_ to know," i said. "don't, please. you make me think; and i don't want to think." "if she loved you then, she would scarcely love you now." "don't, i say, don't," he cried, with sudden vehemence. "you are so like her that to hear this from you is almost as if----i beg your pardon. but for a moment i believe i was almost fool enough to feel something. no, no; don't write or do any other silly thing of the sort. it doesn't matter;" and he tossed up his hands helplessly. we sat for a few moments without speaking, and presently he began to fumble in his pocket. he glanced at me rather shamefacedly, and then with an air of bravado took out a phial of morphia pills. "since you know, it doesn't matter," he said, half-apologetically. "it does matter very much," i declared, earnestly. he held the little bottle making ready to open it, and met my eyes. "why?" "would you take it if she were here?" "i don't know;" and he heaved a deep sigh. "think that she is here, and then you daren't take it." he laughed. "daren't i?" and he partly unscrewed the cap. i put my hand on his arm. "for her sake," i said. "it means hours of hell to me if i don't." "it means a life of hell if you do." "i must." "for her sake," i pleaded again, and held out my hand for the phial. "you would torture me?" "yes, for your good." the struggle in him was acute and searching. "it's no good; i can't," he murmured, his gaze on the phial. i summoned all the will power at my command and forced him to meet my eyes. "for her sake; as if she were here; give it me," i said. "i shall hate you if you make me." "for her sake," i repeated. we looked each into the other's eyes, until i had conquered. "i suppose i must," he murmured with a sigh; and let the little bottle fall into my hand. i threw it down and ground it and the pellets to powder with my heel. he watched me with a curious smile. "how savage you are. as if you thought that could finish it." "no. it is only the beginning--but a good beginning." he got up. "we'd better go now, before i begin to hate you." "you will think of this and of her when the next temptation comes." "oh, it will come right enough; and i shan't resist it. i can't. good-bye. i like you yet. i--i wish i'd known you before." and with that and a sigh and a smile, he lifted his hat and left me. chapter ix i come to terms with madame my interview with karl led to a very disquieting discovery. i sat for some time thinking about it--and my thoughts increased rather than diminished my uneasiness. to use a very expressive vulgarism one often hears at home, i began to fear that i "had run up against a snag." in other words, i had misunderstood the real nature of my feelings for karl; and that miscalculation might cost me dear. it was true that when i had seen him at madame d'artelle's i had hated him cordially; but the reason was clear to me now. it was not my pride that he had hurt in not recognizing me. it was my anger that he had stirred--that he should have forgotten me so completely. it looked so much like the due corollary of his old conduct that i had taken fire. and now i found he had not forgotten me at all; and knew that i had won my little victory over him because he remembered me so well. it was a surprise and a shock; but nothing like the shock it gave me to find how elated and delighted i felt at the fact. for a time i could scarcely hold that delight in check. it took the bit in its teeth and ran away with my sober common sense. my thoughts very nearly made a fool of me again; and i am afraid that i positively revelled in the new knowledge just as any ordinary girl might. but, as i had told general von erlanger, i was not a "usual person;" and i succeeded in pulling up my runaway thoughts in the middle of their wild gallop. i was no longer in love with karl. i had settled that years before. i was intensely embittered by his conduct; he had behaved abominably to me; had flirted and cheated and fooled me; and i had always felt that i never could and never would forgive him. his present condition was a fitting and proper punishment, and he deserved every minute of it. my interest in him now was purely selfish and personal. i had only one thing to consider in regard to him--how i could make use of him to secure justice to my father's reputation, and punishment for the doers of that great wrong. moreover, even if he did care, or thought he still cared for one whom he had so wronged, and if i were an ordinary girl and magnanimous enough to forgive him, and if, further, i could save him permanently from the opium fiend, we could never be more than mere friends. there was an insuperable barrier between us. i knew this from the papers which my father had left behind him. i had better explain it here; for i thought it all carefully over as i sat that morning in the stadtwalchen. there was the great patriotic movement in the way, of which karl's father, duke ladislas, was the head and front. the aim was nothing less than the splitting of the austro-hungarian empire. hungary was to be made an independent kingdom, and duke ladislas was to have the throne. the time to strike the great blow had been decided years before. it was to be at the death of the old emperor. the movement had the widest ramifications; and the whole of the internal policy of hungary was being directed to that paramount object. in one of his papers, my father had suggested that the secret of his ruin was part and parcel of this scheme. while duke alexinatz and his son, count stephen, lived, the right to the hungarian throne would be theirs; and thus, duke ladislas, a man of great ambition and the soul of the movement, had every reason to welcome count stephen's death; and that death had occurred at a moment when the austrian emperor lay so ill that his death was hourly expected. my father's intellect, impaired as it was by his solitary confinement, could not coherently piece the facts together. synthetical reasoning was beyond him for one thing; and for another he could not bring himself to believe that the man whom beyond all others in the world he admired and trusted, duke ladislas, could be guilty of such baseness and crime as the facts suggested. appalled, therefore, by the conclusions which were being forced upon him, he had abandoned the work in fear and horror. i had no such predispositions or prejudices; but as yet i had no proofs. i could only set to work from the other end, and attempt to discover the agents who had done the deed, and work up through them to the man whose originating impulse might have been the real first cause. but the solid fact remained that count stephen's death cleared the way to the new throne for duke ladislas and his sons; and therefore, if i were to succeed in killing karl's opium habit, and even induce him to play the great part in life open to him, he would be the heir to the throne, when gained, and i impossible except as a friend. two days before, nay two hours before, i should have asked and desired no more than that; but after this talk with karl--and at that moment i stamped my foot in impotent anger, and wrenching my thoughts away from that part of the subject, got up and walked hurriedly away in the direction of madame d'artelle's house. i arrived as she was sitting down to lunch, and she gave me a very frigid reception. i saw that she had passed a very uncomfortable morning. she had been weeping, and having found in her tears no solution of the problem i had set her, was sullen and depressed. "you have been out, christabel?" "yes, completing my plans." "what a knack you have developed of making spiteful speeches! i had no idea you could be so nasty." "what is there spiteful in having plans to complete?" "i suppose they are aimed at me!" "my dear henriette, must i not be careful to have some place to go and live in? be reasonable." "you always seem to have some undercurrent in what you say. it's positively hateful. what do you mean by that?" "some of us americans have a trick of answering one question with another. i think i'll do that now. what do you think i'd better do when you are gone?" "i don't understand that either," she said very crossly. "i mean to-morrow." "i am not going anywhere to-morrow." she could lie glibly. "that may be nearer the truth than you think; but you have planned to go away to-morrow--with count karl." "preposterous." "so i think--but true, all the same. you are very foolish to attempt to hoodwink me, henriette. you are thinking of trying to deny what i say. i can see that--but pray don't waste your breath. i told you this morning that in an hour or two i should know everything. i do now." "have you seen count karl?" "do you think i should tell you how i find out things? so long as i do find them out, nothing else matters. but i will tell you something. you will not go, henriette. i shall not allow it." "allow?" she echoed, shrilly. "i generally use the words i mean. i said 'allow'--and i mean no other word. i shall not allow it." she let her ill temper have the reins for a minute, and broke out into a storm of invective, using more than one little oath to point her phrases. i waited patiently until her breath and words failed her. "i am glad you have broken out like that. there's more relief in it than tears. now i will tell you what i mean to do--and to do to-day. i have had inquiries made in paris for m. constans, and a wire from me will bring him here in search of you. you know what that means;" i added, very deliberately, as i saw her colour change. i guessed there was ground for the bluff that i knew much more than my words expressed. "i don't believe you," she managed to stammer out--her voice quite changed with fear. "your opinion does not touch me. in your heart you know i never lie, madame--and for once you may trust your heart. if you force me, that telegram will go to-day. nor is that all. i will go to duke ladislas and tell him the story of the lost jewels, and who instigated the theft and received the stolen property." "they have been given back; besides, will he prosecute his own son?" "the theft shall be published in every paper, and with it the story of how count karl has been ruined by opium drugging. by whom, madame--by the secret agent of the french government, the ex-spy of the paris police--madame constans? you can judge how austrian people will read that story." she had no longer any fight left in her. i spoke without a note of passion in my voice; and every word told. she sat staring at me, white and helpless and beaten. "more than that and worse than that----" "i can bear no more," she cried, covering her face with trembling fingers. i don't know what more she thought i was going to threaten to do. i knew of nothing more; so it was fortunate she stopped me. she was in truth so frightened that if i had threatened to have her hanged, i think she would have believed in my power to do it. "why do you seek to ruin me? what have i done to make you my enemy?" she asked at length. "i do not seek to ruin you, and i will be your friend and not your enemy, if you trust instead of deceiving me. i will save you from count gustav's threats." "how can you?" "what matters to you how, so long as i do it?" "he knows all that you know." "what, that you are here to betray the leaders of the hungarian national movement to your french employers and their russian allies?" "_nom de dieu_, but how i am afraid of you?" she cried. "if i tell him that how will it fare with you?" "no no, you must not. i will do all you wish. i will. i will. i swear it on my soul." "tell me then the details of the elopement to-morrow. i know enough to test the truth of what you say; and if you lie, i shall do all i have said--and more." "i will not lie, christabel. i am going to trust you. it is arranged for to-morrow night. i leave the house here at nine o'clock in a carriage. at the end of the radialstrasse count karl will join me. we drive first to a villa in buda, behind the blocksberg--a villa called 'unter den linden.' we are to be married there; and on the following day we cross the frontier into germany and go to breslau." she said it as if she had been repeating a lesson, and finished with a deep-drawn sigh. "is he coming to-day?" "no." "to-morrow?" "no." "ah. that is to convince me that all is broken off?" "yes." she was as readily obedient as a child. "count gustav is coming to-day?" "yes. this afternoon at four o'clock. to settle everything." "good. you will see him and be careful to act as though everything were as it was left when you saw him yesterday." "i dare not." "you must. everything may turn upon that. you must." "but if he suspects?" "you must prevent that. i shall see him afterwards. if you let him suspect or if you play me false, i shall know; and the consequences will not be pleasant for you. you will tell count gustav not to see you to-morrow, because you are afraid i shall guess something; and that if he has to communicate with you, he must write. it is the only way in which i can save you from him." "and what am i to do afterwards?" "i will tell you to-morrow. be assured of this. i and those whose power is behind me will see not only that no harm comes to you, but that you are well paid." "i am giving up everything." "it is no time to bargain. what you are giving up in reality is the risk of a gaol and the certainty of exposure and ruin--and worse." "mother of heaven, have mercy on me!" she cried. i did not stop to hear her lamentations. it was two o'clock already. i had still many things to fix, and i must be back in the house soon after count gustav reached it. the fur was to fly in my interview with him; and i must have all my claws sharp. i did not make the mistake of underestimating his strength as an adversary. i should have to use very different means with him from those which had sufficed to frighten madame d'artelle; and i must have the proofs ready to produce. i was going to change his present half-contemptuous suspicion into open antagonism; and that he could and would be a very dangerous enemy, i did not allow myself to doubt. my first step was to find the house in buda of which madame d'artelle had spoken. it was a bright pleasant house in a pretty, carefully kept garden; not more than a mile from the villa i myself had just rented. but to my surprise it was occupied: a girl was playing with a couple of dogs on the lawn. my first thought was that madame had misled me; my second, to try and ascertain this for myself. i entered the garden and walked toward the house, and the dogs came scampering across barking. the girl turned and followed them. "your garden is beautiful," i said, with a smile. "if the house is as much beyond the description of it as the garden, it will suit me admirably." "you came to take the house?" she asked. "yes, i have a letter here--let me see, oh, this is my list--ah, yes--'unter den linden.' is not that the name?" and taking a slip of paper from my pocket i pretended to consult it. "yes, this is 'unter den linden'--those are the trees;" and she pointed to the limes which gave the name. "but i am afraid you are too late. i think it is let." i was overcome with disappointment; but perhaps she would ask her mother. we went into the house and she left me in the dining-room. presently the mother came; a tired looking creature who had once been pretty, like the girl, but was now frayed and worn. she was very sorry, but the house was let. i was just too late. it had only been let the previous day. did i want it for long? "not more than twelve months certain," i told her. she threw up her hands. "just my ill-luck," she cried, dismally. "i have let it for two months, and we go out this evening. but perhaps i could get out of it." "that is not worth while. i should not want it for a month yet, and perhaps could wait for two. could i see over the house?" in this way i was taken into every nook and corner of it; and enabled to fix every room and passage and door in my memory. and then i inspected the garden and outside places. "do you leave your servants?" i asked, at the end of a number of questions. "we keep but one. my daughter and i live alone, and do most of the work when we are at home. and the servant goes away with us." "an excellent arrangement. i have my own servants. i wonder now if we could induce your tenant to let me have the place in a month. who is he?" "it is taken for count von ostelen--but i do not know him. the agents have done everything. i could ask them." "do so, and let me know;" and i jotted down at random a name and address to which she could write, and left. i had done well so far; and i drove rapidly to my own house in good spirits over my success. there was only one point which puzzled me. why had that name, count von ostelen, been used? was it merely as the name in which count karl usually travelled incognito? just as he had used it in new york? or had his brother some other motive? it was only a trifle, of course; but then, as i have said, i am accustomed to take some trifles seriously. if i could have seen a little farther ahead, i should have taken this one even more seriously than usual; and should not have dismissed it from my thoughts as i did when i reached my house and was kissing gareth in response to the glad smile with which she greeted me. my next step concerned her. chapter x a dramatic stroke "have you any news for me?" was gareth's eager question, natural enough under the circumstances, and her delicate expressive face clouded as i shook my head. "we could scarcely expect any good news yet, dear." "i suppose not; but i am so anxious." "it will all come right in time, gareth." but that very trite commonplace had no more soothing effect on her than it often has on wiser folk. "i suppose i must be patient; but i wish i could do something for myself. i hate being patient. why can't i go out myself and search for him? i put my hat on once this morning to start." "i told you before the risk you would run." "oh, i know all that, of course," she replied, petulantly. "i've been with you nearly two days and you've done nothing. two whole long days. and it's so dull here. it's worse than at sillien." "would it have been better had those men taken you?" she threw her arms round my neck then and burst into tears. "i know how ungrateful i am. i hate myself for it, christabel. but i did so hope you had brought some news. and i am so disappointed." i let her cry, knowing the relief which tears bring to such a nature as hers. she soon dried her eyes, and sat down and looked at me, her hands folded demurely on her lap--the picture of pretty meekness. "how pretty you are, gareth--with your lovely golden hair, your great blue eyes, and pink and white cheeks." "am i?" she asked artlessly, smiling. "karl used to say that; and i used to love to hear him say it. i only cared to be pretty because he liked it. but i like to hear you say it, too. you see i'm not a bit clever, like you; and one must be either clever or pretty, mustn't one? karl's both handsome and clever. oh, so handsome, christabel. you'll say so when you see him. i wish i had a likeness." this gave me an idea. "couldn't you draw a likeness of him, gareth, for me? you see it might help me to recognize him." her face broke into a sunny smile. "i can draw a little; i couldn't do him justice, of course--no one could do that. he's too handsome. but i could give you an idea of what he's like." we found paper and pencil. "do the best you can and then put my name on it, and sign it gareth von ostelen, and put the date to it, so that i can have it for a keepsake." "lovely," she cried, merrily; and set to work at once. i watched her a few moments, and when she was absorbed in the task, i went off saying i had some directions to give about house matters. it was part of my plan that john perry and his son, as soon as the latter returned, should go to the house "unter den linden." i might need them for my personal protection. i told john perry now, therefore, that he was to hire a woman servant to come and help his wife in waiting upon gareth. he was then to purchase a carriage and a pair of good horses, and procure uniforms for himself and his son. he was to act as coachman and james as footman; and everything must be in readiness for him to carry out instantly any orders he received from me. i should either bring or send the orders on the next afternoon. i explained that in all probability he would have to drive to the house "unter den linden," stable the horses there, and dismiss any men servants he might find about the house; and i suggested that he should go first to the house and find an excuse to learn his way about the stables. when i returned to gareth she had finished the drawing and had added a clever little thumb-nail sketch of herself in the corner, where she had written her name and the date. the drawing really merited the praise i bestowed upon it. "i could do much better if i had not to hurry it," she said, self-critically. "do another while i am away, then," i urged, thinking it would fill out the time for her. "and now there is one other thing. could you give me a paper or letter with his signature--i might be able to trace him through some of the public rolls." there were no such rolls of course; but she did not know this, and thought the idea so clever that she gave me one of the two letters from him she had with her; and kissed me and wished me good luck as i drove away. although there was not much risk of my movements being traced, i thought it best to dismiss my carriage before i crossed the suspension bridge, and to finish the journey to madame d'artelle's in another. as the minute approached for the trial of wits and strength with count gustav, my confidence increased. every fighting instinct in my nature was roused; and the struggle was one in which i took a keen personal pleasure. his hateful treatment of the girl who had trusted him filled me with indignation and resentment; and the hope of forcing him to do justice to her was one of the sharpest spurs to my courage. he should do that or face the alternative of having his double treachery exposed. i was a little later than i had intended in reaching the house, and i asked the servant somewhat anxiously if any one had yet been for me. "no, miss, no one." "i am expecting a colonel katona to call, peter," i said, giving him a gold piece; "and i do not wish any one to know of his visit. i shall be with madame probably; so when the colonel arrives, make up a little parcel and bring it to me, and just say: 'the parcel you asked about, miss.' put the colonel in the little room off the music room, and tell him that i will see him as soon as possible. you understand this?" "yes indeed, miss," he answered with a grin as he slipped the money in his pocket. "where is madame d'artelle?" "in the salon." "alone?" "no, miss; count gustav is with her. he has been here about a quarter of an hour." i went straight to the salon. madame was sitting on a lounge, her face full of trouble, and count gustav was pacing up and down the room speaking energetically with many forceful gestures. he stopped and frowned at the interruption; but his frown changed to a smile as he held out his hand. he opened with what, as a chess player, i may call the lie gambit. "i have been endeavouring to cheer up madame d'artelle, miss gilmore," he said lightly. "i tell her she takes the postponement--or if you like, the abandonment--of the marriage with karl too seriously." "is it abandoned?" i asked. "did she not tell you?" "yes; but i could scarcely believe it, seeing how much you have counted upon the marriage. the abandonment is a tribute to your influence. but why have you given it up?" "i given it up? i? what can it be to me?" he laughed. "it is not my marriage, miss gilmore. i like my brother, of course, but i am not in love with him so much as to want to marry him." "all pesth knows how much you love your brother," said i, drily. "i should not come to you for testimony, i think. i am afraid it would not be favourable. i am glad you are not the majority." "probably i do not know you as others do, or perhaps others do not know you as i do. but why have you abandoned the project of the marriage?" "you insist on putting the responsibility on me," he said with a touch of irritation beneath his laugh. "i can understand that the question is awkward." "not in the least. you see, you raised most unexpectedly the point about the admirable and excellent gentleman who was madame's husband; and it must perforce be postponed until the proofs of his death are forthcoming. thus it is rather your doing than mine;" and he shrugged his shoulders. "you have found them more difficult to manufacture than you anticipated, i presume?" "that is a very serious charge, very lightly made, miss gilmore." his assumption of offence was excellent. "i am not speaking lightly, count gustav. when we parted last time you said that the proofs of the death of madame's husband should be produced. within a few hours i heard that the marriage had been postponed; you now say it was because those proofs cannot be produced. there must be a reason for such a sudden change of front; and i have suggested it. if you prefer, we will leave it that the proofs cannot be found or fabricated in time to suit you." he heard me out with darkening face, and then crossed to madame d'artelle and offered her his hand. "i think, madame, it will be more convenient for me to leave now. with a lady we cannot resent an insult; we can only protect ourselves from further insult by leaving." i laughed with ostentatiously affected hilarity, and sat down. madame d'artelle gave him her hand nervously, and he turned from her and bowed stiffly to me. "i think i should not go, count, if i were you," i said, smoothly. "your attitude makes it impossible for me to remain, miss gilmore." "of course you know best, but i should not go if i were you." he was uneasy and hesitated; went toward the door and then paused and turned. "if you wish to say anything to me and can do so without insulting me, i am willing to listen to you--as a friend of madame's;" and he waved his hand in her direction. "i've a great deal to say and i'm going to say it to some one. of course if you go, i must say it to some one else." "and what am i to understand by that?" "you haven't decided yet whether to go or stay. now, i'll be much more candid with you than you are with me. it's just a question whether you dare go or not. your start just now is what we americans call putting up a bluff. but you can't bluff me. i hold the cards--every one of them a winning card, too. if you go, you lose the game straight away, for i shan't be many minutes in the house after you. you're going to lose anyhow, for that matter: but--well, as i tell you, you'd better not go." "i'm not versed in american slang, miss gilmore, and it doesn't lend itself to translation into german," he sneered. "then i'll put it plainer. go, if you dare, count gustav;" and i challenged him in look as well as words. "i am always anxious to oblige a pretty woman, miss gilmore," he said, with one of his most gracious glances. "that's very sweet of you, count. but the question is not my looks; it's your reputation and position." at this point madame d'artelle made a diversion. "i am not feeling well, christabel, and am going to my room to lie down," she said, rising. "that's just what i would have suggested, henrietta," i answered, fastening on her action. "it's just as well. i have to say some things to count gustav that he might not care for even you to hear." he made a great show of opening the door for her to pass and used the moment's delay to think. just as she went out the footman came to the door, carrying the parcel. "do you want me, peter?" she asked. "no, madame, miss gilmore. the parcel you asked for, miss." i took it and he went out and closed the door. "i have resolved not to stay longer, miss gilmore. i would do much for any friend of madame's, but i cannot with self-respect suffer your threats and insults." i thought of a little dramatic stroke. "one moment, count, this parcel concerns you." i half tore the wrapper off and handed it to him. he would not take it, waving it away contemptuously. "you had better take it. it is from--sillien, count," i said, very deliberately. his eyes blazed with sudden anger. "i don't understand you," he cried; but he took it and tore off the covering to find a blank sheet of paper. "this is another insult. i would have you beware." "not an insult--a message. to have been properly dramatic this should have been inside it--" and i held up before him the little sketch which gareth had made for me with such laughing earnestness. "the message which that parcel brings is--that colonel katona, gareth's father, is here in the house waiting to see me. now, do you wish to go?" the suddenness of the stroke was for the moment irresistible. the colour fled from his face as the laughter had died from his lips. white, tense, agitated and utterly unstrung, he stood staring at me as if he would gladly have struck me dead. i had every reason to be contented with my victory. chapter xi plain talk that it was chiefly the stunning unexpectedness of my stroke which overwhelmed count gustav was proved by the promptness with which he rallied. had i given him even a hint of my information or prepared him in any way for the thrust, i am sure he would have met it with outward equanimity. my probe had pierced the flesh, however, before he had had a moment to guard himself; and he had flinched and winced at the unexpected pain of it. but he soon recovered self-possession. "you have a dramatic instinct, miss gilmore, and considerable inventive power. you should write for the stage. the essence of melodrama is surprise." "i could not hope always to carry my audience away so completely, count." he laughed. "i am afraid i have not done you justice hitherto. i have not taken you seriously enough. i think you are right in another thing--i had better not go yet. our chat promises to be interesting. i should very much like a cigar. i wonder if madame would object." he spoke lightly and took out his cigar case. "it would be very appropriate," i said. "there is one character in a melodrama who always smokes." "you mean the villain?" "the hero rarely has time--after the first act, at any rate. he is generally being arrested, or hunted, or imprisoned, or ruined in some way--sometimes drugged." he had struck the match and at my last word paused to look at me. he favoured me with such a stare that the match burnt his fingers, and he dropped it with a muttered oath which i affected not to hear. it was a very trifling incident; but he was so unusually careful in such matters as a rule that it offered another proof of his ill balance. "i burnt my fingers and forgot my manners," he said lightly. "i beg your pardon, miss gilmore." "you mean that you wish to have time to recover from the surprise. pray wait as long as you please--and think. i have no wish to take any fresh advantage over you--at present." "oh no, thank you," he cried, airily. "we will talk. now, we must know where we stand, you and i?" "at the moment we are in the salon of madame d'artelle, who was your instrument and tool." "that 'was' sounds interesting. is that your number one?" "yes." "very well, then, we'll take her as finished with. i don't care much about her. she has disappointed me. she is pretty; beautiful even: but no brains. she has let you guess too much. i'd rather deal with you direct. what is number two? and how many numbers are there?" he was so light in hand, took defeat so easily, was so apparently ready for a complete change of front, and spoke with such an admirable assumption of raillery that i had difficulty in repressing an inclination to smile. "you admit your defeat, then?" he spread out his hands, waving one of them toward gareth's drawing, and shrugged his shoulders. "i am not a fool, miss gilmore." i had expected anything except this instant surrender; and it caught me unready to state my terms. i could not go into the question of my father's wrongs, because i did not know enough of the matter. "the terms will be heavy," i said, slowly. "one must pay a price for folly; and i shall at least have the compensation of pleasing you." "you will make gareth your legal wife?" he drew two whiffs of his cigar, took it from his lips, and looked at it thoughtfully. "i would much rather marry you," he said with sudden smiling insolence. "do you agree?" i asked, curtly. "that's number two, is it? is the list much longer?" "you will abandon the attempt to ruin your brother?" "that's number three--number four?" "there is no number four at present." "what, nothing for yourself? then you are a most remarkable young lady. oh, but there must be." "you are wasting time, count gustav, and colonel katona may grow impatient," i answered. "give me time. i am lost in amazement at such altruism--such philanthropy. you come to pesth to push your fortunes; chance and your clever little wits put a fortune in your grasp, and--you want nothing for yourself." he shot at me a glance of sly mockery. "perhaps miss von dreschler seeks something? the other christabel, you know." "i have stated my terms, count gustav." "my answer is that i accept all of them--except the last two;" and the laugh at his insolence was one of genuine enjoyment. "then there is no more to be said," i declared, rising. "but indeed there is. pray sit down again. we are going to talk this over frankly. there is always an alternative course in such affairs--that was why i was anxious to know your motive. will you sit down?" "no. i have said all i wish." "well, you gave me a surprise. i will give you one. you are miss christabel von dreschler; or at all events you were, until you inherited your uncle's money and took his name with it. he was john p. gilmore, of jefferson city, missouri. now, allow me;" and he placed a chair for me with elaborate courtesy, while he regarded me with an expression of great satisfaction and triumph. i sat down and he resumed his seat. "by the way," he said, as if casually, "we are likely to be engaged some time, hadn't we better let colonel katona go?" "i may still have to speak to him," i answered, drily. "i don't think so, when he knows that you are colonel von dreschler's daughter--if i should have to tell him, that is--he will not be very friendly toward you. he will not, really. he is a very singular old man." the art with which he conveyed this threat was inimitably excellent. "the truth when he knows it, will tell with him, no matter from whom it comes." "yes, but he may not have to know it. you may persuade me to marry gareth--in reality, you see. besides, your object in bringing him here has already been achieved; you made your coup, and it was successful. why keep him? you can just as easily tell him all another time--if you have to; while if i agree to do now what you wish, you will only have to put him off and send him away. i really think he may go. i have very little doubt we shall come to an understanding." i thought a moment. "yes, he may go. i will tell him so." "i will go with you to him. he has a great regard for my family. we will tell him you are indisposed, or anything you please. i can satisfy him more easily than you can, perhaps." "i will go alone." he shook his head and smiled. "do you think that quite fair to me under the peculiar circumstances? i wish to be quite sure that what you say is discreet. i must make a point of it that we go together, really i must." but i recalled my impersonation of the giggling miss, and was not willing that the count should know of that. "i will go alone to him, or he must remain," i said. "i will go to him alone, then. you may be sure i shall not betray myself." i let him go. i saw no risk in so simple a step, and was glad to be relieved from the interview. i read his act to be a confirmation of his words--that we were likely to come to an understanding, and in that case there would be no need for colonel katona ever to know that gareth had been betrayed. i was a little uneasy, however, when some minutes passed and the count did not return, but he explained the delay by saying that the colonel was a peculiar man, and had plagued him with many questions difficult to answer. "i told him you were not well, and would find means to see him as soon as necessary. and now, to resume our conversation, miss--von dreschler." he spoke as airily as if it were a game of cards which had been interrupted. "you take that for granted; but it scarcely helps matters." "permit me to indulge in the rudeness of a contradiction. i think it does. it gives me the clue to your motive--an essential matter to me. you are an american, young, wealthy, very pretty, and undoubtedly clever. why then do you masquerade as an adventuress? you may have one of two motives--and there is a very improbable third. as miss von dreschler, my brother paid you great attentions in new york; the matter being broken off suddenly, in obedience to the protest of one of the friends with him, who reminded karl that what was going to happen here made it impossible for him to marry a private individual." he was very quick to see the surprise with which i heard this, and paused to emphasize it. "you are surprised. i always have thought that karl's conduct was indefensible. you ought to have been told the real reason; and it was only a flight of romantic fancy for him to prefer to pose as a mean fellow, willing to win your affections and then run away. that was his deliberate decision, however. he believed you would get over the affair all the more easily if you thought him a scoundrel." he glanced up again to judge the effect of his words as he paused to pull at his cigar; but i was on guard and gave no sign at all. it was, however, an unpleasant experience to have the other side of my chief life's story revealed by a man whom i knew to be false; and told with a purpose, in a tone of half sardonic raillery, and as a carefully calculated bid for my silence about himself. heart dissection is a trying process under such conditions. "you will see from this that karl was--excuse me if i put it plainly; it is all necessary--was intensely devoted to you. he returned home profoundly unhappy and very love-sick--his is a nature which takes such things seriously--and to this hour he has never recovered. to forget you and the way he had treated you, he plunged into wild excesses which in a couple of years gravely impaired his health; heavy drinking was followed by the present passion for opium. in a word, you have seen for yourself what love has done for my brother." "you have helped him downwards," i put in. "he needed no help from me, but----" he waved his cigar expressively and jerked his shoulders. "and that brings us to chapter the second. for our purposes here, a dipsomaniac with a love craze and the opium habit is no use. you are colonel von dreschler's daughter, and may know something of the patriotic hungarian cause----" he paused to give me a chance to speak. "the movement in favour of independence, you mean?" "i thought you would know it;" and he nodded as if it were of the most trifling consequence. "well, then, you will know that karl became impossible. yet he is the elder son and my father's heir; and some of us hungarians are almost fanatics on the subject of succession. everything was in danger; and as he has always refused to be set aside in my favour, there was nothing to do except to make him legally impossible. another surprise for you now"--he spoke as indulgently as if he had been throwing me a candy. "the marriage with you became desirable; so fate turns her wheel, you see; and i sent to new york to search for you, and we took infinite trouble in the vain endeavour to trace you. it was very unfortunate;" and he spread out his hands again. i made no comment, but just kept my eyes on him, waiting for him to continue. "pardon me if i am personal again. you would have suited our purpose admirably. i suspected you were the daughter of colonel von dreschler; and as your father's reputation was--was what it was and is--karl's marriage with you would have been absolutely fatal to his chances here." "my father's reputation was the result of vile treachery," i cried indignantly. and i saw my blunder instantly in the start of satisfaction he gave, but instantly repressed. he smoked a couple of moments in silence. "we will deal with that presently--but i thank you for that admission, although i am surprised you did not see the trap i laid to obtain it. your natural indignation, no doubt. well, as we could not find you, we had to obtain an understudy--madame d'artelle." his tone was contemptuous here. "and i think, now, you understand chapter two. you must admit i have been frank; and my frankness is a tribute to your perspicacity." "you have no comments," he said, still lightly and airily, when i did not speak. "very well, then, we'll go to chapter three. that concerns the future--and your part in it. what do you mean to do, or, in other words, why did you come here? you are an interesting problem. you may have come to try and clear your father's name; or to punish in some way the man who treated you so badly: clever and pretty women have done that before, you know. or--and this i referred to as the really improbable motive--you may still wish to marry my brother. but whatever your motive and object, i pledge you my honour--the honour of the son of the duke ladislas and future king of hungary--that i will help you to the utmost of my power. but you must also help me; and for your first object you must be content to wait a year or two, until my father's death." "and gareth?" i asked, after a pause. a frown darkened his face and his eyes clouded. he rose and took a couple of turns across the room. "would to god i could undo that business!" he cried, either with deep feeling or an excellent simulation of it. "you can't understand what this is to me! i am not a man capable of deep love, but i care for gareth beyond all women. it was a midsummer madness; and if i could repair the injury to her, i would. but the prospect of the throne is between us--and shall i give that up and wreck the whole of this great national movement for her? i would do anything else on god's earth for her--but that i cannot. it is impossible." "and her father?" "i know what you mean. he would plunge a knife in my heart or send a bullet crashing into my brain, if he knew. he is desperate enough for anything. but he must not know. you must never tell him." "you have the hardihood to do the wrong but lack the courage to face the consequences," i exclaimed, bitterly. "i was not thinking of that. i am not afraid of mere death, i hope," he cried contemptuously. "i am thinking of the millions of czechs, men, women and children, whose hopes of liberty are centred in my life. beside that, all else is as nothing." "it is a pity you did not think of this before." "a man is a man and will act as a man at times. i have done a wrong i cannot undo; and it only remains to limit its mischief." "a convenient code." "where is gareth?" he broke off. "not where you intended those miscreants of yours to place her." "oh, so that was you also, was it?" he said, understanding. "you are making yourself very dangerous. do you persist in threatening me?" "what if i do?" he paused as if to give emphasis to his reply. "those who oppose a national movement, miss von dreschler, must not be surprised if they are crushed under its wheels. as the daughter of your father, your mere presence here might be a danger to you." "you threaten me?" "i warn you--and that is the same thing. but a way is open to you. marry karl and take him away." "you are a coward!" i cried, the burning red of anger flushing my face as i remembered his former taunt that such a marriage would degrade his brother sufficiently for his purpose. "cold facts not hot words will alone serve here," he replied. "what do you mean to do?" "you can let your brother marry madame d'artelle. he is nothing to me." he bent a sharp, piercing look upon me. "you mean that?" "if i had influence with him it would be used to thwart your schemes. keep him away from me, therefore, lest i tell him who i am and pit that influence against yours." he paused and his brows knitted in thought. "what you mean is that you are willing to use madame d'artelle to revenge your own wrongs upon him. then the third motive, the improbable one for your presence here, is the real one." "if he will marry her, let him," i cried indignantly. "you mean they are to carry out to-morrow's plan?" "yes." "you amaze me. but then one never can understand a woman. and as for the rest?" "i must think. it is a tangle. i shall probably tell colonel katona." "it will be his death warrant. a hint that my life is in peril from him and a hundred knives will be out of their sheaths in my defence. and those who would defend me against him would be ugly enemies of colonel von dreschler's daughter. you do not understand us magyars. you are raising a storm whose violence may overwhelm you." "i will say no more now. but you shall do gareth justice." "do you set that before the clearing of your father's name? that is the problem for you, and it is so searching that i can be sure you will not act in a hurry. but in any case, i do not fear you, miss von dreschler, nor anything you can do. i shall see you to-morrow, and by then you will have decided whether my brother is to marry madame d'artelle." "i have decided. that is what i wish," i answered, firmly. in his perplexity he stared hard at me and then bowed. as he was leaving the room he turned. "i don't understand you; but i shall be sorry if you make yourself my enemy and drive me to any extremes. i respect you; and repeat, i shall be sorry." i made no answer; leaving him to think i had spoken my last word as to karl. chapter xii his excellency again if the truth must be confessed i had surprised myself quite as much as count gustav in declaring my wish that karl should marry madame d'artelle. i had spoken in response to the feeling of hot resentment he had roused by his bitter taunt that a marriage with me would prove an effectual disgrace for karl. and what stung me was the obvious truth of it all. my father was the proscribed murderer of the man who, had he lived, would have been the future occupant of the new throne; and for karl to marry such a man's daughter must mean absolute death to his chance of succeeding to that throne. the gall and wormwood of that thought were intolerable. madame d'artelle, ex-police spy as she was, bigamist as she would be, and with a past that would not bear investigation, was a suitable and eligible match compared with me! and the torture i suffered as this conclusion forced itself home, is not easy to describe. one thing was clearly borne in upon me. i would not marry either karl or any other man until that slur was off my name. i would not rest until that was done. the wish to clear up the mystery which i had at first felt mainly for my dead father's sake, now quickened into a passionate resolve on my own account. for my own sake i must and would get to the bottom of the mystery; and the risk of neither my fortune nor my safety should be allowed to come between me and it. i had called it a tangle; and what a tangle it was! whichever way i moved there were difficulties that seemed insuperable. in one direction gareth's pretty, smiling, trustful face blocked my path. unless i broke my pledge to her, i could not open my lips to her father. and if i did not tell him, i might get no farther forward to my end. if he held the key to the mystery, it was only too probable that, as count gustav had implied, he could not speak without accusing himself. it was therefore useless to deal with him until i had found the means of compelling him to say what he knew. count gustav himself knew of my father's innocence, and had pledged his honour to help me to clear it; but even if i trusted him, which i did not, the price was connivance in his schemes--in gareth's fate and karl's undoing. that door was therefore shut in my face. there remained duke ladislas, general von erlanger and karl himself. the duke was hopeless, so far as i was concerned. the general most unlikely to help me. as for karl, i doubted whether he knew anything, or even if he did know, whether he possessed a spark of the energy necessary to help. could i infuse that energy into him? as the question leaped into my mind, i began to think earnestly of the means to do this. if count gustav was right in what he had said in his jeering, flaunting way about karl's feelings for me, i might indeed have much power over him. up to this point i had been stumbling at random and in the dark in regard to karl. i had had an indefinite plan to secure his influence by saving him from the ruin which others threatened. but now a much clearer path opened. and then i saw how my impulse of anger could be used for my purpose--the impulse which had led me to agree that the plan for the marriage with madame d'artelle should go forward. my original plan had been to let the elopement take place and then go to the house, "unter den linden," and by exposing madame d'artelle, frighten her away and at the same time establish my influence with karl. i saw a better plan, however, into which all the preparations i had made would fit admirably. there was risk in it and danger to my own reputation; but i could take care of that. i was too desperate to be scared by any fear of consequences. what i thought to do now was to play madame's part in the business, and to take her place in the carriage with karl. i guessed that gustav would see to it that he was stupefied with either drink or drugs, when the crisis came; and in a dark carriage, closely veiled, i could trust myself to maintain the deception successfully. i knew that gustav was to bring his brother to the carriage; and in this way i could delude him as to my own movements. that was as essential to my plans as it was that i should have free and full opportunities of exerting my influence upon karl. i had to think also of my personal safety. i did not under-rate the risk which i was now to run on that account. in pitting myself against count gustav i was fighting the whole influence which his father wielded. the duke had not scrupled to sacrifice my father; and was not likely to be less drastic in dealing with me if i stood in his way. and one word from count gustav would be enough to bring the whole force of his anger upon me. i was deliberating what steps to take when a note was brought to me from general von erlanger, asking me in somewhat urgent terms to go and see him. i was glad of the chance. i might find out from him how far the duke would have power to threaten my safety should count gustav obtain his help. but i found his excellency very far removed from an inclination to discuss serious matters seriously. i saw at once that he had dressed himself with more than usual care; he was wearing a number of the orders he had received in the course of a successful diplomatic and political career; and he welcomed me with genial smiles and quite unnecessary warmth. he held my hand so long indeed, as he greeted me, that his two daughters noticed it. i saw them nudge each other and snigger, and i had to give quite a tug to get it away. he insisted upon my staying to dinner, all unprepared though i was; and when i pleaded that i had no dinner costume, he declared that i was never anything but charming; and that he would take no excuse. the girls carried me away to put my hair tidy, and then gave me their confidences about their father and the new governess. she was a "beast," it seemed, according to charlotte; and the general wished me to return. "father misses his chess with you," she said, with the ingenuous directness of her age: "that is why he wants you back. we think he's going to make you his secretary as well. he talks an awful lot about wanting help." "he took over an hour dressing himself when he knew you were coming," chimed in the younger, sophia; "and he made charlotte go and tell him if his hair was parted straight." "he's always talking about how well you play chess, and how clever you are." "and he never puts those orders on unless somebody awfully particular is coming!" they rattled on in this way at considerable length; and during dinner watched the general's conduct to me very closely, nodding and smiling significantly at me, and winking at each other. i had remained a week in the house after my coming to an understanding with him, and before i went to madame d'artelle's and during that time we had had more than one confidential talk. when an old man yields to the influence of a very young woman, it is often a considerable surrender. it had been so in his excellency's case; and i was quite conscious that i could do a great deal with him. vivien could with merlin; and a minister of ripe and long experience can make a very interesting merlin. in those talks of ours he had sometimes forgotten the difference of forty years in our ages, and more than once had paid me compliments which might have been almost embarrassing had i been minded to take them at all literally. the girls' chatter had therefore prepared me in a measure for what might be to follow when they had been sent away and we two were once again face to face over the chess board. "i have missed my chess very much, miss gilmore. i can't tell you how much." "you should teach charlotte to play." "she would never learn. she is just a child, no more." "you are not playing well yourself, to-night." he laughed. "that's what i like about you. you blurt the truth out with delightful frankness. i don't want to play to-night." "is that why you say you've missed your chess so much?" "i've missed your white hands moving among the men, more than the game itself." he spoke very quickly, and fumbling nervously among the men upset two of them. i made a move then that was not chess. i'm not sure that it was quite fair to him indeed. pretending haste in picking the pieces up, i touched his hand and glanced at him. our eyes met; and withdrawing my hand quickly, i upset some more men, with a suggestion of agitation. "i beg your pardon," i stammered. "i'm afraid i don't remember how they stood. i--i think i'm a little confused." "why should you be?" he asked, with a glance. "i don't know. it's very silly. i don't understand myself. i--i believe i'm nervous." "i can't imagine you nervous--er--christabel." it was very daring of him; but he tried to say it as if it was his rule to use my name. i cast my eyes down and sighed. "i think i'll go now," i said after a pause; "if you don't mind." "but i _do_ mind, very much. don't bother about the game. i don't care where the men were." i smiled. "possibly; but i think i was going to win. i began to see mate ahead." "i wish _i_ could," he declared. "general!" i cried in protest; to let him see that i understood. i had given him the opening intentionally, but had scarcely expected he would take such immediate advantage of it. we both laughed; he with a suggestion of triumph. "if i am not to go, we had better set the men and start a new game," i said, and began to arrange the pieces for the game. "i don't wish to play. i wish to talk," he declared, and then very abruptly he got up and began to walk about the room, until he stopped suddenly close to me. i knew what was coming then. "do you know why i wished you to come here to-day?" "yes, i think so--but don't ask it." i was very serious and met his eyes frankly. "how quick you are, and how daring. any other woman would have been afraid to say that--afraid of being thought conceited. why shouldn't i ask it?" "i don't want to lose one out of the only friends i have in pesth, perhaps the only one, general. and--other reasons." he looked down at me and sighed. "just now----" he began, when i interrupted him. "i did it intentionally, thinking this thing should be settled at once, better at once--and for always, general." "i have found out since you went what i never suspected before. i am a very lonely old man, for all my wealth and my position." "we can still play chess--if not to-night; still on other nights. to-night, i too want to talk to you." he made no answer, but moved away and walked about the room again in silence; throwing himself at length into a lounge chair and staring in front of him blankly and disconsolately. after a time he roused himself and gave a deep, long sigh. "very well. we must leave it there, i suppose." "no, we can't leave it there, general. i told you i wanted to talk to you." i left my chair and taking one close to his side, i laid my hand on his. "i need a friend so sorely. won't you be that friend?" his fingers closed on my hand, and he held it in a firm clasp. "with all my heart, yes," he answered. "what is the matter?" his ready assent moved me so that for the moment i could not reply. "if i tell you all my little story, you will hold it in confidence?" he looked up and smiled. "i would do much more than that for you, christabel," he answered, simply, using my name now without any hesitation, and in a quite different tone from that before. "you may trust me implicitly, child, on my honour." "i am going to surprise you. the name i bear is not my father's. i took it when my uncle, john p. gilmore, died and left me his fortune. he made me a wealthy woman. my father was of pesth, colonel von dreschler. i have come here to seek justice for his name and mine. i see how this affects you. if you cannot help me, i will say no more." he released my hand to press his own to his eyes; and when he withdrew it he gazed at me very earnestly. "you are his child! _gott in himmel_, his child." "i did not hide my name because i was ashamed of it," i said. "you have no need, christabel. it was a damnable thing that was done. he was my friend, and i will help you all i can." then without reserve i told him everything i had learnt and all that i had done. he let me tell the story without interruption, and put his questions at the end. "i cannot tell you you are not in danger from count gustav and his father. your very name is a source of danger; and were you another woman i should counsel you with all insistence to give this up and go away. but you will not do that. i know you too well. i must think how to protect you. you have set me a very difficult task; but it shall not be impossible. yet i dare not let my hand be seen in it. i will think it all over until i find a way. meanwhile, trust me as your father would have done; and let me hear something of you every day. i shall know no ease of mind if i do not hear, every day. a note or message, saying all is well with you, will be enough. and if you find yourself in any trouble, let me know of it--i shall guess it, indeed, if i do not hear any day from you. and i will pledge myself to get you out--even if i have to appeal to vienna on your behalf." "i need no more than the knowledge that your help is behind me. but you think the danger is really serious?" "if you threaten count gustav, you threaten the whole patriotic cause; and if i could tell you the things that have been done to build up that great national movement even you might be daunted and turned from your purpose." "not while i live," i cried, resolutely. "you are your father's child. he was as staunch and brave and fearless as any man that ever drew breath, but he was broken, and was but one of many victims. a policy of this stern kind has no bowels of compassion for man, woman, or child. pray god you may never have to look in vain for that compassion." "you almost frighten me," i said. his earnestness was so intense. "no, nothing can do that, i am sure. if i could indeed frighten you out of this purpose of yours, i would; but instead, i will help you. i have many means, of course; and will exhaust them all. go now, and let me think for you." as we rose he stumbled against the table on which stood the chess board. he turned to me with a smile. "i am afraid it will be some time before we play again. but the day will come, christabel. it shall, or i am no player at this other game." and with this note of confidence we parted. chapter xiii getting ready i don't like having to own that general von erlanger went a little too far in saying that nothing could frighten me. the terms in which he had spoken of the patriotic movement and his reference to its compassionless sacrifice of victims disturbed me profoundly. i passed a sleepless, tumbling, anxious night; and if it be fear to conjure up all kinds of possible horrors, to shrink at the thought that even my life might be in danger, and to lie wincing and cringing and shuddering at the prospect of cruelty and torture, then certainly i was horribly frightened. i was a prey to bitter unavailing regret that i had so lightly and thoughtlessly set out on a path which had led me to such a pass and brought me face to face with such powerful, terrifying, and implacable adversaries. the temptation to run away from it all seized upon me with such force that i sought in all directions for reasons which would justify cowardice and clothe it with the robe of prudence. but my fears were confronted by the conviction that i had gone too far to be able to retreat without deserting gareth; and at that my alarm took the shape of hot but impotent indignation at my lack of foresight. then my sense of honour and my fear had a struggle over that sweet, innocent, trustful, child, in which all that was mean and ignoble and cowardly in my disposition fought to persuade me to desert her; and before the night was half over had all but conquered. i was tired of playing a man's part; and in those hours of weakness, the sense of responsibility was so cruelly heavy and the desire to be only a girl and just rush away from it all so strong, that once i actually jumped from my bed and began to dress myself with feverish eagerness to leave the house and fly from the city. but i had not even the courage of my cowardice. the recollection of that sneer of count gustav's--that while my name still bore the stain i was not even the equal of such a woman as madame d'artelle stayed me. i tore off my clothes again and crept back into bed, to lie shivering at the consciousness that if i was afraid to go through with my purpose, i was even more afraid to run away from it. i grew calmer after a while. i put aside as mere hysterical nonsense the idea that my life could be in danger. they had not even taken my father's life. if they found me in their way, they might devise some excuse for imprisoning me. that was probably the worst that could happen. it had been in general von erlanger's mind; and he had promised to secure my liberty. i knew i could trust myself to him. by reflections of this kind i wrestled with my weakness and at length overcame it; and in the end fell asleep, no longer a coward, but fully resolved to carry my purpose through and fight all i knew to win. in the morning i began at once to carry out my plan. i sent a servant to ask madame d'artelle if she could spare ernestine to come and help me. instead of ernestine, madame herself came--as i had anticipated, indeed. she found me in all the middle of packing; my frocks and things spread all over the room, and my trunks open. "what does this mean, christabel?" she asked. "you can see for yourself. i have had enough of plots and schemes to last my life time. i jumped up in the night and half-dressed to run away. i was so scared." "you are going away?" relief and pleasure were in her tone. i laughed unpleasantly. "you need not be glad." "i am not glad," she replied, untruthfully. "i am putting the work into stronger hands. that's all." "you said you could protect me." "i have done that. count gustav promised as much to me yesterday. you are free to leave pesth at once if you like. you need not marry his brother unless you wish. and after to-day, not even if you wish. is ernestine coming to help me?" "i wish you would speak plainly. you always frighten me with your vague speeches. you seem to mean so much." "i do mean very much--far more than i shall tell you. you have been no friend to me--why should i explain? take your own course; and see what comes of it. is ernestine coming, i say?" "yes, of course she can come; but i am so frightened." "that will do you no harm," i rapped out, bluntly. "i wash my hands of everything." "what am i to do?" she cried, waving her hands helplessly. "i arranged yesterday with count gustav that the scheme for this romantic elopement should be carried out. you can play your part for all i care. the chief thing you can do for me is to send ernestine here." "but i----" "will you send her here?" and i stamped my foot angrily, and so drove her out of the room in the condition of nervous doubt and anxiety i desired. with the maid's help my trunks were soon packed, and the work was nearly finished when madame d'artelle came back. "count gustav is here," she said. "very well. you can close that box, ernestine, and try to pack this toque in the top of the black one. you got everything i said for the voyage in the cabin trunk." "he insists on seeing you, christabel." "i'll come down when i've finished." i spoke irritably. irritation is the natural result of a couple of hours' packing. everything was ready when i went downstairs. "i hear you are going away, miss----" "gilmore," i broke in, giving him a look. "i congratulate you on your--prudence." he too, like madame d'artelle, was obviously both relieved and pleased at the news. "you need not smile at it. i am not doing it to please you, count gustav." "i wish to ask you a question if madame d'artelle----" and he paused and looked at her. "i don't see the need of all this mystery," she answered, tossing her head as she left the room. "please be quick," i said, snappishly. "i am both in a hurry and a bad temper--a trying combination even for a woman of my disposition." "you have not slept well, perhaps." "no. i had to think. what is your question?" "about gareth?" "i shall not answer it," i said shortly, and frowned as though the subject were particularly unwelcome and disturbing. "i think i can understand;" he answered believing he could read my mood. "and about karl and madame?" "i have not forgotten your sneer. i will not disgrace him." i spoke with as much bitterness and concentrated anger as i could simulate, and was pleased by the covert smile my words produced, although i appeared to be goaded to anger by it. "i will tell you one thing. she shall not either. by to-morrow some one will be here from paris who will see to that." "that may be too late." "no. you dare not do anything to-day. you dare not," i exclaimed, passionately. "you have told that to madame?" "no. she is nothing to me." "you are very bitter." "again, no. you have only made me indifferent;" and as if i could bear no more, i hurried out of the room. i knew as well as if he had told me that the effect of my words would be to drive him to use the time of grace i had left him. i did not wait to see madame d'artelle, but had my trunks placed in a fly and, taking ernestine with me, drove to the depã´t. she took my ticket for paris, saw to the labelling of my luggage, settled me in my compartment, and waited me with until the train started. i wished the proof of my departure to be quite clear. but on the hungarian railways the trains do not run long distances without stopping; and at the first station i got out and returned to pesth. i was back in my house with gareth before one o'clock, and had already seen james perry, who had returned, and arranged one of my next moves. a wire was sent to paris to a friend of his requesting that a telegram be despatched as from m. constans, saying that he would be in pesth that evening at nine o'clock, and would come straight to madame d'artelle's house. that telegram was the weapon with which i intended to frighten madame away from pesth in order that i might take her place. i had one more preparation to make. i wrote out orders dismissing the men servants at the house, "unter den linden," and signed them "karl von ostelen," taking great care over the signatures. these i gave to perry together with money for any wages they might claim, and instructed him to drive with his son to the house after dusk. i told him i should arrive there later in the evening in a carriage; and that if the men in charge of it attempted to stable the horses there, he was to say that the count's orders were that they should not remain. after that he and his son were to be in the house: to say nothing about me to any women servants, and to act just as i directed. poor little gareth was more impatient than ever at the lack of news; but i pacified her by saying i expected to have some on the following day; and to escape her somewhat fretful questionings, i pleaded a bad headache and went to my room and lay down. i needed rest after my broken night, and succeeded in getting to sleep for two hours. i awoke greatly refreshed; and although i was excited at the prospect of the evening's work, i felt very fit and ready to face any emergencies. i was quite able now to laugh at my cowardice of the previous night. "what news is it you expect, christabel?" was the question with which gareth greeted me when i went down to her. "i have been thinking of it ever since you told me." "to find count von ostelen, of course." "how are you going to find him? do tell me." "i was governess to the daughters of general von erlanger, his excellency the minister, you know, gareth. i saw him last night: i was at his house; and i know he can find the count if any one can. that reminds me. i was to write to him." i had forgotten his excellency's injunction to send him a daily message. i took a visiting card and scribbled on the back "quite well" over my initials, and was giving it to james perry to take when an extra precaution occurred to me. "you will see the general yourself with this," i told him; "but you will not let his servants know from whom you come. i can't tell you everything; but something has occurred which makes it necessary for me to send a message every day to general von erlanger. if i forget it, you must remind me; for you are always to carry it; and always to see the general yourself. tell him to-day that i have arranged it so. and listen carefully to this--if anything should happen to me and you think i am in any great difficulty, or trouble, or danger--don't look scared: nothing may come of it all--but if i am, then you are to go at once to general von erlanger and tell him all you know." he was an excellent servant; but well trained as he was, he could not suppress his curiosity and surprise. "we have always been faithful, miss; mayn't i ask whether----" "no, not yet. if there is need, i shall tell you--because i trust you as fully as i trust your father and mother, and i have a very high opinion of your courage and ability. at present, you have only to remember what i have told you to do." gareth was very inquisitive about my movements when, as the dusk fell, i began to prepare for the work in hand. she plied me with prattling questions; why i was at such pains over my dressing; why i took a large cloak on a night comparatively warm; what the thick muffling veil was for; and she gave a little cry of terror when her sharp eyes caught sight of the revolver which i tried to slip into my pocket unnoticed. "you are such a strange girl, christabel," she said. "every one tells me that; but i generally get there." "'get there?' what is that?" "an americanism, dear, for gaining your own end." "are all american girls like you?" she laughed. "luckily for them, perhaps, no. i'm from the middle west and we have more freedom there than in the old world." "do you all go about in thick cloaks with heavy veils and carrying arms?" "gareth, no," i laughed. "we only do these things in fancy dress balls." "are you going to one to-night? oh, i didn't know." "it's only a masquerade to-night--and this is to be the cloak over my costume." "oh, christabel dear, why didn't you tell me? but you've a walking dress underneath." "i am going to start for the masquerade from the other house." "will there be dancing? oh, i wish i could go." "no, no dancing; but i guess the band will play." "i love music," she cried, not understanding slang; and i didn't explain it. "i wish you weren't going, christabel," she said, kissing me when i was ready to start. "it will be a long evening and i may wish that too before it's over," i replied, with a feeling that that might well be so. "you will be here with the news at the earliest possible moment to-morrow, won't you, dear? i am so weary of waiting." "i hope i shall be successful and have good news to bring you." "i am sure you will. i have such faith in you, christabel." she kissed me and with my cloak on my arm and those words ringing in my ears, i set out upon the risky business before me. chapter xiv i elope it was only to be expected that as i approached madame d'artelle's house i should be nervously uneasy lest the main foundation of my new plan should have collapsed. i had built everything on the assumption that count gustav would induce his brother to carry out the original scheme of marrying madame d'artelle by stealth. i had threatened to bring her husband to pesth on the following day; and since he knew as well as she seemed to, that m. constans' arrival would put an absolute end to madame's usefulness as a tool, i calculated that he would lose no effort to make use of her forthwith. it was obvious, however, that my absence put an end to the reason for secrecy; and it was therefore quite on the cards that karl might have been brought to madame d'artelle's house and some kind of ceremony have been already performed there. i should look a good many sorts of a fool if i walked into the house to find them already married. peter opened the door and gave a great start of surprise at seeing me. "madame is in?" i asked, in as casual a tone as i could assume. "yes, miss. she is in, but she is going out. we thought you had left, miss." "it's all right, peter. i'll go up to madame. she is probably in her room, dressing." "yes, miss; with ernestine; but----" "don't trouble. you need not tell any one i have come back;" and i gave him a golden reason for silence. "hide the fact of my presence and do what i wish, and there will be several more of these to follow." "i am always anxious to please you, miss." "i wish to see madame quite alone; can you make an excuse to call ernestine downstairs?" he was a shrewd fellow enough in his way. we went upstairs and i waited in an adjoining room while he called ernestine out and the two went down together. as soon as they had gone i opened madame's door and entered. "come, ernestine, i want you. what do you mean by going away like that?" she said crossly, not seeing me. "perhaps i can help you, henriette. ernestine is busy downstairs;" and i locked the door behind me. "christabel! you?" "i have had to come back to keep my word and save you. you are in great danger. m. constans must have picked up the scent of the inquiries i made recently. i have this telegram;" and i put into her hands the telegram which i had received from paris. i thought she was going to faint. the man must have had some great hold over her; for she was certainly overwhelmed with deadly fear. she stared with horror-struck eyes at the paper as though it reeked with the threat of instant death. then she turned to glare at me, with not a vestige of colour on her face. "_nom de dieu_, he will kill me. he will kill me;" she said, in a low, strained, husky whisper, as she fell into a chair, and began to gasp and choke hysterically. "i know nothing about that," i said, callously; "but if you make a fool of yourself in that way, you will have no time left to get out of his reach. if you want to die, you had better faint now. however, i've done with you;" and i turned toward the door. "don't go, christabel, for the love of heaven don't leave me. i can't think for myself. oh, don't leave me," she cried. "what shall i do?" "as he's your husband i should think you ought to stay and meet him. this was sent off from the railway station, you see, and i find his train reaches here just before nine. he'll just be in time for the ceremony to-night." "oh, don't, don't, don't," she wailed. "don't mock me like that. don't be so hard. help me. do, do! i tell you, he'll kill me. i know he will. he tried to once before. you don't want to see me murdered. you can't. oh christabel, dear christabel, say what i had better do." "if you'll be sensible, i'll help you. you can get away without the least difficulty. luckily your trunks are all packed, and as the mail for breslau and berlin leaves at half-past eight, you can be away before his train arrives. but you must be quick. you have only half an hour, and had better get your luggage away at once with ernestine." "how clever you are," she cried; and forthwith began to finish her dressing with feverish haste, her one thought now to fly. i called up ernestine, who started on seeing me as though i were a ghost. i explained that urgent reasons had caused her mistress to change her plans; and before madame d'artelle had finished dressing, the baggage was on its way to the station. "what will you do about things here, henriette?" "i don't know. i don't care. in face of this i can do nothing." "count karl will be disappointed and his brother angry." "my life is in danger, would you have me think of anything else? mother of heaven, do you think i will be murdered to please a hundred counts?" "some one must see to things." "let me only get away and i care for nothing else." this was precisely the mood i desired her to be in. she was literally fear-possessed, and flight had become the one all-absorbing passionate desire. i said no more until we were in the fly hurrying to the station. i meant to see the last of her. "what of to-night's business--count karl?" "i care nothing. the carriage will come for me and can go away again. i value my life. holy virgin, how slow the cab goes. we shall miss the train; i know we shall. and then?" her fear passed beyond words, and the sentence remained unfinished. "if he finds and kills me, my death will be at your door. you have brought him here." "why are you so afraid of him? he may be only coming to make peace with you and come to an understanding." "peace? the peace a tiger makes with a lamb. i know him." she did not quite fit my idea of a lamb--except in her terror, perhaps; and about that there could be no mistake. "shall you come back to pesth?" i asked. "am i insane, do you mean, when he knows the very name i have here? "what about the servants, then? paying them, i mean?" "let them go to count gustav. thank heaven, here is the station," she cried, and the instant the vehicle stopped she got out and asked excitedly for the mail to berlin. there were some five minutes to spare, but she had bundled ernestine into the carriage and was following when i stopped her. "one question, henriette? how is it that as i was out of the way the ceremony fixed for to-night did not take place earlier in the day? "don't stop me, the train may start. he could not be induced to get drunk enough; that's all." she said it almost viciously as she scrambled into the carriage. i waited until the train started and then drove back to the house. i had to settle matters there with the servants. it would not suit my plans for them to go to count gustav with the story of this hurried flight. i took peter into the salon. "you are a man of discretion, and your mistress and i both rely upon you, peter. you know that madame was contemplating a journey and at the last moment her plans have been hurried by news which i brought her." "it is not for us servants to ask what our employers do, miss," he said, very respectfully. part of the respect may have been due to the fact that i had laid some notes and gold on the table. "the house will be shut up for a month, peter; and all the servants except yourself, will leave. and they will leave to-night. you understand--to-night. i trust you to see to this. go and find out what wages are due. this money is to pay them double that amount. i will settle with you afterwards. i do not wish them to know i am in the house." he scented more reward, and went off with the important air of a major-domo; and on his return i gave him the necessary money. "i shall pay you what is due to you, peter, and give you three months' wages in addition. you will see the house locked up to-night and send the keys to me to this address, and let me know where i can write to you. but you can take another situation at once if you wish;" and i gave him the address of the first house i had taken. that i was able to think of all these small details at such a time has often been a cause of some surprise--and i think of satisfaction. i have always rather prided myself upon my capacity to concentrate my thoughts upon the matter of the moment: to think in compartments, so to speak: and to throw myself thoroughly into the part which i was playing for the time. i was just as cool and collected in all this as though the settlement of the servants' wages was the only thing i had then to do or think of. "i think that is all, peter; i am leaving directly. i have a carriage coming for me; and when i go, you will see that none of the other servants are about." "the servants are already upstairs packing their things, miss," he replied. "i will watch for the carriage and let you know." when he left me, i walked up and down the room in busy thought. so far as i could see, my preparations were now complete. count gustav believed i had left the city; i had frightened madame d'artelle away; i had cut off the chance of his discovering her absence; and the only risk of such discovery would be at the moment when he brought karl to the carriage. there would not be much risk then, if i did not give myself away. i recalled madame's words about karl--"he could not be induced to get drunk enough," for the matter to go through earlier in the day. he was thus to be drugged now; and when he joined me, would be too stupefied to recognize me. then a question occurred. what would count gustav do as soon as he thought his brother had gone? had he planned a marriage ceremony similar to the farce he had played with gareth? if so, did he mean to be present at it to make sure his plan succeeded? would he enter the carriage with karl to drive to the house? or would he be content to trust the work to the man he might hit upon to play the part of priest? wait--would it be a real priest; and so was it a real marriage he contemplated? and i was puzzling myself with little problems of the kind, when peter came to say the carriage was waiting. leaving all these difficulties to be solved as they arose, i arranged my thick veil and throwing the cloak over my shoulders, hurried out. a footman stood by the carriage door, and i was glad i had thought to put the veil on before leaving the house. he touched his hat, closed the door, climbed to the box, and we started at a smart pace. for good or ill i was now committed to the matter, and there was no drawing back. nor had i any thought or wish except to go through with it. my heart was beating more rapidly than usual, and i was excited; but not frightened. on the contrary, i was full of confidence, full of belief that i was doing the right thing, let the risk to myself be what it might; and convinced that i was taking not only the surest but the shortest road to the end i had in view. on one thing i was resolved. count gustav must not recognize me. that was all in all to me at that moment. if he did, i saw clearly the use he could make of that knowledge. not only could he blacken my reputation by saying i had run away with karl; but he could also use the fact with telling force against karl himself--that he had married the daughter of colonel von dreschler, the murderer of count stephen. such a thing would suit his plans far better than the complication with madame d'artelle, a mere adventuress, with whom no marriage was legally possible. if he but knew it, i was thus playing right into his hands. but then he did not, and should not know it, until it was too late to be of use to him. he would spread about the story of karl's marriage to madame d'artelle, only to find that she was on her way hot speed to berlin at the very time. and when the time came for the truth to be told--well, i had my plans already laid for his own exposure; and they would keep him busy defending himself. the carriage rattled through the streets, covering quickly the short distance to the rendezvous in the radialstrasse; and when it drew up i peered out eagerly through the closed window, and then saw that which gave me a profound surprise. a tall man sauntered past the carriage, scrutinizing it with great earnestness; and as the light from one of the lamps shone on his face, i recognized colonel katona. what could be the meaning of his presence at such a time? was it more than coincidence? it could not be that. he was a recluse, and rarely if ever left his house to walk in the city. why should he choose such a night, and such a time, and above all such a place? i shrank back into the corner of my seat perplexed and anxious--seeking eagerly but vainly for some reason for this most unexpected development. as i sat thus waiting, i saw him presently pass again, retracing his steps, and scrutinizing the carriage as closely as before. this time he came nearer to the window and tried to peer inside. a minute afterwards i heard a name called in a brief sharp tone of authority; the footman jumped from the box and opened the door, and i squeezed myself as far from it as possible, as count gustav came up, his arm through that of karl, who was very unsteady and walked with staggering lurching steps. it was easy to see that if karl was helpless with liquor, his brother was both pale and agitated. his face was very set; and as he approached, i noticed him glance sharply about him twice--the second time with a start of what i read to be satisfaction. he made no attempt to enter the carriage, much to my relief: and not a word was spoken by any of us beyond a few guttural incoherencies by karl, as with his brother's help he stumbled into the carriage and sat lolling fatuously, his breathing stertorous and heavy with the drink. the door was slammed, the footman sprang up, and as the carriage wheeled round i saw colonel katona again. this time he came out of the gloom and spoke to count gustav. i had no time to see more; but the list of surprises was not completed yet. we had not driven a hundred yards before karl sat up, seemed to shake off his stupor, and laughed lazily. "well, henriette, here we are--off at last. but i wonder what in the devil's name is going to happen next?" he was neither drunk nor drugged, then; but merely acting. i almost cried out in my astonishment and relief. but what did it all mean? chapter xv an embarrassing drive i was so astonished at this turn of matters that i squeezed myself up into as small a space as possible in the corner of the carriage, a prey to completely baffling perplexity. the sense of shame with which i had followed his shambling, drunken movements, as he was helped into the vehicle, gave way to a feeling at first of relief, and then of pleasure--both feelings mingled with consummate dismay. now that he was in possession of his senses, how was i to act toward him? under the influence of either opium or drink, he would have been easy enough to deal with; and i could have chosen my own moment to avow myself. my crude idea had been to get him into the house, let him sleep away the effects, and leave him under the impression that while madame d'artelle had been with him in the carriage, i had contrived to get her away. i was not ready to show my hand yet; and a nervous embarrassing fear of what he would think of this act of mine began to possess me. i was soon worried by another unpleasant thought. while he remained under the impression that i was madame d'artelle, i was just an impostor, spying upon the relationship between them, of all parts in the world the most repugnant for me to have to play with him. "i suppose you're too surprised to speak?" he said presently. "is anything the matter?" i made no answer, except to draw even further into my corner. he noticed it and laughed. "bit afraid of me, are you? you needn't be. i'm not dangerous, even if i'm not drugged. but i have been any time during the last three-and-thirty hours. you see i haven't seen you, and i haven't touched it ever since yesterday morning." there was a bitterness in his tone i had not heard in it before; but the words filled me with pleasure. "not since midday yesterday, henriette. three-and-thirty hours: nearly two thousand minutes: every minute like an hour of hell. you didn't think i'd got the strength, i know. neither did gustav. and i suppose i'm only a fool to have done it--an infernal fool, that's all. it's getting easier already; but i'd give ten thousand kronen for a taste now--one little wee taste." he sat suddenly bolt upright, clenched his fist and flung it out in front of him, and groaned as if the fever of temptation had laid hold of him with irresistible force. "you don't seem to care," he said, bitterly, turning to me: and then his voice became strained and tense. "but you'd better. you hear that, henriette, you'd better. you keep it from me or as there's a sky above us i wouldn't trust myself not to kill you." impulsively i stretched out my hand and laid it on his arm, as if to calm him. but he shook it off impatiently. "all that's passed," he cried. "two thousand hours of hell can change a man. they've changed me. i can see things now, and mean to see more. that's why i've come on this business. that and----" his voice fell and his head drooped, and with his lazy laugh he murmured--"what a fool i am, just because a girl----" the sentence was left unfinished, and his fingers stole to the pocket as if in search of the drug. "i must smoke or have it. not 'her sake' nor a million 'her sakes' will keep me from it if i don't. i shall stop the carriage and get it." he lit a cigar and held the match up, and peered closely at me until the little flame flickered out. then he leaned back and puffed fiercely, filling the carriage with the smoke, and making me cough. at that, he let down the window on his side sharply and bent forward that the air might blow on his face. by the light of the street lamps i saw that his face was drawn and lined as if with the pain and passion of the struggle through which he had passed. "have we far to go?" he asked, raising his voice in consequence of the noise from the open window. i did not answer, and he shrugged his shoulders. "you're a cheerful companion for a man in my mood," he cried, almost contemptuously, as he closed the window with a shiver of cold. he leant back in his seat, drew his coat closely about him, and smoked in silence, but with less vehemence. presently he found the silence oppressive. "one of us must talk," he said then. "i wonder why i'm here and what the devil will come of it!" he exclaimed, laughing. i wondered, too, what would come of it; but i held my tongue. i had resolved not to speak during the whole ride if i could avoid it, so as not to reveal myself. and if i could reach the house without his discovering my deception, i saw a way by which i could mislead him. "what are you wrapped up like that for? throw your cloak back," he said next, and put out his hand as if to do it. i drew it closer round me. "then you're not deaf as well as dumb," he laughed. "what's the matter with you? i can find a way to make you speak, i think--or you've been just play-acting ever since i knew you." he bent toward me until his face was close to my veil. "you're not generally afraid to show your face. and you needn't be, it's pretty enough. you can hear that i know. a pretty woman never had a deaf ear for a truth like that--and it is truth; no more, no less than the truth. it didn't need either opium or drink for me to know that, henriette--though you plied me with plenty of both for that matter. can you deny that?" he paused for me to answer; but i did not; and he leant back in his seat again. "yes, you're a beautiful woman, henriette, and gustav's a very clever, long-headed fellow--but between you, you made a bad mistake. you should have known better than to conjure up that old past of mine. you shouldn't have had a friend about you with haunting eyes. heavens, how they haunted me--aye, and haunt me now. doesn't that make you speak? no? then i'll tell you more. that girl's eyes killed at a stroke every thought in my mind about you. more than that--it's just for her sake, i've endured all these hours of hell. i can trust you not to tell her that--but it's true, henriette, just as true as that you're a beautiful woman." evidently he looked for some sharp outburst from me, for he spoke in a deliberate, taunting way as if to provoke me. and when i made no sign, he was sorely perplexed. "you are going to explain a lot of things to me presently--i've come for that and that only--but i'll tell you something first that you don't know. i met that friend of yours yesterday morning when i was riding in the stadtwalchen. we had quite a long and almost intimate talk, and she took me right back across the years to the past; and by no more than a word, a touch and a glance, she put something between me and the devil i had loved, until i hated it and hated myself for having loved it. and for the sake of what she said, i've been in hell ever since. but she did it; she alone, and i've fought against the cursed thing because of her words and her eyes. god, what it has cost me!" he ended with a weary, heavy sigh. that in my great gladness at hearing this, i did not betray myself was only due to the strong curb i had put on my feelings. but i had heard his secret by treachery, and now, more than ever, i was eager to keep my identity from him. i longed for the drive to come to an end, and i looked out anxiously to try and see even in the darkness that we were reaching our destination. "yes, henriette, those haunting eyes of hers have saved me, so far," he began again. "saved me, even when it seemed as if all the fiends in hell were just dragging and forcing me to take it. i didn't. more than once the thing was all but between my lips; but she saved me. but i must see her again, or i shan't hold out. i must hear her voice and feel the touch of her hand. where is she, henriette? where is she? that's one of the questions you shall answer. gustav says she has gone to paris. they told me the same at your house to-day--i was there twice, though you didn't know it. and you'll have to tell me that among the other things. you can tell me that now," he said almost fiercely, as he bent toward me again and stretched out a hand as if to seize mine. i gave up my secret for lost; but the carriage slackened suddenly and with a quick swerve drove into the gates of the house. karl let the windows down and peered out curiously; and when the carriage door was opened by the footman, he got out and stood offering me a hand to alight. but i gathered my cloak carefully about me and springing out ran past him and fled into the house and upstairs as fast as i could, whispering to james perry who had opened the door to come after me presently. i chose a room at random and locking the door behind me, i flung myself on the bed in the dark, face downwards, and burst into a tempest of hysterical tears. they were tears of neither pleasure nor grief. they were violent but without passion; and came rather as the swift loosening of the pent strain of excitement during the drive from the city. at least so i thought. i do not think i had shed a tear since my uncle's death until that moment; and although they gave me intense relief, i remember feeling almost ashamed of myself for my weakness. to cry like a hysterical woman was so out of character with my resolve to play a man's part in this struggle! the tempest was soon over, and i sat on the side of the bed and took off the veil and threw aside the cloak which had been so valuable a disguise, and was drawing the pins out of my hat when i remembered that i must be careful not to disarrange my hair. i was going to pretend to karl that i had been in the house all the time; and my appearance must bear out that story. i groped my way to the dressing-table by the window and fumbled about for a match to get a light of some kind; and finding none, drew up the blind. the moon had risen, and this gave a faint light; but it was not enough for my purpose, so i pulled back the curtain, glancing out as i did so. the window looked upon the garden in the front, and i stood a moment recalling the plan of the house as i had fixed it in my mind when i had gone over it. i remembered then what for the instant i had stupidly forgotten; that the electric light was installed, and i was turning away to find the switch, when i caught sight of a man moving in the shrubbery. i thought at first it might be karl, smoking, or perry or his son on watch; but it was not. the figure was much too tall for either of the perrys; and the movements too stealthy and cautious for karl. the light was not sufficient for me to get anything like a clear view of the man; yet as he moved there was something about him that seemed familiar. i watched him with growing interest; and presently, having apparently made sure that he was unobserved, he crossed the moonlit grass quickly to the window of the room that was directly underneath mine. i recognized him then. it was colonel katona. i threw open my window noisily; and he darted away under the shadow of the trees and hurried out of the garden. it was no mere chance then that he had been in the radialstrasse at the moment when the carriage was to be there. some one had brought him there to be a witness of karl's escapade. who had done so, and why? not karl; nor madame d'artelle; and no one else had known of it but gustav and myself. i had seen him speak to gustav as the carriage wheeled round--wait, i recalled the two furtive glances which gustav had cast about as he had come up to the carriage with karl; and the expression of satisfaction after the second of them. this was gustav's work, then. and why had he done it? why had he brought colonel katona, of all men in pesth, to see karl run away with madame d'artelle? had any other man been picked out, i would have said it was merely that there might be an independent witness. but colonel katona--and then the reason seemed to flash into my thoughts, suggesting a scheme subtle and treacherous enough to be worthy of even the worst thoughts i had ever had of count gustav. i thought rapidly how i could put this new idea of mine to the test, and how use it for my own purposes. but before i could decide, i heard hesitating steps in the corridor outside my room. some one knocked gently at the doors of other rooms and then at mine. "are you there, miss?" it was james perry's voice. "yes," i answered; and closing the window and drawing down the blind, i opened the door. "the gentleman is asking for madame d'artelle, miss," he said. "what answer am i to give him?" "i will take it myself," i replied. i switched on the light and made sure that my hair was all right. "what about the servants, james?" i asked. "there are two woman servants only, miss; and my father and myself. we did as you said, and sent away a footman who was here." "you have done very well. if you are asked any more questions about madame d'artelle, say that she left the house the moment after the carriage arrived, and that i have been here some hours." "yes, miss." he was very perplexed and, i think, troubled. we went downstairs, and he showed me the room where karl was. it was directly under that in which i had been. it was to the window of that room, then, i had seen colonel katona cross in the moonlight. chapter xvi a wisp of ribbon karl was sitting in an attitude of moody dejection; his elbow on the arm of the chair, and face resting on his hand; and he turned slowly as i opened the door. the look of gloomy indifference vanished, and he rose quickly with a glance of intense surprise. "chris--miss gilmore!" he exclaimed. "you asked for madame d'artelle. i have come to say she has left the house," i said in a quite steady tone. "but you--how do you come to be here? i don't understand." "i thought you knew i was madame d'artelle's companion." "but they told me you had gone away--to paris." "i did start, but i came back." "i have been twice to-day to her house to ask for you. i was very nearly rushing off to paris after you. i'm glad i didn't." he said this quite simply, and then his face clouded. "but if i understand all this, may i--may i take to opium again?" his eyes cleared, and he smiled as he spoke the last words. "i hope you will never do that," i replied. "no, i shan't--now. do you remember what i said to you in the gardens yesterday? yesterday--why it seems twenty years ago." "you mean that you would hate me if i stopped you taking it?" "yes, that's it. i _have_ hated you too, i can tell you. i couldn't help it--but i haven't taken any since. it's cost something to keep from it; but i've done it. and i shall be all right--now. i nearly gave in, though, when i heard you'd left the city." "i knew that you had the strength to resist when i spoke to you yesterday," and i looked at him steadily. he returned the look for a moment. "it's wonderful," he murmured. "positively wonderful." then in a louder tone: "i think you must have hypnotised me." "oh, no. i only appealed to your stronger nature--your former self. you have the strength to resist, but you let it rust." "i wonder if you would like to know why?" "no, thank you," i cried rather hurriedly. my haste seemed to amuse him. "well, i don't suppose it matters. then you're not going to paris?" "not yet--at any rate." "then i shall see you sometimes. i must if i'm to keep from it, you know." "yes, if possible and necessary." "it is necessary, and i'll make it possible. you don't know the responsibility you've taken on yourself so lightly." "perhaps i have not taken it lightly, but intentionally." "you can't be _here_ intentionally," he said, with a start. "you can't, because--do you mean that you know what i'm supposed to have come here for?" half incredulous, this. "yes, quite well." "that they want to drive me to marry hen--madame d'artelle? and that my brother will be here with a priest in half an hour or so?" "i did not know your brother was coming," and the news gave me a twinge of uneasiness. "but my object was to prevent the marriage taking place." "why?" he asked, somewhat eagerly. "her husband is still living." "i mean, why did you wish to prevent it?" "i will tell you that presently." "tell me now." "no." "yes--i insist." "that is no use with me." "isn't it? we'll see. you know what i carry here;" and he slid his fingers into the pocket from which i had before seen him take the opium pills. "i shall take it if you don't tell me." "you must do as you please. but you have none with you." "how do you know?" "you told madame d'artelle so, in the carriage." he laughed and took out a little phial half full of them, and held it up. "she is stupid. do you think i should regard it as more than half a victory if i didn't carry this with me? will you drive me back to it now?" he took out one of the pills, held it up, and gazed at it with eyes almost haggard with greedy longing. "this is childish," i said. "no, it's a question of your will or mine. will you tell me or shall i take this? one or the other. you can undo your own work. i can scarcely bear the sight of it." "i accept the challenge," i answered after a second's pause. "it is your will or mine. rather than see you take that i will tell you----" "i knew you would," he broke in triumphantly. "but if i do, i declare to you on my honour that the instant i have told you, i will leave the room and the house, and never see you again." the look of triumph melted away slowly. "i don't want victory on those terms. you've beaten me. look here." he opened the long french window, flung the pill out into the night, and then emptied the phial. "rather than--than what you said;" and he looked round and sighed. "thank you," i said. in the pause the sound of horses' hoofs on the hard road, reached us through the open window. "here come gustav and the priest, i expect." i bit my lip. "i don't want him to see me," i said, hurriedly. "what does it matter?" "everything." he closed the window. "what will you do?" "i will lock myself in one of the rooms upstairs and tell my servants to say madame d'artelle is too ill to see him." "your servant?" "don't stop to ask questions. i can explain all presently. do as i wish--please. he thinks you are--are drugged----" "not drugged--drunk; but how do you know that?" "madame d'artelle thought so at first." the horses were now so near that i could hear them through the closed window. "you can still pretend. lie on the sofa there. for heaven's sake be quick. there are but two or three minutes at most now." "oh, i'll get rid of them." i took this for assent, and hurried out of the room as the carriage stopped at the door. calling james perry i told him what do to and ran up again to the room where i had been before. i would not have a light but sat first on the edge of the bed, wondering what would happen, whether i should be discovered, how long count gustav would stay, and how karl would do as he had said. the house was badly built, and i could hear the murmur of voices in the room below. i slipped to the floor and lay with my ear to the ground in my anxiety to learn what went on. i could hear nothing distinctly, however. the murmurs were louder, but i could not make out the words. then i remembered about colonel katona, and crossing to the window pulled the blind aside and looked out wondering whether he was still near the house. the moonlight was brighter, but the shadows of the trees thicker and darker; and for a long time i could distinguish nothing. the carriage remained at the door; the jingling of the harness, the occasional pawing of the impatient horses, and the checking word of the coachman told me this. if the colonel was still there, the presence of the carriage no doubt made him keep concealed. presently other sounds reached me. some one unfastened the windows of the room below and flung them wide open. a man went out and i heard his feet grate on the gravel. "it's no use. he's dead drunk. we may as well----" it was gustav's voice, and the rest of the words were lost to me, for i shrank back nervously. then an instinctive impulse caused me to lay my ear to the ground and listen for the window to be shut. i heard it closed; but there was no sound of the bolt being shot. dark as it was and alone though i was in the room, i know that i turned deathly white at the possible reason for this which flashed upon me in that moment; and when i passed my hand across my forehead the beads of perspiration stood thick upon it. i felt sick and dazed with the horror that was born of that thought; and my limbs were heavy as i dragged them back across the room to the bed and sat there, listening intently for the sounds of count gustav's departure, and ready to rush downstairs the instant he had gone. there was no longer any need for me to stare vaguely out into the garden. i knew now that the watcher was there, and why he was there. i had guessed the secret of that noisily opened window, of the loudly spoken words, and the closed but unbolted casement. the carriage went at last, after i had heard count gustav's voice in the hall below speaking to some one who answered in a lower and indistinct tone. while the two were still speaking, i unlocked my door softly and crept out to the head of the stairs; and even as the front door was shut by james perry and the carriage started, i ran down. "go in there at once, james, fasten the bolt of the big window, and if the blind is up, draw it down. quick, at once," i told him, and followed him into the room. karl was still lying on the couch. "leave the window open, you," he said. "i like the air." "i told him to shut it," i said, as i entered and james went out. "i can't stand the draught and can't bear the look of the dark." he sat up when he heard my voice and stared at me. "you afraid of the dark? you?" "have you been lying on the couch all the time?" i asked. "yes, gustav fooled me about and tried to make me get up, but i wouldn't, but what has that to do with anything? you do nothing but bewilder me--and gustav too, for that matter." "it's time that some things were made clear," i replied. "how did you prevent them coming in search of me?" "very easily. i told him madame had gone to bed, ill--ill with temper, because i was drunk, and swore i would do her some damage if she came near me. by the way, what _are_ you going to do?" "i don't know. i've succeeded already in the chief part of my purpose, and am not ready yet for the next." "what is your purpose?" "i am going to tell you. one thing was to prevent your marrying madame d'artelle." "you said that before when you wouldn't tell me the reason. what is the reason?" "because i know why the marriage was being forced." "so do i--but it doesn't interest me. although i meant to make madame tell me many things." "probably i can tell you all you wish to know." "why do _you_ think i was to marry madame d'artelle?" "to complete your ruin in the eyes of the country, to make you impossible as your father's heir in the event of the plans of the patriots succeeding. such a _mã©salliance_, added to the reputation for dissoluteness and incapacity which you have made for yourself recently would have completed your overthrow." "you don't spare me," he said, slowly. "there is no need. i am speaking of--the past." at the emphasis on the word his face brightened with almost eager delight. "what power you have to move me!" he exclaimed. "yes, it is as you say--the past. and why are you doing all this?" "you remember what you said yesterday in the stadtwalchen--that probably i had a motive? you were right. i have." "tell me." "yes. i came here to pesth for a purpose which has become all in all to me. i looked round for the best means of accomplishing it. first i went to general von erlanger--thinking to work through him. then i saw and recognized the woman who was reputed to have so much influence over you--madame d'artelle. i knew i could get her into my power, and said to myself 'i can save count karl from her;' and i went to her. at her house i learnt the rest; that the plan was to force you to one side in favour of your brother. i said to myself again: 'if i save him from that scheme, he will have the power i need, and in common gratitude will be impelled to help me.' i had not seen you then." he listened attentively, but his look grew gradually solemn and gloomy; and he shrugged his shoulders as he answered: "i see. you are like the rest. timber to hew and water to fetch--for yourself. well? what difference could it make whether you had seen me or not?" his manner nettled me. why, i know not: but i replied sharply: "did you think i was a philanthropist--with no other thought but to help you? or that you were so weak and helpless that out of sheer pity a stranger would be drawn to help you?" he bent his head upon his hand and sighed dejectedly. "go on," he murmured. "if i'm disappointed, it hurts no one but myself." "if i had seen you, i should not have attempted it. of that i am quite sure." "what a contemptible beast i must have seemed to you! i suppose you know how you're hurting me? perhaps you have another motive. if i had----" and he slid his fingers into his pockets as if in search of his little phial. "it's very brave, isn't it, to threaten me like that?" i said, curtly. he drew his fingers out as though they had touched fire, and glanced up hurriedly at me. "you don't know what a coward it makes of a man," he sighed. "you're making it harder for me. you're killing hope. a dangerous experiment with a patient like me. there's only a very short bridge between me and the past." "a bridge you will never recross," i said, firmly. he looked up and met my eyes. "not if you'll stand between it and me, and help me a bit now and then. i'm going to play my part--but you mustn't kill my hopes, you know!" "i shall help you all i can, because you cannot help me unless you do play it." he frowned. "i'll play it, if it's only to help you. what is it you want?" "a thing that may be very hard to do." "i'll do it. i swear that. it will be an incentive to feel i can help you. it gives me a glimmer of hope again and strength, the mere thought of it. you don't know how i'd like to please you." for a moment i was silent; and in the pause, my ears, which are very quick, caught a sound which made my heart beat rapidly. the faint crunch of a footstep on the gravel outside the window. he heard nothing, but saw the start i gave. "why did you start?" "nothing," i said, with an effort to keep my voice steady. "i will tell you what i want. years ago a great wrong was done to a very close and dear relative of mine here in pesth. i came here to seek justice for his name--for he was left to die in shameful exile, with the wrong unrighted." "i looked for anything but that; but i'd do more than that for you, much more. who and what was he?" he had no suspicion of the truth yet; and when i paused, he misunderstood my hesitation. "you don't doubt me?" "no; but----" i hesitated; and then there came another sound from without. a hand pushed the window frame; and this time karl heard it. "what was that?" he asked, and rose from the couch. "the wind--nothing else." "there's no wind," he said. "i'll see." i put myself between him and the window. "no, don't open it. i'll"--i started and stopped abruptly. i saw something lying on the sofa. it was just a wisp of faded ribbon. but it was the favour which he had begged of me that night years ago in new york. so he carried it with him always. the colour left my face and i caught my breath. "you are ill? what's the matter? you're not frightened?" i stretched out a hand and took it up quickly. i was trembling now. he tried to intercept me and to reach it first. "you must give that to me, please," he said shortly, almost sternly. "it is mine. it must have fallen out when gustav was trying to drag me up." "it is nothing but a wisp of ribbon," i replied, lightly. "i'll give you anything but that," he declared, again sternly. "no, i will have this. i have a right to it." he grew angry and his face took a look of such determination as i had not seen on it before. "no. not that--at any cost." his voice was hoarse, but his manner very firm. our eyes met. his hard and stern; mine all but smiling. "i tell you i have a right to it," i said. "what do you mean?" i paused. "that it is mine." he knew then. his eyes opened wide and his hands clenched as he stepped back a pace, still gazing full at me; and his voice was deep as he answered-"then you--my god--you _are_ christabel?" "yes. i am christabel von dreschler--it is my father's name that has to be cleared." he made a step toward me, stretching out his arms. "no, not while that stain remains--if ever." he stood, his arms still partly outstretched, and gazing at me in silence. at that moment the pressure of a hand on the window was repeated, and the frame was shaken. he turned to it again. "i must see what that means," he exclaimed. "not if you value your life, or believe that i do." for a moment he challenged my look, but then yielded. "as you will, of course--now; for all this is your doing;" and with a smile and a sigh he let me have my way. chapter xvii in the dead of night i had resolved what to do, and i lost no time. "you are going to trust me in this and do what i wish?" i asked karl. "yes, of course. you have a right to no less. but what does it mean?" "you heard the noise at the window?" "yes." "it was not the wind. some one was attempting to open it. i am going to find out who it is and why they are there." "how?" "by stratagem. i wish you to go upstairs and remain there until i call you." "why should i do that?" he asked, hesitating and perplexed. "because i ask you. you will do it?" "i don't like it--but if you insist, i promise." "before you go i wish you to lie on the couch there while my servant comes here and does what i will tell him; and you will act as though you were bidding him good-night--but as if you were still drugged." "hadn't you better tell me everything?" "there is no time. will you do this? please." he shrugged his shoulders and lay down on the couch. i went out and called james perry and instructed him what to do. he went into the room, crossed to the window and stood there a moment with his shadow showing plainly on the blind. then he pulled up the blind, and turned as if in obedience to some order from karl. next he threw the large window open and stepped out on to the gravel, and stood there long enough for any one who might be watching to have a full view of the interior of the room. "no, sir, it is not raining," he said, and came back through the window making as if to close and fasten it. he stopped in the act of doing this, and partly opened it again, as if obeying orders from karl. "no, it's not cold, sir, but it will be draughty," he said. then with a shrug of the shoulders he left it open and turned away. taking a rug from one of the lounges he threw it over karl, taking pains to tuck it in carefully; and then stood back as if asking for any further orders. "good-night, sir," he said, and crossing to the door, he switched out the light. immediately this was done, i ran in again, hurried karl out of the room, laid a sofa pillow on the couch, and arranged the rug over it as james had done. then i recrossed the room and waited, my fingers close to the electric light switch, to see if the trap was laid cleverly enough to deceive the man i was expecting. i stood in a dark corner by the door, partly concealed by a screen, where i could see the whole room and all that occurred. my eyes soon grew accustomed to the comparative darkness. the moon was shining brilliantly, and the slanting rays through one of the windows fell right across one end of the couch on which karl had been lying. they revealed the lower half of what appeared to be the huddled figure of the sleeper, the upper half being wrapped in deep shadow. the house was all silent. i had heard karl go upstairs, james perry being with him; and had caught the latter's careful tread as he came down again to the hall where i had told him to wait, in case i should need and call him. the night was very still. i could see right out into the moonlit garden, and as the window was partly open, could trust my ears to catch the faintest sound. but scarcely a leaf moved. the dead stillness was almost oppressive. the suspense began to affect me soon. i have not the slightest fear of the dark; but as minute after minute passed and no result followed my careful preparations, i began to think i had failed. the net must have been set too conspicuously; and so set in vain. to pass the time i began to count my pulse beats. one, two, three--to a hundred. again one, two, three--to a second hundred; and a third, a fourth and a fifth. then the counting became mechanical, and my thoughts wandered away. it became difficult to remain still. an impulse seized me to cross the room to the window and look out, and i had to fight hard to restrain it. then i caught a sound in the garden. the rustling of a bush. i held my breath to listen. there was no wind stirring to account for it. not a leaf of all those full in view moved. it was a sign therefore that the patience of some one beside myself had begun to give out. i braced myself for what was to come, and in a second my wits were all concentrated and every nerve in my body thrilled with expectation, quickening to eager anxiety. i had not long to wait. there was another rustle of bushes, and a bird startled from its roosting perch, flew chirping its alarm across the lawn. the sharpness of the noise made me start. another pause followed; then another sound--this time a slight grating on the gravel; almost immediately a head showed at the window pane; and a man peered cautiously through the glass into the room. i crouched closer into my hiding place as his face turned and the eyes seemed to sweep in all directions to make sure that no one else was there to see him. stealthily and silently his hand was stretched out, felt the heavy frame, and pushed it open sufficiently to let him enter. the window gave a faint creak in opening; and he stood as still as death lest it should have been heard. i held my breath now in my excitement. what was he going to do? it was colonel katona. i could recognize him by the moonlight; and a moment later his purpose was clear. he changed something from his left hand to his right. the glint of a moonbeam on the barrel showed me it was a revolver. i had read the signs aright. he had been tricked into the belief that karl was the man who had betrayed gareth, and had come now to do what he had swore to me he would do to any man who harmed her--take his life. he must surely have had some apparently overwhelming proof given him before he would go to this desperate extreme; and i would know what that proof was, before the night was much older. already i had a strong suspicion. these thoughts flashed through my mind in the moment that the colonel stood hesitating after the noise made by the creaking window; and the instant he moved again, i had no eyes but for him, no thought except for what he proposed to do. his next act surprised me. he closed the window softly behind him and drew down the blind. the noise was much greater than before, but he paid less heed to it. he pulled it down quickly, shutting out the moonlight; but there was enough dim light through the blind for his purpose. i could just make out that he held the revolver ready for use as he stepped to the couch and stretched out his hand to seize and wake the sleeper. i chose that moment to switch on the light and step forward. he whipped round and levelled his weapon point blank at my head. i had no fear that he would fire, however. "good-evening, colonel katona," i said, in as even and firm a tone as i could command. "that is only a dummy figure which i put there. i was expecting you." he lowered the weapon and stared at me as though he could scarce credit his eyes. "you!" it was all he could get out for the moment. "yes, of course, i. gareth's friend, you know. you see, there is nothing but a sofa pillow here with a rug over it;" and with a show of unconcern, i pulled the rug away. "you!" he said again, adding: "you who know my child's story. if you have tricked me in this, i will have your life as well." "if i had tricked you, i should deserve nothing better. you have not been tricked by me, but by others. you may put that revolver away; you will not need it here." "why did you say you would send me the news you had promised, and then send me that letter and tell me of this house where he was to be found, and what was to be done here? you are lying to me with your smooth tongue," he burst out fiercely. "you saw me come, or guessed i was here, and you are lying to shield him--the villain who wronged gareth and would now wrong you." "if you believe that, kill me. i will not flinch, and you will live to find out the horrible crime you would commit. you will have murdered one who saved and befriended gareth in the hour of pressing need. it would be a fitting climax that you who helped to drive to a shameful death your friend, ernst von dreschler, should now murder me, his daughter." "ernst's child! you, his daughter?" he murmured. "yes, i am christabel von dreschler." so overwhelmed was he by the thoughts which my avowal caused that he could do little but stare at me helplessly; until he sank down into a chair, as though his strength failed him, and, laying the revolver on the table, leaned his head upon his hands. i thought it discreet to pick the weapon up and put it out of his reach; and then sat down near him and waited while he recovered self-possession. his first question was a natural one. "where is gareth?" "safe, and in my care." "you can take me to her?" "she is within an hour's drive; but there is a difficulty in the way. she believes in the honour of--of her husband----" "husband?" he burst in eagerly. "she believes him to be. there was a ceremony of marriage; and believing in him, she would not let me bring her to you, because he had made her take an oath not to do so." "the villain!" he exclaimed with intense passion. "i fear that the reason is what you think." "you know who he is?" the hard eyes were fierce and gleaming as he asked. "i know who it is not," i answered. "you know who it is, then?" "you must not ask me. i cannot tell you yet." "you shall tell me." "if you think you can force me, try;" and i faced him, with a look to the full as resolute as his. "why won't you?" "for gareth's sake. i am thinking of what, in your present desperate mood, you cannot--her happiness." "i am thinking of her honour." "no. you are thinking of murder, colonel katona. you came here to do it, believing that you knew who had betrayed her." "he shall pay for it with his life." "there may be a heavier penalty to exact than that." "show me that, and as there is a god it shall be exacted." "i will show it you, but at my own time and in my own way. no other." "you are playing with me, and shielding the villain here." "i am doing neither. the man you seek is not count karl." "you are lying," he cried again vehemently. "see this;" and he drew out a crumpled letter and thrust it toward me. but i would not look at it and got up. "if i am lying, there is no longer need for you to speak to me of this. if i am not lying, you are a coward to insult me so, even in your passion. leave the house as you came and probe this for yourself. my servants are within call, if you do not go." i picked up his revolver and handed it to him. "here is your weapon." he made no attempt to touch it but looked up at me. "you are a daring girl," he muttered. "ernst von dreschler's daughter does not lie, colonel katona," i answered, with deliberate emphasis. "forgive me. i spoke out of my mad misery. i will not disbelieve you again. god knows, i am not myself to-night." "you can trust me or not, as you please. but if you trust me, it will have to be absolutely. i believe i can see a way through this trouble which will be best for gareth--best for all. it is of gareth i think in this. she would trust me." "let me go to her," he cried. "yes, but not yet. it would not be best. she is quite safe, and if you will but have a little patience, i will bring you together and all may be well with her." "you talk to me of patience when every vein in my body runs with fire." "i talk to you of gareth's happiness, and how possibly to spare her--the only way and that but a possible one," i answered, as i put the letter he had offered me in my pocket. he pressed his hand to his head. "my god, i cannot be patient," he cried, vehemently. "you could show patience in the slow ruin of your friend, colonel katona. must i remind you of that? i am here to avenge that wrong, and seek tardy justice for his name and mine. you can help me to avenge the wrong and do justice to him, dead though he is. for the sake of my dead father no less than for that of your child patience is needed. i will have my way and no other." "what do you mean that i can avenge your wrong?" "you hold the secret that can do all." "what secret?" and for all his wildness about gareth and for all his mad rage, my words had touched a secret thought which drove the colour from his tawny face and brought a fear of me into his eyes--fear it was, unmistakably. "it is enough that i know it," i answered, so curtly and with such concentration that he dropped his eyes as though i might read some secret in them. i would have given all i was worth to have known what was in his mind at that instant. in the pause that followed, i heard some one descending the stairs. i knew it must be karl; and then a daring thought suggested itself. "you must go, now; i will come to you." he looked up at me searchingly and keenly, and rose slowly. "i will go," he said. "i shall see you to-morrow. for god's sake." "i will come to you. you trust me?" "i am getting afraid of you--but i trust you." "i will put that trust to the test now. count karl will go with you to your house until to-morrow." his eyes blazed for a moment. "do you mean----" "if he had done you this wrong, should i propose it?" "i don't understand you. i can't." "it must be as i say. you will not even speak gareth's name to him. remember--not her name even--until i see you to-morrow. your word of honour on that." "yes. i give you my word. but all must be made clear to-morrow. i cannot wait." "i will go and tell him," i said; and with that went out of the room just in time to prevent karl entering it. chapter xviii the cost of victory i led karl into one of the other sitting-rooms. "i am going to make an appeal to your generosity," i said. "what has happened? who was outside the house? what is the meaning of all the mystery? i was thinking myself mad up there and came down to see." "it is good that you care so much. two days ago you would have given a shrug of your shoulders, a toss of the head, a lift of the eyebrows, and with an easy smiling 'it doesn't matter,' have left any one else to do the thinking. don't let your cigar go out; it probably helps you." he was holding a long black cigar such as he had smoked so furiously in the carriage. "you have given me plenty to make me think," he answered. "but what has happened?" "i told you--i am going to appeal to your generosity. not to ask me to tell you everything, but just to accept my explanation." "i was afraid it was something else." "what?" i asked not thinking, and so falling into the trap. "that you should keep what you have not yet returned; that little link with the past--the ribbon favour, christabel." his eyes were very gentle as he spoke my name. for a moment i wavered, lowering my head; then taking courage to face what must be faced by us both, i lifted my eyes and, firm in both look and voice, answered him--"it must not be a link. it is no more than a relic. there can be no connecting link with that old time for us two." "you think that? perhaps; but i don't;" and he shook his head. "you are very strong, christabel; but not strong enough for that--not strong enough to change me, at least. it's the only thing in life i care about." "it must be put aside," i declared. "your part is of course for you to decide; but mine is for me. you cannot take my share from me." "i shall prevail with you. i must. you are going to take your rightful position as your father's heir. you know what is to happen here when the patriots gain their end. you know what will be expected of you then; and you have to think, not of yourself, not of any mere personal desire, any smaller end, but of your country." "'mere personal desire,'" he repeated. "is that how you read it?" "it is what your countrymen would call it--your countrymen, who will look to you to do your duty. they must not look in vain." he made no reply but sat smoking, his brow gathered in deep furrows of thought. "there are two count karls," i continued. "the one who years ago lived a life which made men proud of him, and filled them with trust and confidence in his power and vigour. the real karl; the man who at the call of patriotism and the counsel of a friend, was even strong enough to let himself be condemned in the eyes of the girl he cared for as cowardly, selfish, and false. that was the real karl. the other was but an ignoble man; a purposeless parody of the real and true; and he, i thank god, exists no longer. but the noble karl has to face again to-day the same hard problem he solved so roughly and crudely years ago. with this difference however--the girl knows all now and will help him." the trouble in his face deepened and he shook his head slowly. "no, no. i cannot." "yes, you must. _we_ must, karl. we don't make our lives; we do but live them." "i cannot," he repeated, heaving a great sigh. "we have no choice. i have seen this throughout. if i have helped you--as i love to think i have--to tear aside the coils that were binding you fast to the wheels of ruin, i have done it in full knowledge of all this; of what must be; of what neither you nor i nor we two together, if we were true to ourselves, could possibly prevent. you must not, you shall not be false to your duty and your country." "no, no. it is too much to ask." "in so far as i have helped you, i have a right to ask you. i press that right with all my power." his face changed and with a glance of resistance, he answered, quickly: "it may be easy since you do not care----" "karl!" the cry stopped him. his look changed again, and he tossed up his hands and drooped his head. "i am ashamed," he murmured. "heaven knows, i have not your strength." "don't make that mistake. this is as hard for me as it can be for you. harder perhaps, for to a woman her heart thoughts must be always more than to a man. our lives are so much emptier. we need have no concealment now. when i first met you here, i thought--so little does a woman know her heart--that the old feeling was dead; that the long-nurtured resentment of the past had killed it. i was hot against you when you did not recognize me, and burned with indignation. but i did not know." "nor yesterday, when we spoke together?" he broke in, eagerly. "ah, yes, i began to know then, and to be glad. not glad with the joy of expected happiness; but so glad that i had been wrong in the years between. but when, to-night, i found this"--and i took out the little ribbon favour--"then indeed i knew all." he held out his hand. "give it me." "better not, far better not. we must be strong; and this can only be a source of weakness. we will face together that which must be faced and destroy it." "no," he cried, earnestly. "no. it is mine. i will keep it. give it me." "of what use is it? a mere piece of tawdry faded ribbon when i have given you all my heart." "christabel!" his outstretched hand fell as he spoke. i crossed to his chair and stood by him and laid my hand on his shoulder, looking down into his face. "you will be strong, karl. i trust you to destroy it;" and i held it out to him. instead of taking it he seized my hand and pressed his lips upon it. "if i lose you, i shall go back to what i was," he said, holding my hand and looking up. i shook my head and smiled. "i have not so little faith in you as that. i, like your countrymen, appeal to the real karl, and i know we shall not appeal in vain. you have a noble part to play in life, and you will play it nobly as becomes you--and i shall watch you play it, proud to think that i have helped you to be worthy of it and of yourself." "my god, i cannot give you up," he cried, desperately. "i cannot go back to the lonesomeness of those years. you don't know what they have been to me--desolate, empty, mournful, purposeless. if you bring them back to me after this, i--christabel, you must not." "is that weakness worthy of you or of me?" "you don't understand. it was bad enough and black enough when my only thought was that i had had your love and had wantonly killed it; that was purgatory. but now, meaning to do well, what have you done but ill? you have shown me happiness, only to shut the gates upon me and drive me out into the black misery again. if you love me, you will never do that--you could not." i went back to my seat. "you make this very hard for me--for us both. so much harder than it need be. you had better go now, and leave this where it is. yet i had hoped." "hoped what?" "that i could help you to be strong enough to do the only right thing. and you kill my hope by thinking only of yourself. i would have had you act from the higher motive; but if you will not, the fault is not mine. you force me to say what must be said. decide as you will, it can make no difference. i can never be to you what you wish: and what, were things other than they are, i would wish with my whole heart. but i could have been your friend--and that you make impossible." "christabel!" "i mean it. i could never be the friend of a man who would set a woman above his duty and his honour, even though that woman were myself. i thought so much better of you." "you are hard and unjust to me," he cried. "no no. i am hard to myself, but only just to you. but let it be as you will." he rose and began to pace the room. "you had better go. i have failed with you; and failing, must lose all i had wished to win--my own purpose and all. i shall not see you again. you have made it impossible. i shall leave pesth to-morrow--with all my efforts failed." "no," he burst out almost violently, stopping close and facing me. "if you go, you know how it will be with me." i looked at him firmly, and after a pause said in a deliberate tone: "if you cannot rise to the higher life, what matters to your country if you fall to the lower. and as with your country, so with me." the words cut him till he winced as in pain, and dropped again into a seat. "can you say that--to me?" my heart was wrung at the sight of his anguish, but i would not let him see it. "you had better go--please," i said; for the silence became intolerable. he paid no heed to my words, but sat on and on in this attitude of dejected despair; and when after the long silence he looked up his face was grey with the struggle, so that i dared not look into his eyes for fear my resolve would be broken and i should yield. for firm as my words had been, my heart was all aching and pleading to do what he wished. "you need not turn your eyes from me, christabel," he said, a little unsteady in tone. "you have beaten me. it shall be as you say; although i would rather die than go back to the desert. pray god the victory will cost you less than it costs me to yield." i think he could read in my eyes what the cost was likely to be to me: i am sure my heart was speaking through them in the moment while my tongue could find no words. "i knew you would be true to yourself," i said at length. "no, anything but that. no credit to me. i only yield because to resist means your abandonment of what you hold so dear. that must not be in any case." "whatever the reason, your decision is right. your country----" "no, that has nothing to do with it. less than nothing, indeed. you and i must at least see the truth clearly. i have no sympathy with the patriot movement. i have never had. that has always been the cause of dispute with my family. i hold it all to be a huge mistake and folly. i am doing this for you--and you only. now, more than ever, i shall hate the cause; for it has helped to rob me of--you." i had no answer to that--indeed, what answer could i have made except to pour out some of the feelings that filled my heart, and thus have made things harder for us both. he sat a moment, as if waiting for me to speak, then sighed wearily and rose. "i had better go now, as you said. i suppose now you will let me see you again." "of course. to-morrow. meanwhile, until i do see you, i wish you to go somewhere and not show yourself." "all places are alike to me--again," he replied, with dreary indifference. "i wish you to go and stay with colonel katona, and stay in his house until i send to you." "colonel katona! is he here? why?" "his daughter is my friend. it was he who came to the window to-night, seeking news of her." "has he a daughter? i didn't know. but why look for her here of all places in the world?" "i will tell you the story another time. it is mixed up now with mine. but i do not wish you to speak of her to her father." "she is nothing to me; i can promise that easily enough." i touched the bell, and told james perry to have the carriage brought at once to the door. "when shall i see you? to-morrow, really? you know the danger." "that danger is past," i said, firmly. "you have more confidence in me than i have." "after to-night i shall never falter in that confidence." "i thank you for that, christabel, i shall try;" and he smiled. as he withdrew his eyes they fell upon the wisp of ribbon lying on the table. he picked it up, gazed at it, then raised it to his lips and laid it again on the table. "you still wish this to be destroyed?" he asked, keeping his gaze averted. simple as were the words and the act, i could not find an answer on the instant. "it is best so," i murmured at length. "very well," and he turned away. "you are always right. of course, it's only--folly and--and weakness." we heard the carriage drive to the door then. he started and held out his hand; then as if with a sudden thought, he said; "i had forgotten about you. i am so self-wrapped, you see. what are you going to do?" "i shall stay here to-night." "is it safe, do you think?" "i have my servants here." "besides, you are so fearless yourself. good-night. it is all so strange. i feel as if i should never see you again. and i suppose in a way that's true. as things are to be in the future, it won't be you, in one sense. you said there were two karls--and now there are to be two christabels. that sounds like a bad joke, but it feels much more like a sorry tragedy;" and he sighed heavily. he went out then to the carriage, and i to fetch colonel katona to join him. when they had driven off i went back into the room and sat down feeling dreary and anguish-sick. i was tired out, i told myself; but no bodily weariness could account for the ache in my heart. i had succeeded in all far beyond my expectations; had won my victory with karl; i was almost within sight of the goal which had seemed impossible of attainment only a few days before. i had every reason to rejoice and be glad; and yet i laid my head on my arms on the table feeling more desolate, sorrow-laden, and solitary than ever in all my life before. my servant roused me. "what is it, james?" "is there anything i can do for you, miss? i knocked five times before you heard me. can i get you something?" "no, thank you, james. i am only tired and am going to bed. stay up until your father comes back with the carriage. then go to bed yourself, but let him sit up for the rest of the night. i shall sleep more soundly if i know some one is watching. you must be up early, as i shall need you." i yawned as if i were very sleepy--one has to keep one's end up, even before one's servants--and bade him good-night. i was turning from the room when my eye chanced on the ribbon favour which karl had left lying there. fortunately james had left the room; for the sight of it struck all thought of pretence out of my mind. i was very silly; but it seemed in an instant to rouse a vivid living consciousness of all that i had voluntarily given up, and yet might have retained by a mere word. i was only a girl then indeed; and the tears came rushing to my eyes and set the little ribbon dancing and quivering and trembling in my sight. i dashed them away and, thrusting the little mocking token into my bosom, i ran out of the room as hurriedly as though i were rushing to escape from the sad thoughts of that other christabel of whom karl had spoken. chapter xix a tragi-comedy the following morning found me in a saner mood once more, and i lay for an hour thinking and planning. i hold that there are narcotics for mental pain just as for physical; and if the mind is healthy and the will resolute, one can generally be found. i had to find one then. i did not make the mistake of attempting to underrate my loss. i knew i had had to give up what i prized more than anything in life. i loved karl with my whole heart; i knew indeed that i had never ceased to love him. the sweetest future which fate could have offered me would have been to pass life by his side as his wife. but the pain of knowing that this was impossible was now mingled with other emotions which tended to relieve it. there is always a pleasure in self-sacrifice, no matter how dear the thing renounced. i found a sort of subtle comfort now in the thought that i had been strong enough to do the right thing; to put away from me firmly the delights i would have given half my life to enjoy; to act from a higher motive than mere personal desire. the sense of self-denial was thus my mental narcotic; and i sought with all my strength to dwell upon the intense gratification of the knowledge that i had been instrumental in helping karl at the crucial crisis of his life. his country had need of him; and that he would now play his part manfully, would be in a degree my work. that was my consolation. i could claim truthfully that no selfish motives had swayed me. the clearance of my father's good name had ceased now to be more than a solemn duty to him. the loss of karl had rendered me indifferent to any considerations merely personal to myself. in regard to gareth, too, my chief desire was to see justice done her. accident, or perhaps rather fate, had put into my hands the weapons with which to fight the man who was menacing both her and me; and i could claim to have made no selfish use of them. the thought of her brought back with it the necessity to gather up the threads and carry my purpose to success. the end was not far off now. i had first to anticipate what count gustav would do after the stroke he had meant to deal the previous night. i was convinced that he had plotted nothing less than that colonel katona should kill karl under the belief that he had wronged gareth. i could follow the steps which had led to this. when, at madame d'artelle's, i had let count gustav see the colonel alone, he had given a false message that i would send the information. having thus prepared him to expect news, he had written him in my name that the man who had wronged gareth was about to marry another woman, and had given such details of the elopement as would enable the colonel to witness it and thus identify the man he sought. this explained something that had puzzled me--why the pretence of the elopement had been persisted in when my apparent departure had destroyed the necessity for any such secrecy. the elopement had become a vital part of the subtle scheme to reveal gareth's betrayer to her father. then to give countenance to it all, count gustav had sent as if from me the letter of gareth's which the colonel had brought with him and given to me. i read it now. it was to count von ostelen, of course; and in it gareth poured out her tender heart to the husband she knew and addressed as karl. it was a cunningly planned scheme; and had madame d'artelle really come to the villa, it would almost certainly have succeeded. but the question now was--what would be count gustav's next move? he would believe that karl was dead--assassinated by the colonel in his frenzy. that started another suggestion. if murder had been done, all in the house would have been implicated; and count gustav was quite capable of using the deed for a further purpose. he would have had the colonel arrested for the murder and so prevented from causing further trouble; and he would also have got rid of madame d'artelle, the accomplice he had used for his brother's undoing, by charging her with complicity in the crime. his path would then have been free indeed. he had frightened me away from the city, as he believed; and if i ever returned it would be only to find everything buried in that secrecy which those in power and high places know how to secure. what would he do when he came to the house and found me there alone and helpless to resist him? i could not doubt for an instant. i should be arrested on some charge and shut up until i disclosed to him gareth's whereabouts and everything i knew of the matter. i would act on that presumption--except that i would force his hand in one direction and safeguard myself in another. i rose and dressed myself hurriedly. i knew madame d'artelle's handwriting, and with great pains i imitated it as closely as i could in a brief, but to him very significant note. "for heaven's sake come here at once. a terrible thing has happened. i am beside myself with horror. "henriette d'artelle." the writer's distracted state of mind would account for any discrepancies in the handwriting; and i succeeded at the third or fourth attempt in producing something like a resemblance to her signature. this letter i sent by james perry; and with it another to general von erlanger. i gave him the address, "unter den linden," and wrote:-"i shall probably be in great danger here at about eleven o'clock this morning. will you be near this house at that time so that at need the servant who brings this may find you and bring you to me. you will please know nothing except that you have been asked to come to your former governess who is in trouble. "your friend who trusts in you, "christabel von dreschler." i told james to get an answer from his excellency; and despatched him upon his errand at an hour which i calculated would bring count gustav to the house by about ten o'clock. i allowed an hour for the interview to reach the crisis to which i intended to work. in the meanwhile, i told the elder perry to drive to my own house and ascertain that all was well with gareth. then i went into the room in which colonel katona had been and pulled down the blinds, closed the shutters and drew the curtains so that it should be as dark as possible; and coming out locked the door behind me and put the key in my pocket. having thus set matters in train i sat down and made an excellent breakfast, anticipating considerable enjoyment from the little comedy i had designed. i was going to fool count gustav and then anger and mystify him. he was, i knew, a dangerous person to play tricks with; but i had no cause to be afraid of him. i was quite prepared to be arrested, and i wished to lull his suspicions and foster his over-confidence. thinking things over, another point occurred to me. if the two perrys remained in the house, they would be arrested with me. therefore, when the father returned with the good news that all was well with gareth, i sent him home at once and told him not to come back. james perry arrived just before ten o'clock. he brought me a very satisfactory assurance that the general would do just as i asked; and said that the count gustav had told him he would come to the house immediately. "now, james, things are going to happen here this morning," i said, explaining an idea which had occurred to me. "i shall probably be arrested, and you will share that arrest if you are in the house. you are a very shrewd, quick-witted fellow, and you must manage not to be seen, but to remain near enough to the front of the house to hear a window broken. i may not be able to show myself at the window and signal to you; but i am sure to be able to manage to throw something through the window; and the moment you hear the crash of the glass, you are to fetch general von erlanger to me, and then hurry off to my house." i calculated that it would be a very simple matter for me to pretend to fly into a passion at the moment of any crisis, and to so work myself up that it would seem a natural enough thing for me to hurl something solid at gustav and, missing him, to break the window. i looked round for a suitable missile, and selected a very solid glass ink bottle. count gustav kept his word and arrived a few minutes after i had sent james perry away. i had left the front door partly open, so that he might not have to ask for madame d'artelle; and he walked right in, tried the door of the room i had locked, and then entered that where i was waiting for him. his surprise at seeing me was complete. had i been a ghost, he could not have stared at me in greater amazement. "good-morning, count gustav, i am glad you have come." "where is madame d'artelle?" he asked, very sharply. "it is scant courtesy not to return my greeting. you are probably so surprised as to forget your manners. you had better find her for yourself," and affecting irritation, i turned away and picked up a book. "good-morning, miss--what name shall i use now?" he replied with a sneer. "you may use either gilmore or von dreschler as you please. names are of small account after what has happened here." "where is madame d'artelle?" "she has done that which might be expected of her in a crisis like this--run away. she is probably across the frontier now." "but i have just had a letter from her begging me to come here at once; written evidently in great agitation." "there are enough hours in a night to allow of many short letters being written. she was intensely agitated when she fled!" "_you_ seem to be cool enough." "my nerves are of a different order from hers. besides, _i_ have nothing to fear in all this." "how is it that you are here at all?" "i am not madame d'artelle, and therefore not accountable for my actions or movements to you." "you left pesth yesterday--when did you return?" "if you consult a time table you can see at what hours the trains reach the city, and can judge for yourself which i was likely to be in." "you can answer me or not, as you please," he said angrily; "but you will have to account for your presence here." "why?" and i looked at him meaningly. he passed the question off with a shrug of the shoulders. "that is your first mistake, count gustav. you must keep your temper better than that, or it will betray you." he affected to laugh; but there was no laughter in his eyes. "well, if madame was only fooling me with her letter i suppose i may as well go again," he said lightly. "you know that you have no thought of going. why are you afraid to put the questions which are so close to your lips?" i was getting my thrusts well home each time, and was goading him to anger, as well as starting his fears of me. "why was that letter written?" "because of what has happened here." "what has happened?" "yes, that is one of the questions. i can tell you." i paused and added slowly: "the man you sent here came to do the work you planned." he bit his lip hard, and his hands gripped the back of the chair behind which he stood. "you delight in mysteries, i know," he sneered. "your sneer does not hide the effect of my news, count gustav. you know there is no mystery in that for you--and there is none for me. put your second question." "what do you mean? i don't understand you." "that is not true. you want to ask me where your brother is." "i'll ask that or any other if you wish," he replied, attempting a jaunty, indifferent air. "where is he?" "god have more mercy on you than you had on him. you have already seen the answer to your question in the drawn blinds of the room where you last saw him alive." strive as he would he could not but shrink under my words and tone. his fingers strained on the chair back, his breath laboured, his colour fled, and his eyes--those hardy, laughing, dare-devil eyes--fell before my gaze. he had to pause and moisten his lips before he could reply. "if you mean that any harm has come to him," he said, speaking at first with difficulty and hesitation, but gathering firmness as he proceeded; "there will be a heavy reckoning for some one. who is in the house beside you?" he did not dare to look up yet. "you coward!" i cried, with all the contempt i felt. this stung him to fury. "if you have had a hand in this and seek to shield yourself by abusing me, it will not help you. i tell you that." "seek to shield myself! i should not stoop to seek so paltry a shield as you could be, whether you were white with fear or flushed with selfish purpose. i do not need a shield. i know the truth, count gustav. i know all your part in it, from your motive to the final consummation of your treacherous plan. and what i know to-day, all austria, all the world, shall know to-morrow." that was enough. he looked up then, his eyes full of hate of me. i saw his purpose take life and shape in his thoughts. if with safety to himself, he could have struck me down as i stood facing him, he would have done it; but he had what he believed a safer plan in his mind. to have me imprisoned and the secret buried with me. his new purpose gave him clearer directness of thought at once, and he began to work toward it cunningly. "i can understand and let pass your wild sayings at such a moment, miss gilmore. such a thing as this has, of course, unstrung you..." "oh, it is to be a madhouse, is it," i broke in, interpreting for him his secret thought. "i had expected only a prison. you cannot do it, count gustav. i am prepared." but my jeer did not move him. the force of his first surprise was spent, and he was now close set upon the use he intended to make of my presence. he knew the peril which my threat held for him. "it is singular under the circumstances that you regard yourself in danger of imprisonment, miss gilmore; i hope not significant. if you would like to offer any explanation, it is of course open to you to do so." "i think it probable that there will be an explanation before you leave, count gustav; but what in particular should i explain now?" "we shall require one of--what you say has happened here. who is in the house?" "myself and the servants." "the manservant was sent away and his place taken by another. by whose orders?" "mine." "i shall need to see him." "like madame d'artelle, he has gone." "he was here last night?" "certainly." he shrugged his shoulders. the answer suited him admirably. "he was in your employ," he said, drily. "i have nothing to conceal," i replied, putting as much doggedness into my manner as a guilty person might have used at the first glimpse of the net closing round him. "it is a very grave case." "i can see that--but i know who did what was done as well as who instigated it." "you were a witness of it, you mean?" "of course i mean nothing of the kind. i did not see the blow struck; but i was not asleep at the time; and the instant the alarm was given i was on the spot, and i can identify all concerned." "who do you say struck the blow?" "i did not say. but you know perfectly well the man you sent here to strike it. and so do i." "you actually charge me with being concerned in having my own brother assassinated?" he cried with well assumed indignation. "it is infamous!" "infamous, of course--but true." "i mean such a charge, madam," he declared, sternly. "i will speak no further with you. you will of course remain here until the agents of the police arrive." "i have no wish to leave. i tell you i am innocent." "you at least are found here alone; you admit having fled from the city yesterday and returned surreptitiously; you brought your own man here and sent my brother's away; you have a motive strong enough to account for all in your resentment of my brother's treatment of you; and you seek to put the foulness upon me with an elaborate story that you know the man who did this to have been brought here by me." "it has a very ugly look, i admit--but there is a flaw in it, none the less." "that is for others to investigate, madam. i will go to the room. it is locked. where is the key?" i took it from my pocket and handed it to him. "another significant fact," he said, as we went out of the room and crossed the hall. "i will go in alone." "no, i have a right to be present." "it is most unseemly; as unseemly as your smile. my poor karl." he spoke as if he were genuinely dismayed at the blow, sighed deeply, paused to brace himself for the task, and then entered. the room was gloomy enough to make it impossible to see anything clearly; but i had arranged the sofa pillow on the couch and covered it with the rug. he was really affected; although not in the way he intended me to believe. he crossed slowly to the couch and stood by it, as if lacking courage to turn back the rug. i went to the window and drawing the curtain let the blind up and the sunlight in. he was now very pale, and his hands twitched restlessly. "you do not dare to look on the brother whose murder you planned," i said, with cold distinctness. "how dare you say that, at such a time, madam," he cried fiercely; and taking the rug he turned it back gently. i laughed. the laugh so enraged him that he tore off the rug and swore a deep, heavy oath. "what does this mean?" "that i think we may pull up the rest of the blinds and open the windows and let the fresh air in;" and with another laugh i did as i said. i turned to find him overcome by the sudden reaction from the strain and the new problem i had set. he was sitting on the couch with his face buried in his hands. chapter xx my arrest i stepped out into the sunlight glad of the fresh air in contrast to the dismal closeness of the room. i was quite willing to give count gustav a few minutes in which to puzzle over the reasons for the trick i had played him. he would be quite sure that i had some deep purpose in it all. you can always gamble on it that cunning people will credit you with cunning; and i had said enough to him to cause him profound uneasiness. it took him longer than i had expected to decide upon his next step; for i had already anticipated what that step would be. he would go through with the plan of having me arrested. i was certain of that; because it was the only means, short of murdering me, by which he could ensure my silence. but the pretext for the arrest was now so flimsy that in making it he would have many difficulties to face--especially when i brought general von erlanger on to the scene of action. but before i did that, i had some very pointed things to say. i was perfectly easy in mind now as to the result of the trouble. i was going to win. i felt it. i could afford to be confident; and i took great care that he should see this for himself. i knew presently that he was watching me closely, so i began to sing light-heartedly. i flitted about from bush to bush and gathered a little bouquet of flowers; and spent some minutes in arranging them, holding them at a distance and viewing them critically with my head on one side--for all the world as though their arrangement were just the one thing that fully engrossed my thoughts. then i carried them into the room and touched the bell, telling the woman who answered it to bring me some water; and as i placed them in a vase i said, as if to myself, and with a nonchalant laugh: "they will brighten up my cell wonderfully." the little prick of the words irritated him and he scowled. "i am surprised people call you gustav of the laughing eyes," i bantered. "you are very handsome, of course, but i have never heard you laugh really gaily." he forgot sufficiently to swear; and i pretended to be greatly shocked. "i hope you are not going to be violent; but i thought it just as well you should know there is a woman in the house, and that she should see you. have you got over your disappointment yet--or do you think the body is in the sofa pillow?" it was aggravating of course; the truth, flippantly suggested, frequently is; and he was in that mood when small jibes galled. "you are right in the suggestion--i am thinking what may have been done with my brother's body." he thought this would scare and frighten me but i only laughed. "no you are not. you are thinking only how you can connect me with what didn't occur?" "where is my brother?" "didn't i tell you that madame d'artelle fled last night; and did i say she went alone?" "i don't believe you," he growled, sullenly. "'of the laughing eyes,' indeed," i cried, with a shrug. "your laughter seems to be dead, even if your brother is alive--perhaps it is because of that." he very nearly swore again; but he was recovering his wits, if not his temper, and managed to sneer instead. "the oath would have been more natural," i said, promptly. "but since you are shaking off some of your chagrin, you may be ready to listen to me. i have something to say--to propose." "i ought not to listen to you." "there is time--until the police come, at any rate. i will confess to one crime--forgery. i wrote that letter to you in madame d'artelle's name. i wished to bring you here at once; and i prepared, carefully, this little stage effect for your benefit. shall i tell you why?" he waved his hand to imply indifference. "no, you are not indifferent, count gustav. i wished you to understand how really dangerous i am to you--as well as to witness your brotherly grief at seeing count karl's dead body"--and i touched the sofa pillow. he was able to smile now with less effort, and his lip curled contemptuously. "i am dangerous--although i can jest. your brother is safe, quite safe, where you will not think to look for him. i knew what you purposed to do, and i alone prevented it. you don't believe me. i will give you proofs. two days ago when we were at madame's house you went to colonel katona to tell him i was too indisposed to see him, and you came and told me you had said that. you did not say that. on the contrary you told him i would send him the information he needed of the identity of the man who had wronged gareth." "it is an easy tale," he said, with a shrug. "yes, easier than you frequently find it to tell the truth. you yourself sent in my name the proofs which the colonel needed--one of the letters which gareth--little, trusting gareth,--had written to you, believing you to be your brother--karl, count von ostelen." "it is false." "i have the letter;" and i held it up before him. i got right home with that blow, and all the malignant cruelty in him was expressed in his eyes as he made a quick but futile attempt to snatch it from me. "it is only another of your forgeries," he said. "gareth will not deny it;" and at that he winced. "you did not name your brother--that was too open a course for you--but you told colonel katona that the man was going to run away with another woman; and you named the hour and the place where he might be seen--last night in the radialstrasse at nine o'clock--and that they were coming to this house--'unter den linden.' do you still say it is false?" he made no reply, but sat with a scowl tugging at his long fair moustache. "when you led your brother to the carriage last night, you looked about you to make sure that the colonel was there; and as the carriage started, he spoke to you and asked if the man he had seen you put in the carriage was indeed your brother karl." he shrugged his shoulders again. "you may as well go on." "i am going on. fearing lest, even at the last moment, the plan should miscarry, you came here yourself; and yourself, finding your brother lying nearly unconscious on the couch, opened the window so that the watcher in the garden might see where his helpless victim lay; and then--you left the window open to make his entrance easy and certain." "you tell a story well," he said, when i paused. "i told you once before you should write plays. you have admirable imagination." he was quite himself again now. he spoke lightly, lit a cigar, and took a couple of turns across the room. "it appears to have interested you." "naturally. i suppose now i can pick up the rest from what you said before?" "yes. the sofa pillow has done duty before." "a very likely tale, of course--and your witnesses?" "no one knows all this except myself." "very fortunate--for them, if not perhaps for you." "there is nothing fortunate or unfortunate in it. it is the result of my intention. i alone hold the secret, and can make terms with you for keeping it." "i had scarcely dared to hope that. what are your terms?" he put the question in a bantering tone. "last time i mentioned three conditions. two of them are pointless now, because madame d'artelle has fled and your brother is aware of your--shall i term it, policy?" "i am not much concerned at your phrases," he snapped. "these are no mere phrases. the third condition stands--you must make gareth your wife, legally." "well?" "and the fresh condition is that the mystery of my father's ruin is cleared at once, and justice done to his name." "and if i refuse, i suppose you are going to bring all these trumped-up charges against me. it is almost laughable." "i do not think many people will see much humour in it." "possibly not--but then they may never have an opportunity of hearing the story. you have been very clever--i pay you that compliment--but you have also been very foolish. you should have made sure that there was more than your word for all this." i gave a little half-nervous start, as though i realized my mistake, and then said, quickly: "i have evidence--this letter of gareth's." "you will not have it long, miss von dreschler. i could almost be sorry for you; in fact i sympathize with you deeply. your belief in the imaginary story of your father's wrongs has, i fear, preyed upon your nerves until they have broken down. he deserved his fate, as the murderer of the young count stephen; and now you come here to threaten first my brother and then myself. as the daughter of such a man, it was perhaps to be expected; but it is quite sad." "are you not forgetting what you said when we last spoke of the subject?" "oh, no, not in the least. i said then that i would do my utmost to help you--knowing of course that no help in such a matter could be given. the truth can only be the truth; but i hoped that time and thought and kindness would lead you to see your delusion. i fear i was wrong." i would have laughed, had i not known that i had now to show signs of nervousness. "and gareth?" "you appear to have hidden that poor girl; but she will of course be found and then she too must be convinced of your unfortunate delusions." "and will no appeal to your chivalry avail to make you do justice to her? you said you cared for her." "i was anxious, and i think, rightly anxious, to soothe what i saw was a cause of serious and therefore dangerous excitement in you. she also has misled you; no doubt inadvertently; and your prejudices against my family have warped your judgment until you are really incapable of seeing anything but what is black in me. i am truly distressed for you, believe me." his assumption of pity was almost too much for my sense of humour. "if by black you mean dishonour and cowardly treachery, i agree. i think you are one of the vilest men that ever lived." he smiled blandly and spread out his hands. "i am afraid you do; it is very painful. happily, others know me better." i heard a carriage drive up rapidly, and understood that the crisis had come with it. i glanced at the clock. it was a quarter past eleven. i had timed matters aptly. i rose, my hand on the inkstand which i had kept all the time in readiness. "so far as we are concerned now and here, count gustav, there is no more to be said. i will take my story to those who will know how to investigate it." "i am deeply sorry, but you cannot be allowed to leave the house. those are the agents of the police." footsteps and men's voices were in the hall. "they dare not keep me here!" "while your delusions remain, i fear they will not let you go. but if you give me that letter, i will do what i can for you." "if i could believe you," i cried with agitation; and i took another paper from my pocket. "i should like to be your friend, and will," he said, hurriedly. i gave him the false letter, and cried, "i can escape this way. detain them here." i ran towards the window, tripped intentionally, and half-falling flung the inkstand through the glass. "stop," cried gustav, in a loud voice. "this is not what i want." the crash of the glass brought the men into the room, and one of them ran and placed himself between the window and me. glancing out, i saw james perry pass the house, running at full speed. my ruse had succeeded. the signal had been heard, although gustav suspected nothing, and all i had now to do was to waste a little time while i waited for his excellency. i took advantage of my apparent fall to thrust gareth's letter into my bosom. brutal as the police might be, they still had women searched by women; and my one piece of tangible evidence was safe for the time. i got up, holding my handkerchief to my hand, as though i had cut it in falling, and sitting down breathed hard, as one does in pain or agitation. "this lady attempted to escape by the window, lieutenant varga, and has apparently hurt herself in consequence," said count gustav, to the man who was seemingly in charge of the party. it was best for me of course to say nothing; so i just gripped my hand and swayed backwards and forwards in imaginary pain. "it is a case for us then, excellency?" asked the man. "let your men see that this lady does not leave the room, and i will explain the matter to you as we go over the house." nothing could have suited me better. the two left the room, and i threw myself on the couch. i did not care thirty cents what story he concocted. they were absent a few minutes, and the official returned alone, bringing my hat and cloak. "i shall have to ask you to accompany us, madam," he said, with some touch of pity in his tone. "i have no doubt all can be explained. but you have a letter i must ask you to give me." "i shall not give it you. and i shall not go with you." "you will only make my duty more painful by refusing." "i can't help that." he signed to his men, and as they came and stood by the couch i heard another carriage drive up to the door. "on second thoughts, i will go with you," i said, and got up. "i am obliged to you," was the reply, with a grave bow. he waited while i put on my hat. i was really listening for general von erlanger's voice. i heard it at length. "i am ready," i declared; and he opened the door, only to start back in surprise and to draw himself up stiffly as his excellency entered. "what is this?" "ah, i am glad your excellency has arrived in time to see me being arrested as a lunatic," i said, sweetly, as i put my hand in his. "good-bye." the general gave me first a grim smile, and then glanced round at the police officials. count gustav, not knowing who had arrived, came in then, and the general turned to him slowly, but with instant appreciation of the position. it was indeed a very interesting situation; and count gustav looked exceedingly uncomfortable. chapter xxi his excellency to the rescue i have said somewhere that i did not take general von erlanger's importance at his own estimate of it; but what occurred that morning might well have induced me to reconsider that opinion. certainly none of those present in the room shared it. they all, including count gustav himself, stood in considerable awe of him. a slight wave of the hand sent lieutenant varga and his men out of the room; and until they had gone and the door closed behind them, not another word was spoken. i threw my cloak over the back of a chair, sat down, and began to study count gustav's face. he stood leaning against a cabinet, alternately frowning and smiling as he strove to think what line to take. "miss von dreschler is of course my friend." this use of my name chased the smiles away. "i know her to be anything but a lunatic--she is saner than a good many of us, indeed--so that i am sure you would wish to explain this, count." "you know her by that name, then?" "oh, yes. i know her history." "do you know what has occurred in this house?" "she will tell me in a moment if i ask her." "certainly, i will--if count gustav desires it," i chimed in. "she has preferred a very odious accusation against me, general, and has shown such a strange prejudice, as the result of certain delusions she entertains, that i deem it necessary for the state of her mind to be inquired into." "what is the accusation?" "nothing less than that i have endeavoured to compass the death of my brother." "yes, that is grave enough and odious enough. to whom has the accusation been made?" "to me, so far; but she threatens to make it public." "surely you do not take such a thing seriously. what could you have to fear from such a charge?" cleverly said; as though the whole thing were just a monstrous absurdity. "nothing, of course; but----" he finished with a gesture to imply that such conduct could not be tolerated by an honourable person like himself. "surely you would not wish to shut up a lady in a lunatic asylum for fear she might utter impossible charges against you." "i believe her to be insane--on that point, of course; however reasonable and clever she may be in other respects." "my dear count gustav, can't you see the extraordinary unwisdom of what you proposed to do? why, the first effect would be to make every one who heard the charge believe there was some ground for it, and that she was shut away because you were afraid to face the thing. your high position, your well-known probity, and your acknowledged and admired honour and love of justice render you able to laugh at such a thing. it would fly off from you like a pebble flung at an ironclad and leave no more injury." very astute and extremely diplomatic. i had certainly done his excellency much less than justice. he was making it impossible for my adversary to go any further; and at the same time showing his own admiration of the count's qualities and his regard for the ducal family. count gustav found himself very awkwardly placed. "that is no doubt true, but i cannot take the same lenient view of the matter. such things are apt to do much harm in the present disturbed state of public feeling." "well, my loyalty to your father, the duke, and your family are too well-known to be questioned, i hope; and of course, if the matter is pressed, we must do what you wish--have the thing threshed out to the last straw, and the truth proved even to my very wilful young friend here. i have too much faith in her powers of sound judgment to believe for an instant that she would not accept the proofs of truth and appreciate them." "i wish no more than a full investigation," i agreed; my admiration of his diplomacy mounting. "i may have spoken in haste and may be entirely wrong; and i hope i know how to retire from an impossible position and to withdraw any mistaken statements." it was admirable comedy. but count gustav did not admire it. he saw himself drifting nearer the rapids. "do you think you could ask for more than that, count?" asked the general, blandly. but the count stiffened his back. "i have chosen my course and, with all deference to your excellency, i shall persevere in it. this lady is not to be trusted to be at large." the general turned to me with an apologetic air. "i am afraid under these circumstances, miss von dreschler, i can do no more for you. you will understand that a member of the duke's family speaks with great influence and power. let me appeal to you to withdraw these charges now and let the matter end at once." "no," broke in my adversary. "it has gone too far to end here and now." the general's words had given him confidence. "your excellency sees that a withdrawal would be useless," i exclaimed, with a shrug. "it is not that which count gustav desires. it is to shut me up so that i may have no chance of repeating elsewhere what i have said to him. he shrinks from any real investigation." "oh." his excellency was quite pained as he uttered the protest. "please, please, be careful what you say. there is no such thought in count gustav's mind. everything you wish to say, every charge you mistakenly bring, shall be disproved to your entire satisfaction. you are maligning the most honourable man in pesth, a member of the most illustrious family. of course there shall be investigation. is it not so, count?" "i have stated the course i intend to pursue," was the dogged reply. "do you wish varga to deal with the matter?" "yes. i have explained it to him." his excellency threw up his hands and shook his head. "dear, dear, i could almost wish i had not answered your letter so promptly, miss von dreschler. it is a very distressing matter." "oh, she sent for you?" exclaimed the count, angrily. "yes, indeed. scarcely the act of a lunatic, of course. it was very clever indeed, for it forces the thing to my knowledge. you see, count, there is another very serious obstacle in your path. miss von dreschler is an american citizen--and you know what the americans are when you twitch only a feather of the big bird. the eagle has a very loud cry, monstrously sharp eyes, and talons that dig deep in unearthing things." i vowed to myself i would never again doubt his excellency's shrewdness or his importance. i could have kissed him for the way he played that beautiful check-mate. the count was entirely nonplussed for the moment. he could only frown and repeat; "i have chosen my course, and even you cannot stop me, general." "my dear young count, you are making things exceedingly awkward. you see the affair is known to me officially; and that is everything. you are too young to appreciate all that this means; but when you are my age and have had my experience, you will see such a thing as i see it." "i shall of course appeal at once to the united states consul," i said, quick to take the cue thus indicated. "you hear that. i was sure of it. no, believe me, count, this is a matter to be settled in a very different way. you must not act in a hurry. i tell you what we must do. we must all have time to think things over; and to afford the necessary opportunity i will take miss von dreschler to my house until to-morrow; and if you will come there, say at noon, we shall no doubt have found a way out." but this would not suit count gustav, i knew; and he held on to his resolve to pursue the course he had chosen. "my dear count, i know how your father would act in such a case. we really cannot run the risk of making it a cause of international complication. if you will not accept my suggestion all i can do is to send word to the american consul and let him have the custody of this young lady. the people at the consulate will then of course go fully into the affair, everything will be made public, and heaven knows what trouble will come out of it. but it would simply ruin me at vienna if i were to consent to your wish. it is only a matter of a few hours. miss von dreschler will no doubt consent to do nothing for that time; and meanwhile, if you wish it, you and i can go to the duke." "there is another way," said the count, suddenly. "we will go at once to my father and lay the matter before him. he can decide what should be done, and take any responsibility off your shoulders, general." it was a shrewd move, but the check was obvious. "i agree to that readily, with but one condition--the american consul must be present to protect me." his excellency gave me a quick glance of appreciation. "oh, yes, of course. the count will not object to that." "but i do object. we want no more in this than there are at present." "then as an american citizen i claim my rights and the protection of my flag." "will you remain here a few minutes?" asked the general; and he led the count out of the room. they were absent nearly half an hour, and then his excellency returned alone. "i have prevailed upon the count to take my view of what should be done; and if you will give me your word to say nothing of these matters until twelve o'clock to-morrow, you will come with me to my house and remain there until then." "then we shall have another game of chess much sooner than we anticipated, your excellency," i said lightly. "you play too much chess, young lady, and far too daring a game. i may give him your word?" "oh, yes. i have done all i wished here and am ready to go." "you'll make no effort to escape?" he asked with a twinkle in his eyes. "you are to be a prisoner, you know." i nodded and laughed, and a few minutes later he handed me into his carriage to drive back to the city. he was more disposed to think than to talk during the drive, and several times i caught a furtive smile flitting over his face and drawing down the corners of his mouth. "i'm afraid i have a dangerous prisoner. you have already given me one awkward corner to turn this morning; and i see others ahead." "i never knew what diplomacy meant until this morning," i replied; "and the cleverness of it quite fascinated me." "diplomacy often consists in helping a friend to do what he doesn't wish to do," he said sententiously. "i suppose, by the way, i am only a prisoner on parole?" "if you take my advice you will not stir out of my house until we have had the meeting to-morrow." "why not?" "i cannot talk easily in a carriage," he answered, with a glance which i understood to mean that he had strong reasons he preferred not to explain. i said no more until we reached his house and he took me into his library. "i cannot give you more than one minute, and therefore cannot wait to hear your story. i have pressing matters that will keep me all the afternoon." "i have no clothes, your excellency," i cried, with a little affectation of dismay. "which means you wish to go out in order to carry on the scheme with which your busy little brains are full. you cannot go out, christabel--i have said that you will remain here. understand that, please." he spoke almost sternly; but the twinkle came into his eyes as he turned away and added: "as for your clothes, i had thought of that difficulty, and i told that american servant of yours to call here this afternoon on the chance that you might need him." i laughed and was running out of the room, saying i would go and find the girls and tell them i had come to spend the rest of the day with them, when i stopped and went back to him. "i haven't thanked you," i said. "it is not to me that any thanks are due--but the stars and stripes. they gave us the mate." "but it was you who made the move; and it is you i thank." "the game is not finished yet, christabel. we'll wait for that." "i see the combination that will win it." he took my hand and pressed it. "you deserve to win; but the stakes are almost tragically high, child." "in chess there is always a king without a throne." chapter xxii colonel katona speaks i wrote a short note to colonel katona saying that circumstances prevented my going to his house that day; but that i had something important to say to him, and wished him to come to me to general von erlanger's at once. next, an equally brief one to karl: "dear friend, "i cannot keep my word to see you to-day. i have been compelled to come here, to general von erlanger's house, and must remain until to-morrow. but to-morrow i shall see you. please me by staying where you are until then. colonel katona is coming here, and will bring you a message from me saying where we can meet to-morrow. i am sure you will do this as you have done so much 'for her sake.' christabel von dreschler." then a letter to gareth followed: "i am now confident that i shall have great news for you to-morrow. i have been working hard for you all the time, and success is in sight. but we cannot gain it unless you will now do your part and help me in all my plans for to-morrow. i wish you to remain in your room to-morrow morning, and not to leave it under any pretext whatever, until i myself come to you. you will of course be very curious to know the reason for this: we women can't help that. and i will explain it all to-morrow. you have trusted me so far. trust me in this also--for i tell you frankly that if you do not, everything even at the last moment may be ruined. keep a brave heart, for i am very hopeful happiness is in sight for you. "ever your friend, "christabel." lastly i drew up a concise statement of the whole facts of the case, giving as full details as were necessary to enable any one to understand it clearly, as well as my position in regard to it. this was for james perry to take to the american consul if any danger threatened me. i took this step, not because i doubted my friend the general, but lest he should find his wish to help me thwarted by those above him. i had my papers ready by the time james perry arrived. i explained first what he was to do with the paper for the consulate, and added: "your father will know where to take the letters for colonel katona and count karl, james, because he drove them home last night. send him off with them the moment you get back. give this letter to the countess von ostelen; and this list of clothes to your mother. you are to bring them back here to me." "yes, miss," he said, as he pocketed them. "and now i am going to set you a difficult task. you have done me splendid service so far--but you are now going to play me a treacherous shabby, cowardly trick." "i hope not," he said, noticing my smile. "you will need all your wits; because a great deal hangs upon how you act--all my plans in fact. you took a letter from me this morning to count gustav. did you see him?" "yes, for a moment. he took the letter, laughed and seemed rather pleased, and then gave me the message--that he would go to the house at once." "you think he would know you again?" "oh, yes, i am sure of that." "good. now, you are going to betray me to him. he is desperately anxious to know the whereabouts of the countess von ostelen, and you are going to be scoundrel enough to take advantage of my absence from home to tell him where to find her. it will be hard for your mother's son to be a scoundrel, james, i know." "i hope so, miss, with all my heart." "but as scoundrels can play at honesty, there's no reason why honest men shouldn't sometimes get a bit of their own back by playing at villainy. you are deeply interested in the troubles of the countess von ostelen; you have been shocked by my rather cruel treatment of her; you have heard her ask me again and again to let her leave the house; and your chivalry is roused because i keep her locked in her room. realize that part of your feelings, and think it over, because that is the sly hypocrisy on the surface of your conduct." "i am afraid i am a bigger rascal than i thought," he said. "i am sure you will be to-morrow when you see him. of course you have another motive--which you understand will be dragged out of you when the count, who will be suspicious, begins to question you. you want money and a place in the household of the duke, his father. the dollars will be the main thing. half the sum down before you open your lips: the rest when you complete the work. that is, the count is to give it to you when you let him into the house to fetch the lady away." "what sum should i name?" he asked with a grin. "i don't think a thousand dollars would be too much for such information; but this is a poor country, so we'll put it at about half that--fifteen hundred gulden. your honour is worth more than that, james; but, as good americans, we must gauge the conditions of the market. take those letters now, and when you come back i will have ready for you a letter in bad german, which you will copy--telling the count you are my servant and have something pressing on your conscience--hypocrites always have bulging consciences, james--that it concerns a lady who is a prisoner in my house, and that you will pay him a visit to-morrow at half-past eleven. he has a serious appointment here at twelve; but when you tell him that you can get him into my house just after that hour, he will prefer to keep the appointment with you instead of coming here." "i think i can do it all easily. but what am i to do when he comes?" "i shall be there to welcome him, james. you must contrive so that you do not reach the house until half-past twelve. you can be a quarter of an hour late in going to him; the interview will last quite half an hour--you will be agitated over your villainy, you know, and will have to drive your bargain; and the ride with him to the house will take another quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. put him into the small drawing-room which looks on to the garden behind and come to me." i sent him away then, telling him to think it all over and to ask me any questions necessary when he returned with my clothes. i drafted a carefully mysterious letter, such as i deemed a scoundrel would write, making much of my conscience, but hinting unmistakably at a money reward; and when he came back we discussed the whole plan in considerable detail. we were still occupied in this way when colonel katona's card was brought to me. i found him looking very haggard and worn with the emotions and incidents of the preceding night; but he held my hand and pressed it very warmly, and the hard eyes as he gazed at me were more like gareth's than i would have deemed it possible for them to be. "you have news for me, miss von dreschler? it is of my child?" he asked eagerly. "yes, it all concerns gareth, colonel." "you are going to take me to her?" "i hope so--but it will depend upon you." "then it is settled--there is nothing i will not do for that;" and he sighed deeply. "tell me what you wish." "you find me in a different mood from that of last night. then i was thinking mainly of gareth and a little only for myself. now i am thinking only of myself." "you saved me from a terrible mistake last night." "to which you had been tempted by the man who has wronged your child. i sent count karl away with you that you might see how deeply you had wronged him in your suspicions." "i saw that--afterwards; and saw, too, why you knew he was innocent. he speaks of little else but you." "count karl knows the road which duty compels him to take, and he will follow it to the end. he is a changed man." the colonel looked at me earnestly for a moment, his expression inscrutable. then he nodded. "yes, he is a changed man; thanks to your influence--only that." "the cause is of no consequence; it is only the fact that matters." "you are very strong--for such a child." "i have a strong purpose, colonel katona. i am going to be true to that purpose now with you." "i am afraid i know what you are going to say." "to ask plainly whether you will do justice to my father and tell me the whole story of that cruel wrong." "the whole story?" he asked, anxiety in both look and tone. "the whole story--nothing less will satisfy me." he paused in evident distress, and pressed his hand tightly on his forehead. "it cannot be. it is impossible. count karl urged me--he of all men--but i told him what i tell you--it is impossible." "then you will never see gareth again." i made my voice as hard and cold as i could. "i have feared this," he murmured. "and i, colonel katona, have worked for it." "i cannot, i cannot," he murmured again, love and fear doing desperate battle in his mind. "you are not so cruel." "i can be as hard as steel in this cause. hear what i have done. i know, of course, where she is. i know the man who has done her this wrong. i have to-day so planned matters that to-morrow he shall know where to find her. if you do not speak now to help me, i declare to you that to-morrow gareth shall be again in his arms." a groan escaped his lips at this, and he bowed his white head as if in an agony of shame. "have you no mercy?" he whispered, at length. "i am thinking of my father and his shame and ruin. you helped to kill his honour and blight his life. you were his friend. had you mercy then, that you would ask it now of his child?" "they told me he was dead. i swear that. i did not know the truth until years afterwards--when he had escaped. it was then too late, too late. my god, you know not what this is that you ask me to do." "i ask for the truth. he trusted you. he has left it on record. you betrayed that trust--for your employers. you set their favour then before your friend's honour, just as now you set it before even the honour of your child." every one of my biting violent words went right home. he winced under the pain of them; and when i paused and he glanced up, his face could not have been more stricken had i been his judge sentencing him to death. nay, i think he would have faced death with far less agitation. "from you, his child, this is terrible," he murmured. "i have been very guilty; but not as you think. i was not false to your father like that. i will tell you all so far as it touches me. i know now that it was resolved that the young count stephen should die; and a quarrel was purposefully caused between him and your father. i was used at first only as a tool in the work. i had reason to know that the duke alexinatz was so incensed against your father, that it would go hard with him if he remained in pesth." "i know that it was at your persuasion that he made ready to fly from the city." "it was true what i told him--duke ladislas wished him to leave, as otherwise the duke himself might have been involved in the quarrel. he sent me direct to your father. up to that point i was true to my friend. i would have given my life for him cheerfully--then." "and after?" "count stephen did go to your father's rooms in search of him, his blood heated with wine and the lies told by others; and it was there he was shot." "you knew of this?" "nothing, until the next day; and then the story was told me that the two had met and quarrelled fiercely; that my friend had been killed; that the matter must be hushed up in the interests of duke ladislas; that he had in reality instigated it, and that loyalty to him made it impossible to speak the truth. your father had been secretly buried, i was assured." "i am waiting, colonel katona," i said, presently. "from that point on i was guilty. my silence then was the first act of treachery; and others soon followed. i could not bring the dead to life, i was told, but i could help the living; and in helping them could save from ruin the cause to which i was pledged. the confession by your father was found and used--and i stood by and suffered his name to be dishonoured. for that i can plead no excuse." "and when you knew that my father had not died but had been imprisoned all those years, and had escaped--what did you do then?" "i know. i know," he exclaimed, wretchedly. "i did nothing. they came to me----" "who came to you?" "those who had done it all; and with them count gustav to whom all had then been told. they appealed to my loyalty to the cause, to duke ladislas, and to my country--and i yielded." "count karl, too?" "no. he knows nothing of it. nothing." "if he had known of all this and you had found the news which you thought had come from me to be true--that the man for whose family you had sinned in this way was the same who had wronged gareth, what then?" there was such a glitter in his eyes as they met mine that i almost feared he had read the thought and intent behind my words. "i would have had his life first and"--he checked himself with sudden effort. "and what?" i asked. "i would have killed him," he murmured, doggedly. "the rest is your secret?" i hazarded. he made no other answer than to glance at me quickly. "if i tell you to-morrow where to find gareth, will you make public what you have told me to-day and denounce the men who were concerned in my father's ruin?" at the direct question he was profoundly agitated again. "is there no other way?" "no. none. i am pleading for my father's honour." "i will do it," he said, with a bitter sigh. "on your word of honour, colonel katona?" "yes. on my word of honour. god help me." i drew a deep breath of relief. i needed no further assurance. i had seen enough to know that what i still had to tell him--that gustav was the man he sought--would suffice to change any lingering remnant of indecision into grim set purpose. i told him i would send him word on the following morning where he and count karl were to come to me at about noon. "you will give me your hand, christabel?" he asked, hesitating, as we were parting. "yes. i trust you now to undo the past." he held my hand a moment and seemed much affected. "i had meant to speak to you about count karl. he----" "please!" i broke in. "if i could help your happiness it would be some recompense for my wrong to your father." "you cannot do that." "you care for him?" "please," i said again. "i know. he has told me what stands between you. i am glad now that you made me speak--although your words stabbed me to the heart. but i am glad now--and perhaps i can help you. it should not be all tragedy for you two. but heaven knows it is tragedy whatever happens." i was glad to be alone. the interview had tried me. i endeavoured to analyze my feelings; and i am afraid i realized that while i was jubilant at the prospect of success, the knowledge that it brought nearer the parting from karl made me almost wish for failure. that was rank treachery to my purpose and my dear father's memory, i know. but then, i was only a girl; and after all, even in the strongest of us, the heart will have its way at times. mine took it then for a desolate half-hour, until i was roused by the two chattering girls who came romping in to take me away to dress for dinner. chapter xxiii a greek gift at dinner his excellency was thoughtful and taciturn, and we had a rather dismal meal. he noticed my dress when we met, however. "you have your clothes, then?" he said in his dryest manner. "yes, my servant came to arrange the things i needed." "i don't wish to know," he exclaimed, promptly, with a glance which showed me that he understood i had not been idle. but after that he scarcely spoke. the girls chattered to me, chiefly making fun of the new governess before her face in the most impudent manner; but i was too busy with my own thoughts to pay much heed. something had happened since the general and i had parted; and i was sure it concerned me; so i waited and watched until either he should tell me or i should find it out for myself. he sent the girls and their governess away almost before they had finished eating, and took me at once into the little salon where we usually played chess. "is it a compliment to me that you have arrayed yourself so?" he asked. in that moment i seemed to guess what was in his thoughts. "it is perhaps a coincidence," i said with a smile. "why a coincidence?" he was puzzled. "because i had not expected to see any one but yourself." he nodded. "that instinct of yours always interests me." i had gone to the chess board and taken two or three pieces out of the box. i put them back. "so we are not to play chess to-night. who is it?" "no, there you are wrong for once. we are to play. i have spoken of your chess-playing powers to a very old friend of mine, and he is coming to see us play." i shook my head. "your excellency means that the game is to be a pretext. what is his name?" "i am not 'your excellency' to you, christabel. it is general von walther--an old comrade of mine." "i am getting interested in him already--an old comrade whose unexpected visit made you so thoughtful during dinner that you could scarcely speak a word. on my account, too. the only time you spoke was to express satisfaction that i was dressed well enough to receive him." "you are building a palace with match boxes, christabel. you had better set the men." i set them and we began to play. i made two or three egregiously bad moves; and he did not notice them. the "old comrade" was evidently still absorbing his thoughts; and began to fill mine too. "hadn't we better have something more like a real game when he comes in? it should at least look like serious chess," i said, and was making some impromptu changes in the positions of the men when general von walther was announced. i shut down the smile which followed my first glance at him. it was too bad of his excellency to try and deceive me. i had seen the "old comrade" before, however; and i was not likely to forget him. it was duke ladislas himself. they both played up to the arranged parts, and of course i did my best to help them. "come in, old friend," said his excellency, genially. "this is the chess prodigy. my old friend general von walther, miss gilmore." "his excellency always flatters me, general, because on one occasion i was lucky enough to beat him." "i am delighted to meet you, miss von dreschler," said the "general," so occupied in giving me a sharp look that he did not notice he had used the wrong name. "you are a great favourite of my old friend." i made an appropriate reply, and for some minutes we chatted about chess, and the weather, and what i thought of pesth, and so on--anything except what he must have come to speak about; whatever that was. then i challenged him laughingly to a game; but i suppose he was in reality no player at all, for he got out of the challenge by saying he would rather look on. so we went on with our game again and had made some half a dozen moves, when a servant came to say that count somassy, the minister of justice, wished to speak with his excellency. he pretended intense regret for the interruption to our game, begged us both to excuse him for a few minutes, and then the "old comrade" and i were left alone. i knew of course that this had all been arranged; and that we were now to come to the real business of the meeting. "you are staying some time in pesth?" he opened. "i scarcely know. you see i am a foreigner now, and an american citizen is never long away from the states without a heart ache." "you say 'now,'" he commented, as i had intended. i thought he would appreciate the word. "yes. i am hungarian by birth--but a naturalized citizen of the united states. here, of course, i am only a girl; but at home, in jefferson city, missouri, i am quite a person of importance. i inherited my uncle's fortune, and over there you know we reckon importance by dollars. you would be astonished at the consideration i receive in my travels from all our representatives, consuls, and even ambassadors." this was not strictly accurate; but the point had to be driven home that he could not play monkey-tricks with me. he did not like this any more than i thought he would, and paused so long that i said: "shall we not have a game, general, while his excellency is away? it looks as if his sudden appointment might last some time." i think he began to gather in that i was not quite fooled by the little entertainment. "i think not, thank you. the fact is i wish to speak to you on some matters." "connected with america?" "well, not exactly. rather of a private character." i froze instantly and was appropriately dignified. "i don't think i quite understand. in missouri we don't discuss our private affairs with strangers." "this is not missouri," he said, dropping for the moment the "old comrade" tone and using the brief curt note of authority. as an american citizen i resented the tone and rose. "i am not a school girl, sir, having a lesson in geography." it was intentionally pert and flippant, and i made him a bow and moved toward the door. "i am sorry. pray forgive my manner. an old soldier, you know, drops now and again into the drill manner." "american women do not take kindly to drilling, general." "no, no, miss gilmore; you must acquit me of any intention to offend you. i wish to speak to you seriously. pray sit down again." i should have been intensely sorry to have ended so promising an interview, so i sat down and stared stonily at him. he was one of those vulture-faced old men, with a large hook nose, a wide mouth, and a small square chin, which when he spoke suggested irresistibly the moving lower bill of the bird. he had dark, piercing, beady eyes, rather deep set under prominent eyebrows, and a waxen white forehead, rounded like a bird's poll. "i wish to speak to you about count gustav." "yes?" "i am a friend of his and his family, and possess their confidence, and being also a friend of general von erlanger's, i thought it would be desirable for me to speak with you." "yes?" "as a mutual friend, if i may say so, and an old man of long experience of the world." "yes?" i said again, maintaining the same stony stare. "count gustav has told me the facts, and as it is generally the case in these exceedingly private and painful matters a solution satisfactory to both sides can be found by a third disinterested person--where there is a mutual desire to find one, of course--he deemed it best, and i agreed with him, that i should see you and speak plainly and frankly to you." this time when he paused i bowed merely and said nothing. "i may take it that you do desire some arrangement? you are silent, but i presume it; because i am convinced so charming a young lady as yourself could not harbour any personal malice against the count. that would be a monstrous thought. and further, you are so capable, so exceptionally capable and clever, that you cannot have disguised from yourself that to attempt to harm a member of the ducal family, whatever the motive or supposed facts, would not only end in failure, but also in personal inconvenience, to use no stronger term, to the person making the attempt." i kept my eyes fixed steadily on him; and my stare and silence began to tell on his temper. i was rather glad to see that. getting no reply, he made another long speech about his amiable intentions, my many excellent qualities, his extreme reluctance to see me come to harm, the impossibility of my hurting count gustav, and the necessity for an amicable settlement. but he made the threat a little more unmistakable this time--owing possibly to his anger at my stony reserve. he paused, and we looked at one another in silence. then as if he had done with preambles he said: "and now, what is it you want? i invite you to speak frankly." "'frankly'?" i repeated, with a nasty little accent on the word. "may i put two questions to you?" he bowed and waved his hands. like the rest of him they were bird-like and suggested talons. "do you come to me from count gustav or from the duke himself?" "i speak for--both," he answered, not without hesitation. "then please tell me what is behind your threat of 'personal inconvenience'? what do they intend to do, if i refuse to come to an arrangement? what _can_ they do to me?" "they are strong enough to frustrate any attack of the kind from you or any one else." "but what _can_ they do? you are a _mutual_ friend, you know, general;" and i gave him one of my sweetest smiles. "i have no hesitation in saying you might be in great personal danger, miss gilmore." "i have already reminded you that i am an american citizen." "you may take it from me that you will be prevented from taking any action of the hostile kind you contemplate." i smiled again. "i am not in the least frightened, general. i am smiling because you come to me to speak about a mutual arrangement--when you have made up your mind that the only arrangement to be thought of is unconditional surrender on my part. and to force that, you threaten me with unspeakable penalties. we shouldn't call that any sort of arrangement at all, in the states, but merely--pardon the word--bluff." i was gaining my first point rapidly. he was getting very angry at my opposition and the way i put it. "i was prepared to find you a very daring young woman; but this thing shall not be allowed to go farther. you reckon on general von erlanger's help; but he will be powerless here." i indulged him with a third smile. "you are not quite right there. i have done something else. knowing the duke's power and influence might prevent his excellency from protecting me, i wrote out an account of the matter and have arranged that--if anything unforeseen should happen to me, to-night, for instance--it shall be placed to-morrow morning in the hands of the american consul. and even against the ducal family, i will back my government to keep its end up." i paused, but he had nothing ready to answer that with; so i continued: "i think you'll agree that that foresight of mine cancels your threat, and that we can start in again on equal terms." his talons having failed to grip me now gripped one another, and with considerable tension too. his right hand fastened like a vice on his left wrist. "i did not threaten you, i only warned you. what is it you want?" "in the first place, fair play--and it is not playing fairly for duke ladislas to come to me in the disguise of a mutual friend." "you know me, then?" "as well as you know me. inadvertently, when you entered, you called me by my name--von dreschler. you know, also, one of the objects i seek--justice for my father's name. that it be cleared from the shame and disgrace foully and treacherously put upon it in the interest of you and your family--the responsibility for a deed of blood of which he was innocent, but which you, or those promoting your interests, instigated, planned, and carried out." "'fore god, you speak daringly, madam." "i speak the truth, my lord, just as i demand to have justice done. not demand only, but command it shall be done--for the power to command has been put into my hands by the perfidy and wickedness of your son, count gustav." i looked for an outburst from him in response; but none came. he sat silent, the right talon still gripping the left as though he wished it were my throat. "i do not know with what motive you came to me," i said after a pause; "unless it was to try and frighten me into silence. but i will deal more frankly with you than you with me. if you have come to offer me less than justice to my father's memory, we are only wasting time; and the interview, painful to both, may as well end right now." "i offer you that and no less," he answered, and he loosed his wrist to wave his hand as if with a gesture of compliance. it was my turn to be surprised now; but i was sceptical at so ready a surrender after his threats. "that is glad news, indeed. when will the truth be made known?" "at once. i will see that it is done. as others have done, you have misjudged me. i see that of course. i have been secretly deemed, i know, to have had some guilty connivance in the death of the young count stephen; and in that, have had to bear the blame for the acts of my too zealous adherents. my family profited by their rashness; and so the world held, as it will, that advantage and guilt went hand in hand." "i seek in that awful matter only justice for my father's memory. restore his good name, and who else loses or gains, is nothing to me." "i pledge myself as to that. the facts shall be drawn up and made public; and further, i will interest myself to secure that the title he held, count melnik, shall be restored to you, together with the estate which was confiscated. full justice shall be done." "thank god for that!" i exclaimed, intensely moved. "to-morrow, my son gustav is to come here to you, and he shall bring with him full confirmation in writing of what i have now promised you. on that i give you my word." i leant back in my chair overcome. the knowledge of what i had gained mingled with the poignant regret that my dear father had not lived to share the joy of his vindication brought the tears to my eyes. i could not speak, so mastering was the emotion. "i will leave you now, miss von dreschler," said the duke as he rose. "when we next meet you will be the countess melnik--not that i think you will value such a title except for what it means--the full restitution of your dead father's honour." he held out his hand, and i rose and gave him mine in silence. when he had gone i sank back in my chair, elation at my success still battling with that vehement but useless regret that my father had not lived to see that night; and the battle was still being waged when his excellency entered. i dashed away my tears. "i have won," i said, smiling. "i am sure i owe it chiefly to you. the duke has given me a solemn promise that my father's name shall be cleared." i looked for a sign of congratulation; but instead, my old friend glanced at me slowly and very shrewdly, and moved on to his chair. "you are an excellent linguist, but probably do not know the dead languages, christabel. there is an old tag of virgil's for instance: 'timeo danaos et dona ferentes'." "i know what that means, at any rate," i cried. "'i fear the greeks even when bearing gifts.'" he turned and looked at me again very thoughtfully. then nodding his head he answered with slow emphasis; "it is possible to learn the meaning of it--even in pesth." "you think this is a greek gift?" "i think--we may still finish our game of chess, christabel;" and he came over to the board and examined the position of the men. chapter xxiv what the duke meant "there is always this about chess," said his excellency, when i had taken my place opposite to him; "you cannot play it unless you detach your thoughts from all other matters." "i don't wish to detach mine," i returned. "then i shall certainly beat you; for i intend to detach mine, at all events for a few moves. now study this position;" and he insisted on talking chess for some minutes, and then we played. gradually the fascination which the game always had laid hold of me, and, concentrating my thoughts upon it, i began to play very carefully, until i caught my old friend's eyes studying my face instead of the game. "i think you are playing earnestly now, so that we may as well stop and talk. while i light a cigar, think back to your conversation, and then tell me your impressions." he was unusually deliberate in choosing and lighting his cigar, and leaving the chess table threw himself into an easy lounge chair and smoked for a while in silence. "well--what are the impressions?" "you have disturbed them and me," i replied. "intentionally." "just as you intentionally misled me about your 'old comrade'." "he made me do that; but i knew you would see through it; and i had no scruple." "but _he_ was surprised when i told him who he was." "no man likes to have his incognito fail him. but your impressions." "i think he will do what he said--and what i wish. you know what he promised? "oh yes, that of course." "he did not come prepared to do it." "no. you have made another convert, christabel. he is charmed with you. you are a wonderful little lady." "i did not exert many charms. i was just as hard as a stone, and then said things that made him look as if he would gladly have taken me by the throat with those talon hands of his." "it was that daring of yours that won him round. i don't know all you said; but from what he told me, i should think he was never spoken to in such a way before by man or woman--or child; for you are really little more than a child." "what do you think he meant to do in coming here?" i asked. "that was what made me so thoughtful during dinner." "you are keeping something from me." "i?" "well, you mean that _he_ is?" "i know him. it would be very remarkable if he were not." "but you agree that he will do as he promised?" "'i fear the greeks even when they bring gifts,'" he quoted again. "at least, i should if i were you. his influence is great; and in a week or so i should think you will be countess melnik. i don't think anything you can ask him for will be refused. you will be as much honoured as your father was the reverse." "the scent is too cold. i do not understand," i said, after a pause. "you are not meant to--nor will it affect you. you have been threatening a good many plans, little lady. i like to see you at fault. it is a rare pleasure." "it cannot be about colonel katona's daughter. if he knows of that he knows what i told count gustav. he will not deem me likely to desert her. yes, i am at fault." "you have not told me yet what passed at that house where i found you to-day." i told him everything, except as to what had passed between karl and myself. "it is all grave enough," he said. "a secret is very much like dynamite--unless there is great care, the explosion may hurt the holder. i have told you often enough how great a favourite count gustav is; not with his father only, but with us all." "'us'?" i repeated. "i am one of the patriots. count karl lacks both force in himself and support outside." "he is not understood." his excellency's eyes brightened. "is that why you have not told me what you and he may have said to one another?" i felt the colour steal up into my cheeks. "it was not necessary." "no, christabel, that is just the word--not necessary." he glanced at his watch. "dear me, it is quite late. i must send you to bed." "you have not shown me the scent," i cried, with a little shrug of irritation; as i began to pack away the chessmen. he regarded me with the old amused twinkle in his eyes, and then with a glance at the chess-board, a thought struck him and he crossed to me. "you are fond of chess problems, by the way. i'll set you one." he swept all the black pieces off the board except the king and one pawn, and then left the white king and five white pawns, two of the latter so placed that but one move for each was necessary for them to become queens. "could you win that game if you were white?" he asked. "it is but childish; of course these pawns become queens." "exactly. in chess any pawn that can get far enough can be a queen--but not in life, you know. good-night, christabel." i scarcely heard his good-night, but sat staring down at the little pieces where he had placed them. "you think that any such thing was in his thoughts?" "what i think is--that orange-blossoms have a very charming scent, christabel, and count gustav is the hope of the patriots. again, good-night, child. you have won your victory--by your own wits mainly, although other things have been fighting for you. go to bed and dream of it, and remember--the first obligation of a conqueror is magnanimity. no--no more to-night, child, except--god bless you and give you happiness." i lay a long time thinking over the events of that full day, and wrestling with the problem which his excellency's last words had set me: "the first obligation of a conqueror is magnanimity." so that was the secret. i had won in the struggle. not only was my father's fame to be righted, but i was to be honoured, not from any recognition of justice, but in order that i might be a fit wife for a duke's son. then i was to be "magnanimous," too; which meant that i was to consent to acquiesce in the family arrangement by which karl was to be set aside in favour of gustav; and to cease all my efforts against him. i had beaten them in all other respects; and now they had seized upon karl's old feelings for me, and had somehow divined mine for him; and the two were made the subject-matter of this new bribery-bargain. the shame of it made my cheeks burn and flush in the darkness; and i winced and cowered at the humiliation as the bitter thoughts crowded thick and fast upon me. i recalled what had passed between the duke and me, and reading it all now by the light of this later knowledge, my pride was stabbed and pierced by a hundred poisoned darts that rankled and festered with cruel pain. he had come to view me as a possible wife for the son whom he designed to disinherit! my love for karl was to be made a stake in the game of injustice he would play! i was to be tossed to karl as a sort of compensation for his wrongs; and i was to be "honoured" that i might be duly rendered fit for the position! the show of reparation to my father was a mere sham and pretence to tinsel another wrong! my duty to the dead, the solemn charge laid upon me, was to be a lever to force me to consent to it! and this was my victory! is it to be wondered at that the ashes gritted my teeth; that in my hot indignation, i spurned the whole transaction as base and ignoble, and that i vowed rather to forego my supreme purpose than gain it at such a price. my father's honour was dear to me; but he would never have me win it for him at the price of my own. the whole bargain was dishonourable alike to the dead and to me; and the mere proposal should harden my heart and stiffen my resolve to go through with my task in my own way. i grew less passionate when i had settled this resolve firmly; and was able to reflect upon the probable result of the duke's intention to my plans. they were now in danger of being badly broken up. if he kept his word and sent count gustav to me with what he had termed the written confirmation of his promise, it was clear that the scene i had planned to take place at my house would be prevented. the count could not be in both places at once; but would he come to me, if james perry played his part well? i had to risk everything on my judgment of his action. long and anxiously i weighed that problem; and at length decided he would not come to me, if once he was persuaded that he could get hold of gareth in despite of me. he knew that she was the key to everything for me. if he could whisk her away from my care, my power over him was gone. i might accuse him to colonel katona as the man who had wronged her; but if she was bestowed safely in his charge, he could laugh at the accusation, and could challenge me safely to produce any proofs of it. moreover, i had so planned that he would feel safe in testing the truth of the story which james perry would tell him; and would see that if he found it false, he could still come to the meeting, scarcely an hour behind his time. for such a delay, a hundred excuses could be pleaded; and he was not the man to be at fault for some plausible one. he would test it, i felt confident. he had everything to gain by doing so, and nothing to lose. at least so he would reason. success would mean all in all; failure no more than the need to invent an excuse. i determined to go on, therefore; and fell asleep at last in complete assurance that on the morrow matters would go as i had planned before the duke had seen me. in the morning general von erlanger greeted me with even more than his usual kindliness. "you have not slept well, christabel," he said. i suppose my face showed this. "i had to think." "what are you going to do? you know all that i meant in what i said at parting last night?" "i am going to wait for the meeting at noon." "and then?" "if no one comes i shall go away." "there is of course something behind that. but count gustav will come. his father will see to that." "are you against me, too, in this development?" "i should never be against you. but i wish you to be on our side." "if i can no longer tell you all that is in my thoughts, do not blame me. let us wait for the meeting. i am afraid, if i were to speak, some of my chagrin might show itself." he made a gesture of disappointment. "i have lived too long in the world, christabel, to look for either schemes or counsels of perfection. life must always be a compromise. i will not counsel you now; i will only hope." "that is at least left to us all--even to me in this." he gave me a sharp look, threw up his head slightly, and said: "remember, count gustav is necessary to the country." "it is an unfortunate country, then," i retorted, rather tartly; and we said no more. soon after breakfast james perry came. he told me that he had written the letter; and i gave him his final lessons, and said that his father, who was waiting close at hand--was to take a letter which i had written to colonel katona, and then to be at the door with the carriage for me at twelve o'clock to the instant. in the letter to colonel katona i merely gave him my address, and said i would be there within half an hour of midday to meet him and count karl. when i had arranged those details, i had nothing to do except wait for the time of the meeting with such patience as i could command. i did not know that two hours could possibly contain so many weary dragging minutes as those. i resorted to every device i could think of to use up the time. i walked up and down the room counting my steps. i tried to read; only to fling the book away from me. i repeated a quantity of poetry, from shakespeare to walt whitman. i got the chess board out and tried problems; only at last to give it all up and just think and think and think. at eleven o'clock i went to my bedroom and put on my hat in readiness, although i was not to leave until an hour later. then to find something for my hands to do, i unpacked my trunk and tumbled all my clothes in a heap; and began refolding and repacking them with deliberate care. i was in the midst of this most uninteresting task when a servant brought a message that general von erlanger would like to see me. i bundled everything back into the trunk anyhow and anywhere, locked it and went down. it was half-past eleven by the great hall clock as i crossed to the library. james perry was just about making his entrance as traitor. his excellency was fingering a letter as i went in. "i am anxious to have a last talk with you before count gustav comes, christabel. there are some things i wish you to see quite plainly." "we have only half an hour," said i. "no, we may have longer. i have a line from the count to say that an unexpected but very pressing engagement may prevent his being quite punctual; and he begs me to explain this to you." "oh, general, what perfectly glorious marguerites!" i exclaimed, enthusiastically, turning to point to the flowers in the garden, lest he should see my face and read there the effect of his words. count gustav's engagement was with james perry; and my heart beat fast as i saw victory ahead. his excellency crossed and stood by me. "yes, they are beautiful. i pride myself on my marguerites, you know. but--isn't it a little singular they should appeal to you so strongly at this particular moment?" "i love marguerites," i replied, with a smile. i was master of my features again then. "so do i. to me they stand for simplicity, truth, trust and candour, especially between friends--such as, say, you and myself, christabel." we exchanged looks; mine smiling; his grave, very gentle, and a little reproachful. chapter xxv on the threshold his excellency had at times some very pretty ways. he stepped through the window now, and, plucking three or four of the finest marguerites, offered them to me. "you will accept them--in the sense i have just indicated?" he asked. "you punish tactfully, general. i suppose you think the rebuke is warranted. i would rather you gave them to me--to-morrow, say;" and i turned from the window and sat down. he laid the blossoms on the table. "we will leave them until our chat is over. i hope you will take them then." "i think not. there is only half an hour, you know." "you are resolved not to give count gustav the grace he asks? you believe there is some purpose behind this note?" and he held it up. "that is one of the marguerites, and must wait--until to-morrow." "you shut me out, then? you are a very resolute, self-reliant little person, you know, christabel. is even this letter your doing too?" "i told you we would wait for the meeting." "umph!" he nodded. "then i suppose it's not much good for me to say anything. i am sorry," and he sighed. "i should like to tell _you_ something," i said; "but it might make you angry; and you have been so kind to me--so much more than kind." his look relaxed. "you will not make me angry. i am too old to heat quickly." "i think you should not have been a party to this duke's scheme. it is not honourable to any one concerned--and to me, dishonourable in the extreme." "you don't think i would do anything dishonouring you? why, i would have--but you remember the question you would not let me ask." "is it honourable to me to make a pretence of granting the justice i seek for my father's memory, while in reality using that very thing and--and my own feelings, merely as a means of doing yet another wrong to another man? to fool me thus and make a sport of me for these wretched, sordid policy purposes? why, you yourself spoke of it contemptuously as no more than a greek gift." he showed no irritation at my warm words, but on the contrary smiled and pressing his finger tips together said: "i suppose it will sound strangely to you--but i can still, from my side, offer you those marguerites in the sense i indicated." "candour?" i almost threw the word at him. "are we not at a little disadvantage? we are not calling spades, spades. may i do that?" "certainly, so far as i am concerned." "then i will. count karl has loved you ever since he knew you in new york. you love him now--yes, don't protest; it is quite true. he wishes above all things in the world to make you his wife. the duke knows this and he consents to the marriage. the duke knows and consents because--i am going to surprise you--count karl himself told him and asked his consent. the duke came yesterday to see you for himself: deeply prejudiced against you, because of count gustav's misrepresentations: but you conquered him; as i told you last night you had. he resolved to grant you what you desired, to have your father's title revived----" "as a bribe," i burst in impulsively. "and justice done, that the way might be clear for the marriage. that he told you the truth in regard to count stephen's death is itself a proof that he means to keep his word. now, what is there dishonourable to you in that?" "what of the greek gift?" i quoted against him. "you should look at that dispassionately. count karl is impossible as the leader of the patriots. you tell me he is misunderstood; and very possibly you may be right. but the fact is what i say--the patriots would not follow his lead: and thus only count gustav remains to us. it may be unjust; but there is always some injustice in popular movements. what then remains? either the whole movement must be wrecked, or count gustav must be brought through this trouble. that was the greek gift." "and i and my feelings are to be used as a pawn in the game." "that is the view of a very clever but very young lady who sets great store upon having her way in her own way. but it is not count karl's view, christabel." "and gareth?" "ah, there has been most extraordinary bungling over that." "bungling?" i cried, indignantly, almost contemptuously. "would you offer me these while speaking in such terms of her?" and i picked up the marguerites and tossed them again down nearer to him. "almost you hurt me there," he said with a sigh. "the thing is full of thorns; but of this you may be sure. you would not be asked by me to desert that poor child. what is to be done must be done in the open; but what is best to do--where best seems to mean worst for some one--cannot yet be decided. frankly i do not yet see the way." "does the duke know of her?" "i think not---i almost fear not. his faith in count gustav is surprising for a man of his experience. but then he is his father." "he is a sorry, shoddy hero for the patriots," i exclaimed, with such bitterness that his excellency lifted a hand in protest. "he is the only possible leader after his father, christabel; and for that reason i am going to ask you to hold your hand. i can offer you these now, may i not?" and he held out the marguerites to me with a smile. "yes--but i cannot take them yet." his face clouded. "you have something in your thoughts, yet." "it is close to twelve o'clock and he has not come," i replied, significantly. he lifted the letter from gustav. "we have this. you will wait--after what i have said?" "not a minute unless you make me a prisoner." "don't, christabel. that is unjust. where are you going?" "to my own house." "who is there?" "at present, gareth--only." "whom do you expect?" "count gustav----and others." "for god's sake," he cried, more disconcerted than i had ever seen him; and his white shapely fingers twisted the flowers nervously during the pause that followed. "you have frightened me," he murmured at length. "the deeds are not of my doing," i said slowly. "where is your house?" "why do you wish to know?" "that i may follow you there presently," he answered. "you have twisted those blooms and wrecked them. is candour wrecked with the petals, general?" he looked up and i saw by his glance that he knew i had read his intention. "you did not mean to come alone," i added. "it is a case for the duke himself. you must not take this responsibility alone, christabel; you must not. the issue of everything is in the balance." "i may be wrong. count gustav may not come." "you have probably made sure of him. give me the address. we must know it. you see that, i am sure." i thought earnestly. "if i give it you, will you wait at home here and do nothing for an hour; and if you bring the duke will you promise to tell him first of gareth? i may be back within the hour with nothing done." "yes, i give you my word on both points. it will be a trying hour." i wrote down the address then and handed it to him. "it is twelve o'clock. i must go. if i do not return, i shall look for you in an hour and a-half from now." "i wish you would let us come at once," he said as he went out to the carriage. "you might only witness my failure; and i am jealous of my reputation for succeeding." "i have no smile just now to answer yours," he said, as he handed me into the carriage. in some respects he had influenced me more than i had let him see during our conversation. indeed, i scarcely cared to own to myself how differently i viewed the conduct and offer of the duke. i was in truth intensely delighted at the news that karl had asked the duke's consent to make me his wife. i had known of course that he was willing to set everything else aside if he could prevail upon me to marry him. he had told me no less than that. but i fastened upon this formal request for the duke's permission almost greedily, as though it gave a fresh practical turn to the position. my heart was indeed only too willing to find any reason or pretext for playing traitor to my resolve. i told myself over and over again during that drive that the facts were really just what they had been before his excellency had spoken to me; and that the view which i had taken in those hot, restless, angry hours in the night was the one which i must take. but i found it increasingly difficult to be consistent. my dear old friend himself would certainly be the last to harbour a single thought in any way dishonouring to me. i trusted him entirely; and he was on the side of my heart's desires. he had also declared dead against the abandonment of gareth, and had stipulated that whatever was done for her should be done "in the open." could i ask more than that? it meant that count gustav should not of himself decide what was to be done; but that gareth and her father should have their part in it. was i to put myself in her father's place and usurp his duty, merely because i had a fanciful estimate of what was due to me and to my irresponsible opinion of my importance? temptation can take very subtle forms. moreover, was that same estimate of my own infallibility to force count karl upon the patriots when he was obnoxious to them--as his excellency had declared? was i to unsettle still further the political disturbances of the country, just because i thought duty required me to be self-denying and miserable and to lose the man i loved? that such thoughts could occur to me will show in what a chaos of irreconcileable wishes, hopes, and intentions my mind was during that drive, and how my pride, prejudices, and judgment fought and wrestled with the secret desires of my heart. i was in the worst possible frame of mind for the work that had to be done. before his excellency had spoken to me, my course had seemed quite clearly defined; but for the moment i was in that to me most contemptible of all moods--reluctant to go back and yet half-afraid to go forward. i was thus relieved to hear when i reached the house that colonel katona and karl had not yet arrived. i went up to gareth. she was flushed with excitement; but when the colour died down, i could not but see how really fragile and delicate and ill she looked. she welcomed me with tears, and kisses and many questions. why had i not been before? what had i been doing? why had i wished her to keep in her room? what was the news i brought with me? who was coming, and when? was it her karl? had i told her to keep in her room for fear of being seen by him before i could prepare him for her presence? her own eagerness in putting the questions lessened my difficulty in answering them; and she fussed about me lovingly, making much of me, caressing me, and thanking me; chattering all the time like a child in her eager anticipation of coming happiness; so that my heart alternately glowed with pleasure that i had held on to my resolve and was heavy with fear lest a crushing disappointment was at hand to blight her love and shut out the sunlight from her bright young life for ever. her trust in gustav was absolute, and her faith in his love unshakable. "he will be so glad. does he know yet i am here?" "no, gareth, not yet." "i think i am glad of that," she laughed. "what a great start he will give, and how his eyes will open, and what a light of love will be in them when i run up and put my arms round him." "pray god he may," was my thought. i still nurtured the hope that what he had once said to me was true; and that so far as there was room for love in his selfish heart, gareth filled it. it was largely on that hope, indeed, i was building. "he will be so glad that--do you know what i have thought, christabel?" "no, dear." "i am going to be very cunning. i am going to use that moment of his delight to urge him to take me to my father and tell him everything. do you think he will do it?" "it might be better----" i began, when i stopped suddenly as a new thought occurred to me. "what might be better, christabel? tell me; i am so anxious about this. i have been thinking about it ever since i guessed what your news was, and that you were going to bring karl to me. tell me, what would be better?" "i was thinking it would be better if you could first have done something for him; have won his own father to be reconciled to your marriage." "oh, i dare not do that," she cried, shrinking like a frightened child. "besides, i don't know who is his father." "i do. he is a very great man--duke ladislas of kremnitz." "i have never seen a duke in all my life and couldn't speak to one to save it." i scarcely heard her, for i was thinking what would be the effect of a meeting between this sweet simple-souled child, and that stern, hard-faced, eagle-eyed old man. i pictured the scene if, his excellency having told the duke of gustav's marriage, i were to lead her in to him and say--"this is gareth." "you're not thinking a bit of what i'm saying, christabel," she cried presently. "and you're looking dreadfully solemn. this might be a funeral, instead of one of the happiest days of my life. but don't let us talk any more about dukes--and such people. i couldn't do what you say without telling karl first." "oh, by the way, that's a little mistake about his name you make, gareth," i said, as if it were a very trifling matter. "he is not called karl by his friends and his family--but gustav. the mistake must have been made at first; and i expect he liked you to call him karl, as the name you first used." "what nonsense, christabel. why we were married as karl and gareth." she was almost indignant. "i suppose he was just humouring you. but his brother's name is karl. perhaps they both have that name; and he liked you to call him by it, because no one else did." for a moment a great doubt clouded her bright eyes. "do you think you have made a strange mistake, christabel, and that it is not my karl who is coming?" "no dear, i have made no mistake. i could not do that. i only tell you this, that you may not be surprised if you hear others speak to him as gustav, and look for you to do the same. if i were you, i should call him gustav before others, and use the other name when you are alone." "but it is such an extraordinary thing." at that moment mrs. perry knocked at the door and called me. "i must go now, gareth." her eyes were shining and her face alight with love and nervous anticipation. "is it kar--gustav?" "no, dearest. not yet. he may be some little time yet. you will wait here patiently till i come for you?" "not patiently," she cried with the rueful pout of a child. i kissed her. "courage and a little patience, gareth," i whispered; my arms about her and her head on my shoulder. "yes. i'll try to be patient--but you don't know what it is to wait like this in such suspense." "i'll come for you the instant i can," i assured her, and went out to mrs. perry. "the two gentlemen are here, miss christabel." "i'll go down to them;" and i ran down, with no very clear thought of what i was to say to either colonel katona or to karl, until i knew for certain that gustav would really come. and there was no news yet from james perry. chapter xxvi face to face as i entered the room karl came to me with both hands outstretched. utterly regardless of colonel katona's presence, he exclaimed in a tone of intense earnestness; "thank god, for a sight of you again, christabel." "count karl," i said, half in protest, as i put my hands into his nervously and glanced at the colonel. "never mind the colonel. he knows everything," he declared in the most unabashed manner, "even that i have come to recant. i must take back the promise i made the other night." "good-morning, colonel katona;" and i drew my hands away from karl, who had held on to them with quite embarrassing pertinacity. the colonel's hard eyes were quite soft with the softness of gareth's as he smiled. "you have a lovely garden here, may i go out into it?" "indeed you may not," i replied quickly. if count gustav caught sight of him he would be scared right away. "count karl wishes to speak to you alone--that's why i asked," he replied in his blunt, soldierly way. "i think i am too embarrassed to know what to say or do;" and i sat down helplessly. "i believe it would be best for us all if we were to talk for about a quarter of an hour of nothing but the weather." karl laughed. "i can say what i want to say before the colonel, christabel," he declared. but colonel katona read something in my manner which disturbed him, and he looked at me earnestly, with an eager appeal in his eyes. "i hope with all my heart it will be fine weather," i said with a meaning look; "but fine or wet i am not yet ready to...." i could think of no word to fit the sentence, and came to an impotent stop. "i can wait," declared the colonel, in evident relief; and turning his back to me, he stared resolutely out into the garden. i glanced at karl, and was pained to see how really worn and ill he looked. the sunken cheeks, hollow eye sockets, and haggard, drawn features told their tale of the struggle through which he had passed. he placed a chair close to mine and as he sat down he said, in a low voice: "i have kept my word so far, christabel, but i can't go through with it. it will beat me." "you must have courage." he shook his head with a despairing smile. "you'll think me a miserably weak creature, but i can't help it. i broke down yesterday and i had to do something. i wrote to the duke and told him how it was with me, and that he must give his consent; and that if he would, i'd give mine." i didn't pretend to misunderstand him. "you should not have done that." "if you wish to save me, you must give in, too--and marry me. i don't care about anything else. gustav is the man they all want. let them have him. i told you i had no sympathy with the whole thing. i only held out because somewhere in the back of my mind there was an idea that the thing was a mistake, and that if i insisted on retaining my heirship, i might stop it all. but that means losing you again. i can't do that. i can't." he was so dejected, so worn with the struggle which he had made at my bidding and for my sake, that if i had been in a firmer mood i could scarcely have urged him. and if i tell the truth, i was in anything but that firmer mood. the gates of happiness yawned wide in front of me, and my heart was urging and spurring me to enter them. i was very weak just then. "you are ill and not yourself," i said. "yes, i am ill--but worse in mind than in body. if i had known what it meant when you laid your hand on my arm that day in the stadtwalchen and i gave that little bottle to you, i wouldn't have done it. i would do it again to win you, christabel, but not to lose you." "i saw the duke last night--or rather he came to see me." "my father?" he exclaimed, in great surprise. "yes, he wished to see what colonel von dreschler's daughter was like." "did he tell you i had written to him?" "no. he did not mention your name--but he promised that my father's memory should be cleared, and even that his old title and his estate should be restored." "then i've done something to help you, after all, christabel? i'm glad;" and he smiled. he had no knowledge of all that lay beneath the surface; and i did not tell him. "i wonder what he thought of you," he added, after a pause. "i think i surprised him," i said, drily. "i'm sure of that," he agreed in a pleased tone. "i think i see. if he consents to our marriage and helps to secure for you the old title, it will be the best proof he can give the world that he knows your father was innocent of everything. so you see you'll have to marry me, christabel, if it's only to secure your own purpose. thank god!" he exclaimed fervently. "do you mean you would give up your birthright merely for me?" i asked. "why, of course. that's just what i told him," he replied, simply. "do you think i would let you?" he glanced at me with another smile. "i shall give it up in any case. you must do what you please, you can't prevent me. but i----" he hesitated and added hopefully: "i think i'm very sure of you." "you can't be sure yet of the duke's consent. there is more to come than you know." he reached forward suddenly and seized my hand. "i don't care what's going to happen now. you love me. that's enough for me to know." "you are very confident--almost audacious. very different from what you were when--miss gilmore met you before." "it's your doing--all of it. you've given me backbone enough to be resolute on one point at any rate--i won't lose you." "you must wait to see what occurs here to-day," i said. "i tell you i don't care. what is it?" the answer came in a very unexpected form. the door opened and i snatched my hand from karl's as i heard james perry say: "will you wait here a minute, my lord?" he had mistaken the directions i had given him about the room into which karl's brother was to be shown; and the next instant, count gustav entered and was staring at us all in amazement. james was a shrewd fellow, and having recognized his blunder did the best thing to cover it. he shut the door behind count gustav and thus made his retreat impossible. "i am afraid you have mistaken the house, count," i said, drily. "this is not general von erlanger's. but pray sit down." he was bitterly chagrined, and shot at me such a glance of hate that i knew he understood i had outwitted him. then his devil-may-care nature reasserted itself, and he sat down and laughed. "i suppose this is prepared for me?" "yes and no. my servant has mistaken the room into which you were to be shown--that is all. i meant to see you alone first. there will probably be some money to be returned to you--unless he has made another mistake as to that. i told him to be careful to insist upon part payment for his treachery in advance. i'll ring for him." "what's this, gustav?" asked karl, as i crossed to the bell. "nothing to do with you," was the surly reply. "good morning, count gustav," put in colonel katona, "miss von dreschler, may i not now go and admire your garden?" "no, colonel, not yet if you please." at the answer, his face clouded ominously. he glanced from me swiftly to count gustav, and back to me with dark suggestiveness. james perry came in then. "did count gustav give you any money this morning, james?" "yes, miss christabel." "give it to me." he handed me a bundle of notes and went out. i passed them on to count gustav. "you have made a mistake, count. american servants are not to be found on the bargain counter." "there is something here to be explained," said colonel katona, abruptly. "count gustav was to have come to me at general von erlanger's at twelve o'clock to-day; perhaps it might explain matters if he told us why he preferred to come here." i spoke very coldly. he dropped his eyes to the ground, declining the challenge, and sat swinging his legs moodily in silence. "what is it all, christabel?" asked karl. "trouble perhaps for us all, and probably very serious trouble. if count gustav will not explain, i will." i stopped for him to speak. "you know why i came?" he said. "your brother and colonel katona do not." "hadn't we better speak together alone first?" "yes, if you wish." we went out together into another room. "you have played me an ugly trick," he began. "it is rather that you sought to play me one and failed. you came here to steal gareth from my care." "where is she?" "in this house here." "my god!" there was no mistaking the intensity of his feelings. he threw himself into a chair and stared down at the carpet, his face wrinkled in lines of thought, perplexity, and fear. "does colonel katona know?" he asked after a long, tense pause. "not yet." "you mean to tell him?" "i have brought him here for that purpose. "he mustn't be told." i raised my eyebrows and shrugged my shoulders, and left him to interpret the gesture as he pleased. "you don't know what you are doing. my god, you don't; or you'd never dare. what are your terms now?" "no more than they were before--and no less." he took a paper from his pocket. "here's the first of them--over my father's signature." "is this what you were to have brought to the general's house?" "yes," he nodded. "it is not your doing, then, that part?" "what else do you want?" "you know quite well--that you make gareth your wife." "you're not so clever as you think you are," he jeered. this cheap sneer at me appeared to afford him some relief. "have you no thought for her? "i don't wish to hear about her from you." "then her father and yours had better speak of her. the duke knows the story by now; and the matter has to be settled somehow." "you are brewing an awful mess and making any settlement impossible. but then you're a woman, and can be trusted to do that." "shall i send for colonel katona to come to us here?" "no," he cried quickly, and then gave a desperate sigh. "yet you love gareth," i said. "i tell you i won't hear of her from you." "and she has given you all her innocent heart, trusting you, believing in you, loving you, as only such a sweet pure girl as she could." "i will not hear you," he cried again fiercely. "if you will not, there is only one alternative." he was silent, so i continued. "i do not plead for her--don't think that. her cause needs no pleading at my hands; because there are those who will not see injustice done to her. you know that--selfish, reckless, wicked and daring as you are. her father is equally daring, and knows how to revenge a wrong done to her." "what do you want to say, then? can you see any way?" "when you spoke to me that afternoon at madame d'artelle's house about her, i saw that you loved her; and what i would appeal to now is that love of yours for her." "go on," he said sullenly. "you would be neither sullen nor indifferent if you could have seen her when to-day she knew you were coming. you know little of a woman's heart; but i know it--and all gareth's was in her glad eyes at the thought of being once again with you. she is not well, moreover worried and harassed by suspense; ill with the fever of unrest. she has no strength for the part you have made her play, and the passionate desire to have this tangle straightened and peace made with her father is wearing her life away." whether he was touched by this, i cannot say. he gave no sign. "you wish for a chance to checkmate me," i continued; "and here you can find one. i promised her happiness--you can give that promise the lie; you can break her heart and blight her life, and probably kill her. i have acted in the belief that you cared for her: you can sneer that belief out of existence, and win at least that one success over me. you would have a victory of a sort; but i would not envy your feelings in the hour of triumph." he took this in silence also. i did not think he had even cared to listen. "have you anything more to say?" he asked after a pause. "if your heart is dead to her, no words are needed--none can do any good. but it will not be well for you." "threats now?" "i leave them for gareth's father. you know what he can do?" something in the words touched him. he looked up with a new, sudden suspicion. "you know that, too?" he asked, sharply. "is that why you've trapped me here like this?" "that is not my part of it," i replied, ambiguously, leaving him to make of the answer what he would. "can i see gareth?" "yes, when her father knows, and with his consent." he shrugged his shoulders and sneered again. "you take me for a villain, of course. you said so once." "i will gladly revise my opinion if you will give me occasion." "i told you you were not so sharp as you thought. if you were, and if there is what i suppose there is behind those words of yours just now, you would see that i might be as anxious as yourself for gareth--if only i could see the way." "i should be glad to think it--for her sake." "you can. it's true. and if you could see a way i'd forgive you all the rest." "i have no more to say--to you," i said, rising. "you are going to tell him?" "yes--now. there is no good in delay." he got up, frowning, his face anxious but resolute. "no; this is my affair. you have done enough mischief. send him to me. i'll tell him." "i will not have violence in my house." he came close to me and stared into my eyes. "do you know what colonel katona can do in this?" "i know he has sworn to have the life of the man who has wronged his child." he waved this aside with a shake of the head and a toss of the hand. "is that all you know?" "yes--but it is enough." "i will tell him myself. not alone if you say so. karl can hear it too." "you had better go to them. you will of course tell him everything. if you do not, i shall." "you don't understand. this is beyond you now. i shall tell him one thing which you have been too prejudiced and blind to see--that gareth is already my wife, legally--as you like to insist." "i don't believe you--nor will he." "believe it or not as you please--it is true; if a priest of the holy church can make man and woman husband and wife." he swung away with that, and i watched him cross the hall with quick, firm steps, and enter the room where colonel katona and karl were waiting. i was glad to be spared the ordeal of that interview, and was still standing thoughtfully at the closed door on the other side of which that scene of the drama was being enacted, when a carriage drove up rapidly. i knew it was general von erlanger and the duke, and i told the servant to show them into one of the larger rooms in the front of the house. chapter xxvii "this is gareth" i was in the act of going to the duke and my fingers were all but on the handle of the door, when i recalled the idea which had flashed upon me an hour before when with gareth, and instantly i resolved to act upon it. running back into the room where i had been with count gustav, i wrote two lines to his excellency. "i have made one mistake. count gustav's marriage is legal. gareth is really his wife. let the duke know this." i sent james perry in with this note to the general and a message that i would be with him in one minute. then i ran up to gareth. the poor child was sick from the suspense; but i noticed with intense satisfaction that she had been filling up some of the weary time of waiting by making herself look as pretty as possible. "is he here, christabel? oh, how my heart beats." "yes, dear, he is here. he is with your father now, telling him all; and you are to come with me to the duke." i put it so intentionally, that she might believe gustav had expressed the wish. "what do we not owe you, christabel?" she cried, kissing me tenderly. "but i'd rather see kar--gustav, first. i've been practising that name ever since you left me; but it sounds so strange. the other will come out first." "try and remember it with the duke, gareth. it doesn't matter with any one else so much." "oh, i can't go to him. i can't. he is such a stern and terrible old man, so--gustav says. i got it nearly right that, time, didn't i?" and she laughed. "it will soon come quite naturally, dear. are you ready? he may not like it if we keep him waiting." i looked at her critically, gave a touch or two to her fair hair, and kissed her. "you look very beautiful, gareth." "i feel very frightened," she said, and clung to me as we went down the stairs. i believe i was almost as nervous as she could have been; for i was indeed drawing a bow at a venture. but i dared not let her guess my feelings, lest she should run back upstairs. so i took her hand and pushed on steadily, and when james opened the door of the room i led her right across to where the duke sat, and, with my heart thumping against my ribs i said, just as i had thought to say: "this is gareth, duke ladislas." his bird-like face was as black as a night-storm. his keen eyes watched us both, glancing swiftly from my face to gareth's, and from her back to me as we hurried across the room. the heavy brows were pent, and when we stood in front of him there came an ominous pause--like the calm when the storm is to burst. gareth was so frightened by this reception that the clutch of her fingers tightened on mine. i felt her trembling and saw her colour go, as she flinched with a little gasping catch of the breath all eloquent of fear. his excellency had risen at our entrance, and i saw him stare with a start of astonishment at gareth, and from her to the stern old duke; and then he lowered his head and closed his eyes, and i noticed that he clenched his right hand. he feared as much as i did for the result of my experiment. the silence was almost intolerable; those vulture eyes fixed with deadly intentness upon us both, and the hard unyielding face set in the stern, cold, impassive, expressionless scrutiny. bitterly i began to repent my rashness, when a great change came, wrought by gareth. with surely one of the happiest instincts that ever came to a child, half helpless as she was with fright, she slipped her fingers from mine and, throwing herself on her knees at the duke's feet, she caught his hand and held it and looked up frankly in his face and cried: [illustration: "throwing herself on her knees at the duke's feet."] "it was all my fault, sir. i pray god and you to forgive him." just that; no more. no tears, no wailings, no hysterics. just the frank statement of what her pure, innocent, simple heart believed to be the truth--the whole truth as it seemed to her; as no one looking down into her eyes could doubt. the duke could not. i did not look for emotion from him. he stared down at her; but gradually i saw the furrows on the forehead relax, and the eyes soften. then the lids shut down over the glitter, his free hand was placed gently on the golden head, and bending forward he kissed her on the forehead. "gareth." then his excellency did what i could have kissed him for doing; for i was past thinking what to do just then. "i wish to speak to you," he whispered to me; and we both crept away out of the room as softly as though we had been two children stealing off in fear from some suddenly discovered terror. the moment we reached the room where i had spoken to count gustav, his excellency surprised me. "you knew it, of course; but how? you are wonderful, christabel!" "knew what?" "do you mean you did not know? then it is a miracle. i thought you knew and had planned it; and i marvelled that even you had courage enough for such a daring stroke." "i drew a bow at a venture; and don't understand you." "do you tell me that you believed any mere pink and white young girl picked out at random would make an impression upon that crusted mass of self-will, obstinacy, and inflexibility of purpose? you--with your keen wit and sense of humour, christabel!" "you could see the impression for yourself, surely," i retorted. "this is positively delicious! i really must enjoy it a little longer without enlightening you. you do really believe that the duke was melted because that child is very pretty and has innocent eyes? you must give up reading us humans, christabel; you really must, after this." "it seems strange to such a cynic, i suppose, that innocence can plead for itself convincingly to such nature as the duke's!" "you intend that to be very severe--but it isn't. innocence, as innocence, would have no more chance with duke ladislas, if it stood in the way of his plans, than a troutlet would have in the jaws of a hungry pike. the humour of it is that you should have thought otherwise, and actually have--have dangled the pretty troutlet right before the pike's nose." "it has not been so unsuccessful." "i am sorry for you, christabel," he answered, assuming the air of a stern mentor; "but it is my unfortunate duty to administer a severe corrective to your--what shall i term it--your overweening self-confidence." "i have given you considerable enjoyment at any rate." his eyes were twinkling and he shook his forefinger at me with exaggerated gravity. "i am afraid that at this moment, very much afraid, you are rather puffed up with self-congratulation at the result of this master-stroke of yours." "it is more to the point to think whether it will succeed." "oh yes, it will succeed; but why, do you think? not because of that child's innocence or pretty pink and whiteness; and certainly not because the duke was in any mood to be impressed. now, there is a problem for you. when i gave him those three lines you sent into me, his fury was indescribable. not against gustav, mark you: he stands by him through any storm and stress--but against the wife. he was speechless with suppressed rage; and right in the midst of it in you came with your--'this is gareth'--and you know the rest. there's the riddle; now, what's the answer?" i thought closely, and then gave it up. there was obviously some influence at work which i did not understand. "you have your wish. you have pricked the bladder of my self-conceit; i've been floating with somebody else's life belt, i see that." "do you think you feel sufficiently humble?" "yes, quite humiliated," i admitted with a smile. "then, i'll tell you. the clue is to be sought for in the years of long ago. the duke has been married twice; and his first wife was named gareth, and the only child of the union was gareth also; just such a girl as that sweet little thing you brought into him to-day--and so like both the idolized dead wife and dead child as to bring right up before him in living flesh the one dead romance of his life. now you see what you did?" "what will he do?" "i should very much like to know. i am afraid you have got your way, and that he'll accept her as his daughter; and then--phew, i don't know what will come next. only recently a very different sort of marriage had been planned for gustav; one that would have strengthened the position as much as that child there will weaken it. i don't envy the duke his decision. how does gustav feel toward her?" "i believe he still cares for her--but you know him." "i wish i could think there was happiness for her. those whom the gods love, die young--i'm not sure that if i were the gods, i wouldn't choose that solution." "it is not for you to settle, fortunately, but for the duke." "true; but he can only give her gustav--and that may be a long, long way different from happiness." he paused and with a slow smile added: "this may affect you as well." "i am thinking of gareth just now." "the same thing--from a different angle, christabel, that's all. if this marriage is publicly recognized, karl will be again the acknowledged heir; the axis of things will be shifted; and the motive for the duke's promise to you last night will be gone. it will be hard if you should have done so great a right and yet pay the price. it is well that you are strong." "i have the duke's word." "can you keep water in an open funnel?" i turned away with a sigh and looked out of the window. his excellency came to my side and laid a hand very gently and kindly on my shoulder. a touch of genuine sympathy. "almost, _i_ could hope, christabel--but thank god, i am not the duke. i was a very presumptuous old man--only a day or two back---but you have made me care for you in a very different way. i am presumptuous no longer; and all that i am and all that i have shall be staked and lost before i see injustice done to you." "i know what a friend you are." "pray heaven, this may not be beyond our friendship." i could not answer him. i stood staring blankly out into the garden realizing all that was behind his words. i knew he might have spoken no more than the truth; and that in gaining gareth's happiness, i had ventured my own future. not for a moment did i distrust karl; but i knew the influences which might be brought to bear upon him. if gustav was no longer to be preferred as the duke's heir and karl was not to be allowed to forego his rights as elder son, our marriage became impossible. i had worked for this, i know; had planned that it should be; had forced it home upon karl himself; and had even found pleasure in the thought of the sacrifice it involved. but since then i had taken to my heart such different thoughts. the duke had with his own hands swept away the barrier to our marriage; and karl himself had shown me within the past hour how much it was to him. it is one thing to stand outside the palace of delight and, in the knowledge that admission is impossible to you, be firm in a refusal to enter; but it is another and a very different thing, when the gates stand open and your foot is already on the very threshold and loving hands are beckoning to you with sweet invitation to enter, to find the portal closed in your face, and yourself shut again in the outer darkness. it is little wonder, therefore, if my heart began to ache again in dread of the cold solitude which threatened to be the reward for my share in that day's doings. it was all quite clear to me, as i stared out into the garden, seeing nothing that was actually there; nothing but the troubled forms which my thoughts assumed. and although i murmured and rebelled against it all, i knew in my heart that at the last neither karl's desires nor mine would be allowed to decide what should be done. my kind old friend, discerning the struggle that was taking place in my thoughts, left me at first to fight it out in my own way, but presently came, and in the same sympathetic way laid a hand on my arm. "you must not take too black a view, christabel," he said. "it may all be yet for the best. i thought only to prepare you." "it is over," i said, with a smile. "i have taken my decision. it shall be as the duke decides." "i know how it must be with you," he replied, very gently. the kindness of his manner seemed in some strange way to hurt me almost; at least it made me conscious of the pain of everything; and i lowered my head and wrung my hands in silence. then a door opened in the hall. "christabel, christabel!" it was gareth's voice, sweet and glad. "go to her, please, i--i cannot for the moment." he went at once and did what was of course the best thing to do--he brought her to me. "the duke wishes to see gustav alone," he said. a glance at his face told me my plan had succeeded. gareth caught my arm nervously. "i heard angry voices in one of the rooms, christabel--my father's and kar--gustav's. what does it mean?" "all will be well now that you have seen the duke, dearest. stay here a minute until i come for you." i believed it now and felt very happy as i kissed her and she kissed me in response. "i owe it you, christabel," she whispered. "i will wait." i went out with the general and closed the door upon her. "you must do all that may have to be done now," i said, weakly. "i have finished, and can do no more. count gustav is there with colonel katona and count karl. will you fetch him?" and i pointed to the room from which the sounds of voices loud in anger were to be heard. but even as i spoke, the door was flung open violently, and colonel katona and gustav came out. "no, by god, no, you are too great a villain," cried the colonel fiercely, and then seeing who was with me, he stopped abruptly. in the pause i glanced through into the room and saw karl staring after the other two. our eyes met, and he flung up his hands with a gesture of consternation and despair. chapter xxviii the colonel's secret instantly i thought of gareth and raised my hand, hoping to still the colonel's angry, strident tone lest it should reach her. "he is a villain," he repeated. "i care not now who hears me say it. he lured her from me, planned to make me do murder, and now would have me join in dishonouring my child. you must hear this, miss von dreschler, for you know much--and shall know the rest." "for gareth's sake, colonel, she is in that room and may hear," i protested. "let her come and let her decide this," said gustav. "no. this is for me. i will tell all. i have kept my secret long enough--for your sake, as you know--and will keep it no longer. you came here," he said, turning to me, "to clear your father's memory of the charge brought against him. i can prove it false, and will. he was charged with having murdered the young count stephen. it was a lie. this scoundrel here knows it was a lie. ask him if he dare deny that." there was no need to ask the question; count gustav's face gave the answer, clear and unmistakable. "you will ruin everything, colonel katona," he said. "not me only, but the duke, your master, and the great cause--everything." "to hell with any cause which would sacrifice my child's honour. i will tell the duke to his face," was the hot reply, very fiercely spoken. "i am here ready to listen, colonel katona." we all started and turned to find the duke himself had come out. "what is this lie which threatens ruin to everything, sir?" he asked very sternly, after a pause. colonel katona drew himself up. "it is right that i should tell it to you. it was for you and your family that the lie was planned; that you might have the throne when the time came; and it was continued that this man--your son--might succeed you. your son, who has rewarded me for my fidelity to your house by stealing my child. it was for you and yours that i consented to dishonour my friend--this lady's father; and have kept the secret inviolate through years of remorse and sorrow." "enough of yourself," said the duke, with a contemptuous wave of the hand. "speak plainly." "the scheme has failed, and through this villain's dastardly conduct. the man whom colonel von dreschler was accused of having murdered, and whose death would have cleared the way for you and yours to the throne--count stephen--is living, a close prisoner in my house." "thank god for that!" i cried, fervently, understanding all now. then a gasp of pain, or rage, or fear, or of all three, escaped the duke's pallid lips. he staggered so that his excellency put out his hand to help him. "is this true?" fell in a whisper from the duke, his eyes on his son's face, now as white and tense as his own. there was no answer, and in the silence, i heard the door behind me opened softly, and gareth came out. "ah!" the soft ejaculation, born partly of gladness at the sight of gustav and her father, and partly of fear at the wrought looks of both, drew all eyes upon her. the silence seemed to deepen suddenly; as though a common instinct of mercy inspired all to attempt to keep what was passing from her knowledge. a look of bewilderment came over her face as she gazed from one to the other; tender but questioning for the duke; half fearful anxiety for her father; and infinite love and yearning for her husband. she glanced at him last; but her first word was for him, and it was toward him she moved, murmuring his name and stretching out her hands. her father drew his breath quickly, with a sound between a gasp and a sigh; and i thought he was going to step between them, but the duke glanced at him and raised his hand. "she is his," he said, his tone no more than a whisper, but distinct to all of us. the colonel drew back a pace and put his hand to his forehead. gareth passed him. she had no eyes for any but her husband in that moment. i waited with fear-wrought anxiety to see how he would greet her, for his face had given no sign which we could read. but she had no fear for him as she had no thought of us. her faith in him was as staunch and patent as the love which lighted her face and sparkled in her clear shining eyes. our presence gave her no embarrassment; i believe that we were all forgotten in the absorbing delight of that one supreme moment. he played the man for once. as she placed her hands in his with just a simple--"i am so glad," he took them, and bending down kissed her on the lips before us all. but this was more than her father could bear. with an angry "gareth," he turned to part them. scared by his stern look and tone, she shrank back with a little piteous cry: "father, he is my husband;" as if indeed she would defend him. i saw the cloud on his face deepen and the words of a harsh reply were already on his lips, when the duke, who had been watching intently, intervened. "colonel katona, the rest is for us men to settle," he said, waving his hand to the room behind him. his excellency glanced at me and motioned toward gareth, and i crossed to her. "for a few minutes, gareth," said the duke. she hesitated, and then, as her father was moving away in obedience to the duke's command, she stepped past me and seized his hand. "father, you forgive us?" just a little yearning plea, pathetic enough to have touched the hardest heart, i thought it. but he had no ears for it. his passion was too hot and fierce against the man whom she included in the appeal. he turned and looked upon her quite unmoved--his face hard like a rock, and his voice rough and harsh as he answered: "no. you have to choose between us; and if you choose him, you are no longer my child;" and shaking her hand off, he went into the room. gareth gave one soft, piteous cry, like a stricken fawn, as i put my arm round her. i hated him for the merciless cruelty of the rebuff; and i believe all shared that feeling, as we saw how it had cut deep into her tender heart. i know that karl and his excellency did, by the glances of pity they cast upon her as they passed me to follow the duke. count gustav hesitated, seemingly at a loss what to do. i thought he would have taken her from my arms to his; and much as i detested him, i think i would have forgiven him everything had he done so. but, after a second's hesitation, he shrugged his shoulders, passed on and closed the door behind him. i led her away upstairs to her room, and by the time we reached it she was clinging to me feebly and helplessly. she sank down on her bed with a deep-drawn sigh, and lay there deathly pale and trembling violently. i hoped that the tears would come to relieve her; but they did not. the shock had been too sudden. the suspense of the separation had worn her down; then the joy of the meeting with gustav had wrought upon her nerves so that her father's stern and almost brutal repulse had been a blow struck just at the moment when she was at the weakest. the sorrow was too deep for tears, the suffering too acute and numbing. i threw a rug over her and bent and kissed her, as i whispered: "i think it will all come right, gareth, dear." she took no notice; and feeling i could do no more then but just let her grief have its way, i sat down by the bedside, wondering whether i believed my own words; whether, in such a tangle, all could possibly come right; or whether in striving to right things in my own way, i had only succeeded in creating just an impossible bungle. my thoughts were soon down in the room below. what was occurring there? far bigger things were in the doing, or undoing, than the breaking of poor gareth's heart. fate had bound up that issue with others of much greater import. if count stephen was alive, the whole of the duke's plans and count gustav's scheming were shattered. would colonel katona insist upon making his story public--or would some means be devised to prevail upon him to keep that secret still inviolate? on that question would hinge the future of the patriots' cause; and so possibly the future of the whole empire. in such a balance what weight was the mere happiness of two girls like gareth and myself likely to have? none; absolutely none. nor could i bring myself to think it should have, considering the critical consequences there might be to thousands, aye even millions in the dual empire. the colonel was a hard man, however, how hard he had shown himself within the last few minutes; and i believed he would hold on to his purpose like a steel clamp. if he did, what would result? either the leadership of the patriot cause would pass from the duke to count stephen, or the duke's enemies would seize the occasion to promote a schism which would ruin the cause irreparably. in that case the main obstacle to count gustav's open acknowledgment of gareth as his wife would be removed; but her husband and father must remain open and bitter enemies; and her choice must be made between them. poor gareth! and so i sat in long, weary suspense, tossed hither and thither by my distracted thoughts, while i waited, my nerves high-strung, to learn the result of the conference below stairs. i was roused by a long, shuddering sigh from gareth. "i am here, dear," i said, bending over her. "i am so cold, christabel," she cried, shivering. i felt her hands; they were as cold as stones; but when i laid my fingers on her brow, it was hot with the burning heat of a fever. in much concern i called up mrs. perry, and together we applied such remedies as we could devise. she was quite passive in our hands. thanked us with sweet smiles, doing just what we told her like a submissive child. "what has caused this, miss christabel?" asked mrs. perry. "she is really ill, and should see a doctor." "she has had a shock," i replied; and the good soul shook her head dismally. "she is just the sweetest girl that ever happened, but not weather proof against much shock," she said. then i heard sounds below; and my pulse quickened. the conference was ended,--how? "stay here and watch while i am away," i said, and went downstairs. his excellency and count gustav were in the hall speaking together eagerly. "where is gareth?" asked the count. "upstairs, in her room." "i will take her away with me. a wife must go with her husband," he answered; his tone curt and bitter. "she is ill. a case for a doctor, i fear." "she was well enough just now. is this another trick? tell her i am waiting for her. she has cost me enough. i may as well have as much of her as i can." "you will have her life if you take her away now. but that may be your object." i could not help the taunt, his manner so enraged me. "thank you," he said, with a curl of the lip. "it is no case for harsh words," put in his excellency. "and more certainly none for harsh deeds. gareth cannot go until a doctor has seen her," i declared firmly. "but for your meddling none of this would have happened," declared gustav. "let me see her." "in your present mood, no. the shock of her father's cruel rebuff has quite unnerved her," i said to his excellency. "tell me what doctor to send for, please." he wrote down the name of a dr. armheit and his address, and i sent off james perry at once. "what has been decided?" i asked next. "where is the duke? he should be told of gareth." "i will speak to you presently," said the general, very kindly. count gustav laughed maliciously. "you have made a mess of things for yourself as well as for the rest of us, thank heaven. it serves you right. karl has----" "stop, if you please, count gustav, this is for me to explain," broke in the general very angrily. "be good enough to leave it to me." "why? what do i owe to you or to this meddler here that i should hold my tongue at your bidding? she has set herself against us, and must take the consequences. the duke has about as much affection for you, as i have; and neither of us relishes the honour you would do us by becoming a member of our family." "silence, sir," exclaimed the general, hotly. "not at your bidding, or that of any other man." "nothing that this--this gentleman can say can affect me, general," i said, smoothly. the words seemed to add fuel to count gustav's anger. "my wife shall not stay in your house and in your care," he said with great heat. "the moment the doctor says she may leave the house, she can go--but not before." "oh, it's only another lie," he cried, passionately; and raising his voice he called loudly: "gareth, gareth. i am waiting for you. i, gustav; gareth, i say, gareth." "you may kill her," i murmured, wringing my hands. as if gloating over my trouble, he sneered: "you act well; but we'll see;" and he called again loudly: "gareth, gareth, come to me." i caught the sound of her footsteps above. the door of her room opened and she answered: "i am coming, gustav;" and a moment later she came down the stairs and threw herself into his arms. "she told me you were too ill to come to me, but i knew it was false. you feel well enough to come away with me?" "yes, of course, if you wish it. i must go with him, christabel; he is my husband," she cried, wistfully. "he called me." the general saw her condition as plainly as i. "she is more fit to be in bed than to leave here," he said. "do you suppose i cannot take care of my own wife, sir?" cried gustav, fiercely. "get your hat, gareth." she left his arms and began to climb the stairs. "mrs. perry will bring it, gareth," i said, hastily. but there was no need for it. she clung to the balustrade feebly and turned back to look at gustav. "i'm afraid--i'm--i'm----" no more; for the next instant he had to catch her in his arms to save her from falling. she smiled to him as if trying to rally her strength. "my head," she murmured; and then the hand which was pressed to it dropped, and she fainted. "you had better carry her up to bed," said his excellency, practically. "she has only fainted and will be better in a minute," answered the count. "she shall not stay here;" and he carried her into one of the rooms and laid her on a couch, standing between me and her to prevent my approach. every action appeared to be inspired by hatred of me instead of care for her. happily the doctor soon came, and his first words after he had examined her were that she must be carried at once to bed. "i wish to remove her from the house," said count gustav. "it is impossible," was the brusque, imperative reply. "it is necessary." "it is for me to say what is necessary in such a case," declared the doctor; and being a strong as well as a masterful man, he picked gareth up in his arms and told me to show the way to her bedroom. and in this way she was given back into my care. chapter xxix a singular truce it was more than an hour before i could go down to general von erlanger, and i carried a heavy heart and a bad report of gareth's condition. "she is very ill," i told him. "the doctor fears brain fever. at best but fragile, recent events have so preyed upon her that the climax to-day found her utterly broken in nerve and strength. i have left her muttering in half-delirious terror of her father's anger. where is count gustav?" "gone away with the doctor, to return later. and now of yourself, christabel?" "in the presence of this i feel i do not care. i gathered the gist of all from what count gustav said. what was decided? did the duke know that count stephen was living?" "no. the thing was planned by his supporters, as he told you last night, to make sure of his leadership being secure at a time when, owing to the emperor's illness, it seemed that the hour was at hand for the patriots' cause to be proclaimed. they meant to kill the count, but some one saved him, and then katona was persuaded to undertake his guardianship." "what is to be done?" "the duke is a broken man. the knowledge of his favourite son's guilt; the break-up of his plans; the bitterness of the loss of virtually everything he cared for in life has completely unstrung him. he has sent katona to take count stephen to him; he has given gustav the option of voluntary exile or public exposure; and he has reinstated karl in his position as elder son and his heir." "it is only right. i am glad," i said. "glad?" he echoed, with a meaning glance. "yes, very glad." "your tone is very confident. you know what it carries with it--for you, i mean?" "i do not care what it means to me. it is right." "the duke is very bitter against you, christabel." "he would scarcely be human if he were not. in a sense this is all my doing. i have brought it about, that is. but he cannot harm me, nor prevent my dear father's memory from being cleared. true, it seems he can influence count karl." his excellency smiled with deliberate provocation. "possibly; yet karl, although not a patriot, is still a rebel." "he has gone with his father," i answered, with a shrug. "that is not fair. the duke was too ill to go alone." "he came with you, general." he shook his head. "christabel! if matters were not so sad here, i might almost be tempted to put that forbidden question." "if you were so minded, i might not now forbid it, perhaps." "i think i am glad to hear you say that. the girl in you can perhaps scarcely help resenting karl's going away just now; but then any girl can be unjust at such a moment." "are you pleading for him?" "oh, no; there is no need. you will do that very well yourself when you are alone." "you are very provoking." "all i mean is that"--he paused and smiled again--"karl is and will remain a rebel." "i must go to gareth now," i said. i gave him my hand and he held it. "i am going with the news of her to the duke; and when there i shall see--the rebel. shall i give him any message?" "no--except that i am glad," i answered steadily. "that, of course; and--that he had better come as soon as he can for the reasons;" and with a last meaning glance he was leaving, when i asked him to let the colonel know of gareth's serious condition. i was full of anxiety for gareth, and i had been so greatly wrought upon by the events of the day that, as i had assured the general, my own concerns seemed too small to care about; and yet i could not put them away from me. "karl was a rebel; karl was a rebel." over and over again the words came back to me, and all that they meant, as i stood by the window at a turn of the staircase, looking out and wondering. yes, it had hurt me that at such a time he had left the house without waiting to see me; but--he was a rebel. he had gone at the stern old duke's bidding; but--he was a rebel and would come again. the duke hated me, and as gustav had said would never sanction our union; but then--karl was a rebel. the sun might shine, or the rain might fall; political plans might succeed or they might fail; great causes flourish or be overthrown; karl was a rebel--and we should find our way after all to happiness. love must have its selfish moments; and to me then that was just such a moment, despite all the troubles in the house. for gareth we could do nothing but watch, and nurse, and wait. she was very restless; very troubled in mind as her wayward mutterings showed; very weak--like a piece of delicate mechanism suddenly over-strained and broken. an hour later count gustav returned, and i went down to him. the doctor had convinced him of the seriousness of gareth's condition, and i was glad to find him less self-centred and more concerned for her. "while gareth is here, count gustav, there must be a truce between us," i said. "and she cannot possibly be moved." "i know that now," he agreed. "then there must be a truce. for her sake all signs of the strife between us must be suppressed. she may ask me about you; and you about me. she has grown to care for me in the last few days; and it will help her recovery if we can make her believe the trouble that divides us all is ended. it rests with us to give her this ease of mind." "i am not quite the brute you seem to think," he answered. "i have my own opinion of you and am not likely to alter it--but for her sake i am willing to pretend." "you are very frank." "the terms of our truce are agreed, then?" "just as you please," he said, with a shrug. "there is another thing to be done, somehow. her father must be brought to agree also." "shall i go on my knees to him?" he sneered. "i care not how it is done so long as it is done. but her mind is distracted by the thought of the breach between you two--and of her need to choose between you." "that was not my doing," he rapped out. "i see no need for a competition as to who has done the most harm," i retorted, coldly. "the question now is how that harm can best be repaired. gareth is very ill--but worse in mind than in body; and she will not recover unless her mind is eased." "not recover?" he cried, catching at the words. "there is no need to talk like that. dr. armheit does not take any such serious view as that." "could dr. armheit be told all the facts?" "my god!" he cried under his breath; and turning away looked out of the window. in the silence i heard a carriage drive up to the door. "here is the doctor, i expect. you can tell him and get his opinion when he knows." but it was not the doctor. it was karl with colonel katona; and james perry showed them in. on the threshold the colonel, catching sight of gustav, stopped abruptly, with a very stern look, and would not have entered the room had i not gone to him and urged him. "there is something to be done here which is above all quarrels, colonel. you must come in, please." "i have told him that gareth is ill," said karl. "what do you mean, miss von dreschler?" asked the colonel, with a very grim look at me. i struck at once as hard as i could. "gareth's life is in danger, and it rests largely with you whether she shall live or die." he pressed his lips tightly together for a moment. "in plainer terms, please." "dr. armheit, who knows only that she has had a shock and has something on her mind, says that she is very ill. we who know what the cause is, know how much graver her condition really is. he will tell you that her chances of recovery depend upon her ease of mind; and that ease of mind can only be secured in one way. it rests with you for one and count gustav for the other, to secure it and save her." he began to see my meaning and he glanced with an angry scowl at gustav who, i am bound to say, returned the look with interest. neither spoke, but waited for me to finish. "i have just arranged a truce with count gustav to last until gareth is strong enough to be told the facts. you two must do the same." the colonel drew himself up stiffly and shook his head, and gustav quick to take fire, was about to burst in, when i continued: "are you to think of gareth or of yourselves? is she to die that you may glower at one another in your selfish passion? will it profit either of you to know that her life was sacrificed because you could not mask your tempers over her sick bed? is this what you call love for her? you, her father; and you, her husband?" i was beginning to win. i saw that from the slight change in the bearing of both. hot indignation began to give place to mutual sullenness. "it is your quarrel which may kill her; your apparent reconciliation that may save her. her mind is restless, fevered, and distraught with the horror of the cruel choice which you, her father, laid upon her. you can hear it in every murmur of her half-delirious fever as she lies tossing now. the terror of you, love born as it is, will kill her unless together you two can succeed in removing it." with a groan the colonel fell on to a chair and covered his face with his hands, while gustav turned back again to the window. i was winning fast now, and i went on confidently: "you can see this now, i hope. what i would have you do is to wait here until she is calmer, and then together go to her, and let her see for herself that the fear which haunts her is groundless. let your hate and your quarrel stay outside her room; do your utmost while you are inside to make her feel and believe that you are reconciled. that will do more to win her back to health and strength than all the doctors and nurses in the empire. the trouble is in the mind, not the body. happiness may save, where misery will kill her." neither answered, and in the pause some one knocked at the door. it was mrs. perry, come to tell me that gareth was calmer and conscious, and was asking for me. i told them the good news and added: "may i go and tell her you are both here waiting to see her--together?" neither would be the first to give way. "i will take the risk," i said. "i will go and tell her, and then whichever of you refuses shall have the responsibility;" and without giving them time to answer i went upstairs to gareth. she was looking woefully wan and ill, her face almost as colourless as the linen on which she lay. she welcomed me with a smile and whispered my name as i bent and kissed her. "i am feeling so weak, christabel," she murmured. "am i really ill? or why am i here?" "not ill, dearest--but not quite well. that is all; and i have such news for you that it will soon make you quite well." her sensitive face clouded and her lips twitched nervously. "about karl--i mean gustav,--and--oh, i remember," and clasping her hands to her face turned away trembling. "remember what, dear?" "my father--his look, oh----" "you have been dreaming, gareth. tell me your dreams," i said, very firmly. "i know you have been dreaming because you spoke of your father's anger. and he is not angry with you." she looked round and stared at me with wondering eyes. "not angry? why, when i--oh, yes,--when karl--oh, christabel, i can't get his look out of my eyes. he said...." i smiled reassuringly, and kissed her again. "gareth, dear, what do you mean? why your father and gustav--gustav, not karl, dearest--are together downstairs. we have been talking about you; and they are both waiting to come and see you together." i think i must have told the half-lie very naturally, for the change in her face was almost like a miracle. "is it all a dream, then?" she asked, her voice awed, her eyes bright with the dawning of hope. "it depends what it is you dreamt, dearest. you have frightened yourself. tell me all." i was making it hard for the two who were to come up presently; but the change in her rendered me somewhat reckless as to that. "has duke ladislas been here?" "oh, yes. he is gustav's father." "he petted me, and said i was like his own lost gareth, and that now i was his daughter. then i came to you to fetch gustav to him; and after that----" "you saw gustav and he kissed you--and then in your delight you fainted, and i brought you up here." "but my father----" "you have not seen your father yet, gareth. he is eager to see you." i told the flat lie as sturdily as i had told the other, and didn't stop to consider whether it was justified or not. i just told it. "but he was there, and he--all but cursed me, christabel; and oh, his eyes...." "you have only dreamt that part, gareth," i said, using a sort of indulgent tone. "you have been frightening yourself, dearest. you have always been afraid of what he might say to you, and--you have been imagining things." she found it difficult to believe me, strong as her desire was to do so. "but it was all so real, christabel." "it is more real that they are both waiting for me to say if i think you are strong enough to see them." "do you mean--oh, christabel, how happy you have made me;" and with that, thank heaven, she burst into tears. she was still weeping when the doctor came; and noting the change in her, he gave a ready consent to her seeing gustav and the colonel for a short interview. i took him down with me to fetch them. i told them what i had said to gareth, and that they were to insist upon it that she had fainted when in gustav's arms, and that everything after that was no more than her imagination. they could not quarrel before the doctor; could indeed only look rather sheepish, as even strong and stern men can at times; so i carried my point and led them upstairs. "gustav and your father, dearest," i said, as i opened the door and stood aside for them to pass. i saw her face brighten and her eyes light with a great gladness at the sight of them together and apparently friendly; and then i closed the door and left them to carry out their part of the agreement in their own way. my face was glad too, and my heart light as i ran down to my "rebel." chapter xxx the end why do we women like to tease the men we love? is the sense of coquetry innate and irresistible in some of us? or is it merely a defensive instinct warning us of the danger of being won too easily? i knew quite well how the interview with karl would end; i knew he loved me and that i loved him; i was hungry for the feel of his arms about me and the touch of his lips on mine; and yet my face wore a quite aggrieved look as i met him with words of somewhat petulant reproach on my lips. "i am glad you were able to go with the duke," i said. he gave a start at my tone and then laughed. "it was very fortunate. i am glad that--you are glad, christabel." "i am afraid you must have found it inconvenient to leave him so soon." "are you?" "had you not better hurry back to him?" "yes. i am going straight back from here." "don't let _me_ keep you, pray." "very well." what can you do with a man who refuses in this way to be teased, but just accepts what you say with preposterous good humour? i shrugged my shoulders. "why don't you go then?" "that is exactly it. why? of course you can't guess such an abstruse problem! it's altogether beyond you; but try. i should like to hear you making a number of ingeniously wrong guesses. now, what reason can i possibly have for being here?" "it is not worth the trouble." "well, then, try the obvious. that won't be much trouble." "you wish to know the latest news of gareth, you mean, to take to the duke." "that's not the obvious, christabel; that's only an ingeniously wrong one. i'm afraid i've disappointed you a little." "in coming away from the duke so--soon?" "not a bit of it. in not letting you tease me just now. i ought to have taken you seriously and fired up, and all the rest of it. but i didn't. i didn't misunderstand you in the least. you see--but shall i tell you why?" and he came close to me. "you _did_ go away with the duke," i persisted; rather feebly, i fear. "and who would have been the first to blame me if i had not, when he was ill and could not go alone? you see you can't plague me because, for one thing, i know you too well; and for another--i've had a chat with the general. didn't he tell you i was--a rebel?" "i always understood you had no sympathy with patriots," i answered, looking up innocently, but prepared for defeat and surrender. "it won't do, christabel," he laughed. "you're looking too innocent. the general gave you away, i mean, and you know that i mean i am a rebel against my father's latest act of tyranny." he paused; but somehow i couldn't meet his eyes. i tried, and at my failure he was very tactful. he seemed to guess that it would have hurt me, if he had laughed then. instead of laughing he took my hand. "i am not going to give you up, christabel, just because the duke is unreasonably angry. not all the dukes and princes in the empire shall make me do that. we may perhaps, have to wait a little longer yet; but even that's for you to decide. you see, i'm so sure of you, dear. there's where it is." "i would not come between you two," i whispered. "nor shall he come between us two. i was only a shiftless sort of ne'er-do-well till you came here and helped me to be strong again. i was going down the hill full speed with no brakes on; and, as you know, i didn't care. but i care now and have a will again--as you'll find out if you try to cross me in this; and having found my right mind again i made it up. you mean to side with the--rebel, don't you?" he proved that he had a will then; for without giving me time to reply, he just put his arm about me and made me kiss him on the lips. and after that, what was the use of protesting, even if i had the wish? but i hadn't. at the touch of his lips, the duke and his opposition and his dislike of me, and everything else in the world was blotted out, save only--my love for karl and his for me. * * * * * i wish that this story of the chapter of my life could end with that pledge-kiss of ours; and that i could say all ended as happily for others as for karl and myself. but i cannot. i had done my utmost to gather happiness for gareth from the seeds of trouble which her loving but thoughtless hands had sown so innocently. the deception i had contrived and had caused her father and husband to continue was successful in its first object. they did their part well in the short strange interview by her bedside; and when the doctor called them away, she was entirely happy, holding a hand of each of them in hers in perfect belief in their reconciliation. the doctor told me that the risk of brain fever which he had seen was at an end, and that she would soon recover her strength, unless that occurred which was in all our thoughts. and it did occur. a crisis came in the night. i was dozing by her bedside, for she had fallen asleep, when her cries of pain roused me. i called mrs. perry, the doctor was summoned at once; and everything that his skill and our care could do for her was done. but there was no doubt of her imminent danger now. in the grey of the dawn the life, which was yet never full life, came only to be snatched away instantly by the remorseless reaper, who lingered by the bedside as if to garner with one sweep of the sickle the mother as well as the child. fearing the end i sent news at once to the duke, to count gustav, and to colonel katona. both the latter came hurrying to the house; but by the time they arrived, the doctor was able to announce a respite. there was danger, grave danger, but just a faint hope that all might yet be well. long, anxious, wearing hours followed while we watched the flame of life flicker up and down as she lay, white as wax and death's very counterfeit for stillness. more than once i thought she had passed; and held the mirror to her mouth to catch just the faintest dew of breath. both gustav and her father came up to see her, creeping into the room to gaze and sigh, and turn away despairing. she knew none of us; but just lay as though she had done with all the matters of earth: hovering on the edge of the thinnest line that can part death from life. the two men stayed in the house: nursing i know not what angry thoughts each of the other; but both afraid to leave lest the moment of consciousness should come to her and find them absent. i scarcely spoke to either of them, except to carry a brief message of her condition. if gustav had brought this all about by his selfishness, it had been the colonel who had made matters so desperately worse by his ill-timed harsh looks and words on the preceding day. and toward both i felt too hardly on her account to do other than leave them to the bitterness of their belated, unavailing remorse. that both suffered acutely i could tell by their looks when i carried my brief news. but pity for them i could not feel. it was all absorbed by the gentle girl whom between them they had brought to the threshold of the grim portal. all through the hours of that long autumn day, the coma continued, until the doctor confessed his fear that she would pass away without even a minute's lapse into consciousness. "if she should be conscious may i bring them to her?" i asked him when he was going away at nightfall. "there is risk either way; but if she asks for them, bring them--for a minute only, however." "there is no hope? "if she lives through the night--yes; but..." and he shook his head very gravely. in the evening the last solemn pathetic offices of the church were solemnized; and through it all she remained unconscious--mercifully, as it seemed to me, since it would have roused her to the knowledge that she was dying. i went back to my chair by the bed with a heart full of foreboding. i recalled the general's words--so sadly prophetic--"whom the gods love, die young." the saying had galled me as he quoted it; but it did so no longer. she looked so frail and fragile in her sickness; a tender floweret so utterly unable to bear up against the rough cross winds of anger and strife which, held in restraint only by her weakness, would assuredly burst forth to blight her life, that one could only feel with sad resignation that the dark verdict was the best for her happiness. and yet so loving and passing sweet she was that with resignation to the will of heaven was an irresistible, almost passionate, regret that she should go. hours passed with that solemn slowness one knows in a sick room. the time was broken by my errands to the two watchers below stairs, to whom i carried news of her condition. more than once during the night karl came also, as he had come frequently during the day, sent by the duke in his anxiety for tidings of gareth. it was some time past midnight when i noticed a change. she took the nourishment i gave her, and when i laid her back on the pillow, she sighed and made an effort to open her eyes. i took her hand and held it and, after some time, i felt a slight pressure of her fingers upon mine. "gareth, dearest," i whispered. at first there was no response; but when i called her again, the pressure of the fingers was distinct; and a little later she opened her eyes and looked at me. that was all then, and she was so still afterwards, that i thought she was once more unconscious. she was not, however; and presently her eyes opened again and her lips moved. i bent down over her, and caught the faintly whispered words: "am i dying?" "no, dearest, no. you will soon be strong again." she looked at me, and tried, i think, to smile. "poor karl." just a soft, sighing whisper, and she was silent. "he is here, dearest. would you like to see him?" she made no reply, but i told mrs. perry to bring both gustav and the colonel to the door of the room. then i went back and gave her some stimulant, as the doctor had told me. it lent her a measure of strength. "karl is here, gareth, and your father--shall i bring them?" "yes--both." i went to the door and opened it, and they crept across the room to the bedside. gustav knelt down on one side and took her hand and pressed his lips to it. the colonel stood on the other side; and i lifted her other hand from beneath the bed clothes and laid it where her father could hold it. she thanked me with a look, and whispered: "kiss me, christabel." i bent and kissed her; and the tears were standing thick in my eyes as i drew away. "father!" just the word and the look of entreaty; and he stooped down and kissed her too. her eyes lingered on him a moment, and then she turned her face slowly round to gustav, whose head was still bowed over the hand he held: "husband!" he did not catch the faint whisper; and i touched him on the shoulder. he started up to find her eyes on him, and then understood; and he too kissed her. she kept her eyes on him; and he kissed her again. "my darling wife," he murmured. she looked at him intently. "i am so sorry, karl." it was her last word. the flickering remnant of her strength was spent in a smile of love to him; and as it died slowly from her face, she closed her eyes, and her spirit passed into eternal peace. as soon as i realized that she was gone, i whispered to mrs. perry and hurried out of the room, to find karl there. he had come for news. he read it in my face and by the tears in my eyes, as he put his arm about me and led me away. the end butler and tanner the selwood printing works frome and london new fiction by popular authors. crown 8vo, cloth gilt. at six shillings. by e. phillips oppenheim. mr. wingrave, millionaire. illustrated. by a. w. marchmont. by wit of woman. illustrations by s. h. vedder. by rider haggard. ayesha: the return of "she." illustrations by maurice greiffenhagen. by louis tracy. heart's delight. illustrations by harold piffard. by headon hill. unmasked at last. illustrations by harold piffard. by guy thorne. first it was ordained. illustrations by frances ewan. by f. m. white. the corner house. illustrations by a. t. smith. by a. c. gunter. a prince in the garret. illustrations by herman rountree. by justus miles forman. tommy carteret. illustrations by h. h. foley. by alfred wilson-barrett. the man with the opals. illustrations by harold piffard. by theodore roberts. hemming, the adventurer. illustrations by a. g. learned. by richard henry savage. in the emperor's villa, illustrated. by archibald eyre. the girl in waiting. illustrations by g. wilmshurst. by ambrose pratt. the counterstroke. illustrations by harold piffard. by miles sheldon williams. the power of ula. frontispiece by s. h. vedder. by l. g. moberley. that preposterous will. illustrations by bertha newcombe. by ashton hilliers. the mistakes of miss manisty. frontispiece by g. h. jalland. by f. cowley whitehouse. mark maturin, parson. illustrations by b. e. minns. at five shillings. by guy boothby. the race of life. illustrations by harold piffard. at three shillings and sixpence. by t. w. hanshew. the shadow of a dead man. with frontispiece. by burford delannoy. prince charlie. with frontispiece. by william caine. pilkington. with frontispiece by l. raven hill. ward, lock & co., ltd., salisbury square, london, e.c. a bride of the plains by baroness orczy * * * * * by baroness orczy a bride of the plains the laughing cavalier "unto caesar" el dorado meadowsweet the noble rogue the heart of a woman petticoat rule george h. doran company new york * * * * * a bride of the plains by baroness orczy author of "the laughing cavalier," "the scarlet pimpernel," "el dorado," "meadowsweet," etc., etc. new york george h. doran company copyright, 1915, by george h. doran company to the memory of louis kossuth what would you have said now--o patriot and selfless hero--had you lived to see the country which you loved so well, for whose liberty and national dignity you fought with such unswerving devotion--what would you say, could you see her now--tied to austria's chariot wheel, the catspaw and the tool of that teutonic race which you abhorred? thank god you were spared the sight which surely would have broken your heart! you never lived to see your country free. alas! no man for many generations to come will see that now. the magyar peasant lad--upon the vast, mysterious plains of his native soil--will alone continue to dream of national liberty, of religious and political freedom, and vaguely hope that some day another louis kossuth will arise again and restore to him and to his race that sense of dignity, of justice and of right which the teuton has striven for centuries to crush. emmuska orczy. snowfield, bearsted, kent. contents chapter page i. "god bless them all! they are good lads." 9 ii. "money won't buy everything." 16 iii. "you will wait for me." 32 iv. "now that he is dead." 43 v. "love will follow." 56 vi. "i don't wish to marry; not yet." 64 vii. "they are jews and we are hungarians." 73 viii. "i put the bunda away somewhere." 84 ix. "then, as now, may god protect you." 93 x. "the best way of all." 101 xi. "after that, happiness will begin." 106 xii. "it is too late." 115 xiii. "he must make you happy." 125 xiv. "it is true." 133 xv. "that is fair, i think." 137 xvi. "the waters of the maros flow sluggishly." 143 xvii. "i am here to see that you be kind to her." 149 xviii. "i must punish her." 162 xix. "now go and fetch the key." 174 xx. "you happen to be of my race and of my blood." 186 xxi. "jealous, like a madman." 199 xxii. "i go where i shall be more welcome." 211 xxiii. "on the eve of one's wedding day too." 226 xxiv. "if you loved me." 232 xxv. "in any case elsa is not for you." 237 xxvi. "what had andor done?" 251 xxvii. "the shadow that fell from the tall sunflowers." 257 xxviii. "we shall hear of another tragedy by and by." 265 xxix. "some day." 272 xxx. "kyrie eleison." 282 xxxi. "what about me?" 291 xxxii. "the land beyond the sunset." 304 a bride of the plains chapter i "god bless them all! they are good lads." it was now close on eight o'clock and more than two hours ago since first the dawn broke over that low-lying horizon line which seems so far away, and tinged the vast immensity of the plain first with grey and then with mauve and pale-toned emerald, with rose and carmine and crimson and blood-red, until the sun--triumphant and glorious at last--woke the sunflowers from their sleep, gilded every tiny blade of grass and every sprig of rosemary, and caused every head of stately maize to quiver with delight at the warmth of his kiss. the plain stretched its limitless expanse as far as human eye can reach--a sea of tall straight stems, with waves of brilliant green and plume-crowned crests shimmering like foam in the sunlight. as far as human eye can see!--and further, much further still!--the sea of maize, countless upright stems, hundreds of thousands of emerald green sheaths crowned with flaxen tendrils like a maiden's hair; down on the ground--a carpet for the feet of the majestic corn--hundreds and thousands of orange-coloured pumpkins turning their huge shiny carcases to the ripening rays of the sun, and all around in fantastic lines, rows of tall sunflowers, a blaze of amber, with thick velvety hearts laden with seed. and all of it stretching out apparently to infinity beyond that horizon line which is still hidden by a silvery haze, impalpable womb that cradles the life-giving heat. stately stems of maize--countless as the pebbles on a beach, as the specks of foam upon the crest of a wave, limitless as the sea and like the sea mutable, ever-changing, restless--bending to every breath of the summer breeze, full of strange, sweet sounds, of moanings and of sighs, as the emerald sheaths tremble in the wind, or down below the bright yellow carcases of the pumpkins crack and shiver in the growing heat. an ocean of tall maize and gaily-coloured pumpkins as far as the eye can reach, and long, dividing lines of amber-coloured sunflowers, vivid and riotous, flaunting their crude colouring in the glowing sunlight. here and there the dull, dark green of hemp breaks the unvarying stretches of maize, and far away there is a tanya (cottage) with a group of stunted acacias near it, and a well whose tall, gaunt arm stretches weirdly up to the sky, whilst to the south the sluggish maros winds its slow course lazily toward the parent stream. an ocean of maize and of pumpkins and of sunflowers, with here and there the tall, crested stems of hemp, and above it the sky--blue and already glowing through the filmy mist which every minute grows more ethereal and more impalpable as veil upon veil of heat-holding vapours are drawn from before its face. a beautiful morning in mid-september, and yet in all this vast immensity of fertile land and ripening fruit there is no sign of human toil, no sound of beast or creaking waggon, no sign of human life around that distant tanya. the tiny lizard in his comfortable position on the summit of a gigantic pumpkin can continue his matutinal sleep in peace; the stork can continue undisturbed his preparations for his impending long voyage over seas. man has not yet thought to break by travail or by song the peaceful silence of the plain. and yet the village lies not very far away, close to the maros; the small, low, hemp-thatched houses scarcely peep above the sea of tall-stemmed maize, only the white-washed tower of the church with its red-painted roof stands out clear and abrupt against the sky. and now the sharp, cracked sound of the elevation bell breaks the silence of the summer's morning. the good pater bonifácius is saying mass; he, at any rate, is astir and busy with his day's work and obligations. surely it is strange that at so late an hour in mid-september, with the maize waiting to be gathered in, the population of marosfalva should still be absent from the fields. hej! but stranger, what would you! such a day is this fourteenth of september. what? you did not know it? the fourteenth of september, the ugliest, blackest, most god-forsaken day in the whole year! you did not know? you cannot guess? then what kind of a stranger are you if you do not know that on this hideous fourteenth of september all the finest lads of marosfalva and the villages around are taken away by the abominable government? away for three years to be made into soldiers, to drill and to march, to carry guns and bayonets, to obey words of command that they don't understand, to be packed off from place to place--from arad to bistricz, from kecskemét to nagyvárad, aye? and as far as bosnia too--wherever that may be! yes, kind sir! the lads of marosfalva and of fekete, of kender and of görcz, are taken away just like that, in batches every year, packed into one of those detestable railways like so many heads of cattle and separated from their mothers, their sisters, their sweethearts, all because a hateful government for which the people of marosfalva do not care one brass fillér, has so decreed it. mind you, it is the same in all the other villages, and in every town in hungary--so at least we have been given to understand--but we have nothing to do with other villages or with the towns: they do just as the good god wills them to do. it is our lads--the lads of marosfalva and kender and fekete and görcz--who have to be packed off in train-loads to-day and taken away from us for three years. three years! why, the lad is a mere child when he goes--one-and-twenty on his last birthday, bless him!--still wanting a mother's care of his stomach and his clothes, and a father's heavy stick across his back from time to time to keep him from drink and too much love-making. three years! when he comes back he is a man, has notions of his own, has seen the world and cares no more about his native village and the narrow cottage where he used to run in and out bare-footed, bare-chested, bare-headed and comfortably dirty from head to foot. three years! and what are the chances that he come back at all? bosnia? where in the world is that? and if you are a soldier, why then you go to war, you get shot at, killed may be, or at any rate maimed. three years! you may never come back! and when you do you are not the same youngster whom your mother kissed, your father whacked, and your sweetheart wept over. three years! nay, but 'tis a lifetime. mother is old, she may never see her son again. girls are vain and fickle, they will turn their thoughts in other directions--there are the men who have done their military service, who have paid their toll to the abominable government up at budapest and who are therefore free to court and free to marry. aye! aye! that's how it is. they must go through with it, though they hate it all--every moment of it. they hate to be packed into railway carriages like so many dried heads of maize in a barn, they hate to wear the heavy cloth clothes, the hard boots, the leather pouches and belts. my god, how they hate it! and the rude alien sergeant, with his "vorwärts!" and "marsch!" and "rechts" and "links"--i ask you in the name of the holy virgin what kind of gibberish is that? but they must all go!--all those, at least, who are whole and sound in body. bless them! they are sound enough when they go! it is when they come back! . . . yes! they must all go, those who are sound in eyes and wind and limb, and it is very difficult to cheat the commission who come to take our lads away. there was benkó, for instance; he starved himself for three months this summer, hoping to reduce his chest measurements by a few needful centimètres; but it was no use. the doctor who examined him said that with regular food and plenty of exercise he would soon put on more flesh, and he would get both for the next three years. and jános--you remember?--he chopped off one of his toes--thinking that would get him off those hated three years of service; but it seems there is a new decree by which the lads need not be possessed of all ten toes in order to serve the hateful government. no, no! it is no use trying to get out of it. they measure you, and bang your chest and your back, they look at your eyes and make you open your mouth to look at your teeth, but anyhow they take you away for three years. they make you swear that you will faithfully serve your country and your king during that time, that you will obey your superiors, and follow your leader wherever he may command, over land and by water. by water! i ask you! when there was albert and jenö who could not bear even the sight of water; they would not have gone in a boat on the maros if you had offered them a gold piece each! how could they swear that they would follow some fool of a german officer on water? they could not swear that. they knew they could not do it. but they were clapped in prison like common malefactors and treated like brigands and thieves until they did swear. and after that--well! they had once to cross the theiss in a ferry-boat--they were made to do it! oh, no! nothing happened to them then, but albert came back after his three years' service, with two of his front teeth gone, and we all know that jenö now is little better than an idiot. so now you know, stranger, why we at marosfalva call the fourteenth day of september the very blackest in the whole calendar, and why at eight o'clock in the morning nobody is at work in the fields. for the fourteenth day being such a black one, we must all make the most of the few hours that come before it. at nine o'clock of that miserable morning the packing of our lads into the train will commence, but until then they are making merry, bless them! they are true hungarians, you know! they will dance, and they will sing, they will listen to gipsy music and kiss the girls so long as there is breath in their body, so long as they are free to do it. at nine o'clock to-day they cease to be free men, they are under the orders of corporals and sergeants and officers who will command them to go "vorwärts" and "rechts" and "links" and all that god-forsaken gibberish, and put them in irons and on bread and water if they do not obey. but yesterday, on the thirteenth of september that is, they were still free to do as they liked: they could dance and sing and get drunk as much as they chose. so the big barn that belongs to ignácz goldstein, the jew, is thrown open for a night's dancing and music and jollification. at five o'clock in the afternoon the gipsies tuned up; there was a supper which lasted many hours, after which the dancing began. the first csárdás was struck up at eight o'clock last evening, the last one is being danced now at eight o'clock in the morning, while the whole plain lies in silence under the shimmering sky, and while pater bonifácius reads his mass all alone in the little church, and prays fervently for the lads who are going away to-day for three years: away from his care and his tender, paternal attention, away from their homes, their weeping mothers and sorrowing sweethearts. god bless them all! they are good lads, but weak, impulsive, easily led toward good or evil. they are dancing now, when they should be praying, but god bless them all! they are good lads! chapter ii "money won't buy everything." inside the barn the guttering candles were burning low. no one thought of blowing them out, so they were just left to smoke and to smoulder, and to help render the atmosphere even more stifling than it otherwise would have been. the heat has become almost unbearable--unbearable, that is, to anyone not wholly intent on pleasure to the exclusion of every other sensation, every other consciousness. the barn built of huge pine logs, straw-thatched and raftered, is filled to overflowing with people--men, women, even children--all bent upon one great, all-absorbing object--that object, forgetfulness. the indifferent, the stolid, may call it what he will, but it is the common wish to forget that has brought all these people--young and old--together in ignácz goldstein's barn this night--the desire to forget that hideous, fateful fourteenth of september which comes with such heartrending regularity year after year--the desire to forget that the lads, the flower of the neighbouring villages, are going away to-day . . . for three years?--nay! very likely for ever!--three years! and all packed up like cattle in a railway truck! and put under the orders of some brutal sergeant who is not hungarian, and can only say "vorwärts!" or "marsch!" and is backed in his arbitrary commands by the whole weight of government, king and country. for three years!--and there is always war going on somewhere--and that awful bosnia! wherever it may be--lads from hungarian villages go there sound in body and in limb and come back bent with ague, halt, lame or blind. three years! more like for ever! and therefore the whole population of marosfalva and of the villages round spends its last happy four-and-twenty hours in trying to forget that nine o'clock of the fourteenth day of september is approaching with sure and giant strides; everyone has a wish to forget; the parents and grandparents, the sisters, the sweethearts, the lads themselves! the future is so hideous, let the joy of the present kill all thoughts of those coming three years. marosfalva is the rallying-point, where this final annual jollification takes place. they all come over on the thirteenth from fekete and görcz, and kender, in order to dance and to sing at marosfalva in the barn which belongs to ignácz goldstein the jew. marosfalva boasts of a railway station and it is from here that at nine o'clock in the morning the lads will be entrained; so all day on the thirteenth there has been a pilgrimage along the cross-roads from the outlying villages and hamlets round marosfalva--a stream of men and women and young children all determined to forget for a few hours the coming separation of the morrow; by five o'clock in the afternoon all those had assembled who had meant to come and dancing in the barn had begun. ignácz goldstein's barn has always been the setting in which the final drama of the happy year is acted. after that night spent there in dancing and music and merry-making, down goes the curtain on the comedy of life and the tragedy of tears begins. since five o'clock in the afternoon the young people have been dancing--waltzing, polkaing, dancing the csárdás--mostly the csárdás, the dance of the nation, of the people, the most exhilarating, most entrancing, most voluptuous dance that feet of man have ever trod. the girls and lads are indefatigable, the slow and languorous lassu (slow movement) alternates with the mad, merry csárdás, they twirl and twist, advance, retreat, separate and reunite in a mad, intoxicating whirl. small booted feet stamp on the rough wooden floor, sending up clouds of dust. what matter if the air becomes more and more stifling? there are tears and sighs to be stifled too. "ho, there, czigány! play up! faster! faster! 'tis not a funeral dirge you are playing." the gipsy musicians, hot and perspiring, have blown and scraped and banged for fifteen solid hours; no one would ever think of suggesting that a gipsy needed rest; the clarinetist, it is true, rolled off his seat at one time, and had to be well shaken ere he could blow again, but the leader--as good a leader, mind you, as could be found in the kingdom--had only paused when the dancers were exhausted, or when bite and sup were placed before him. there they were, perched up on a rough platform made up of packing-cases borrowed from the station-master; the czimbalom player in the centre, his fat, brown hands wield the tiny clappers with unerring precision, up and down the strings, with that soft, lingering tone which partakes of the clavecins and the harp alike. at the back the double-bass, lean and dark, with jet-black eyes that stare stolidly at his leader. there is a second fiddle, and the fat clarinetist and, of course, the leader--he whose match could not be found in the kingdom. he stands on the very edge of the rough platform, his fiddle under his chin, and he stoops well forward, so that his hands and instrument almost touch the foremost of the dancing pairs. they--the dancers--crowd closely round the gipsy band, for so must the csárdás be danced, as near the musicians as possible, as close together as the wide, sweeping petticoats of the girls will allow. such petticoats! one on the top of the other, ten or a dozen or more, and all of different colour: the girls are proud of these petticoats--the number of them is a sign of prosperity; and now as they dance and swing from the hips these petticoats fly out, caught by the currents of air until they look like gargantuan showers of vividly-coloured petals shaken by giant hands. above the petticoats the girls' waists look slim in the dark, tight-fitting corslet, above which again rises the rich, olive-tinted breast and throat; full white sleeves of linen crown the bare, ruddy arms, and ribbons of national colours--red, white and green--float from the shoulders and the waist. the smooth, thick hair is closely plaited, from the crown of the head in two long, tight plaits; it is drawn rigidly away from the forehead, giving that quaint, hard finish to the round, merry face which is so characteristic of the asiatic ancestry. each one of them a little picture which seems to have stepped straight out of a velasquez canvas, the bell-shaped skirt, the stiff corslet, the straight, tight hair and round eyes full of vitality. the men wear their linen shirt and full trousers with fringed, embroidered ends, the leather waistcoat and broad belt covered with metal bosses and wrought with bright-coloured woollen threads. they get very excited in the mazes of the dance, they shout to the gipsies to play faster and ever faster; each holds his partner tightly round the slim waist and swings her round and round, till she stumbles, giddy and almost faint in his arms. and round the dancers in a semicircle the spectators stand in a dense crowd--the older folk and the girls who have not secured partners--they watch and watch, indefatigable like the dancers, untiring like the musicians. and behind this semicircle, in the dark corners of the barn, the children foot it too, with the same ardour, the same excitement as their elders. the last csárdás of this memorable night! it is eight o'clock now, and through the apertures in the log wall the brilliant light of this late summer's morning enters triumphant and crude. andor is dancing with elsa--pretty, fair-haired elsa, the daughter of old kapus benkó,[1] an old reprobate, if ever there was one. such a handsome couple they look. is it not a shame that andor must go to-day--for three years, perhaps for ever? [footnote 1: in hungary the surname precedes the christian name.] the tears that have struggled up to elsa's tender blue eyes, despite her will to keep them back, add to the charm of her engaging personality, they help to soften the somewhat serious expression of her young face. her cheeks are glowing with the excitement of the dance, her graceful figure bends to the pressure of andor's arm around her waist. ten or a dozen cotton petticoats are tied round that slim waist of hers, no two of a like colour, and as she twists and twirls in andor's arms the petticoats fly out, till she looks like a huge flower of many hues with superposed corollas, blue, green, pink and yellow, beneath which her small feet shod in boots of brilliant leather look like two crimson stamens. the tight-fitting corslet bodice and the full, white sleeves of the shift make her figure appear peculiarly slim and girlish, and her bare throat and shoulders are smooth and warmly tinted like some luscious fruit. no wonder that andor feels this dance, this movement, the music, the girl's sweet, quick breath, going to his head like wine. elsa was always pretty, always dainty and gentle, but now she is excited, tearful at the coming parting, and by all the saints a more exquisite woman never came out of paradise! the semicircle of spectators composed of older folk draws closer round the dancers, but the other couples remain comparatively unheeded. it is elsa and andor whom everyone is watching. he is tall and broad-shouldered, with the supple limbs of a young stag, and the mad, irresponsible movements of a colt. his dark eyes shine like two stars out of his sun-burnt face; his muscular arms encircle elsa's fine waist with a grip that is almost masterful. the wide sleeves of his linen shirt flutter above his shoulders till they look like wings and he like some messenger of the gods come to carry this exquisite prey off from the earth. "what a well-matched couple!" murmur the older women as they watch. "elsa will be the beauty of the village within the next year, mark what i say!" added a kindly old soul, turning to her neighbour--a slatternly, ill-kempt, middle-aged woman, who was casting looks on andor and elsa that were none too kind. "hm!" retorted the latter, with sour mien, "then 'tis as well that that good-for-nothing will be safely out of the way." "i would not call andor good-for-nothing, irma néni,"[2] said one of the men who stood close by, "he has not had much chance to do anything for himself yet. . . ." [footnote 2: aunt irma--the words aunt (_néni_) and uncle (_bácsi_) are used indiscriminately in hungary when addressing elderly people, and do not necessarily imply any relationship.] "and he never will," snapped the woman, with a click of her thin jaws, "i know the sort--always going to do wonderful things in a future which never comes. well! at any rate while he is a soldier they will teach him that he is no better than other lads that come from the same village, and not even as good, seeing that he has never any money in his wallet." "andor will be rich some day," suggested the kindly old soul who had first spoken, "don't you forget it, irma néni." "i have no special wish to remember it, my good kati," retorted irma dryly. "i thought," murmured the other, "seeing that andor has really courted elsa this summer that . . . perhaps . . ." "my daughter has plenty of admirers," said irma, in her bitter-toned, snappish way, "and has no reason to wait for one who only may be rich some day." "bah! lakatos pál cannot live for ever. andor will have every fillér of his money when he dies, and pál will cut up very well." "lakatos pál is a youngish man--not fifty, i imagine," concluded irma with a sneer. "he may live another thirty years, and elsa would be an old woman herself by then." the other woman said nothing more after that. it was no use arguing the point. irma was the wife of old kapus--both of them as shiftless, thriftless, ill-conditioned a pair as ever stole the daylight from god in order to waste it in idleness. how they came to be blessed with such a pretty, winning daughter as elsa an all too-indulgent god only knew. what, however, was well known throughout the village was that as kapus and his wife never had a crown to bless themselves with, and had never saved enough to earn a rest for themselves in their old age, they had long ago determined that their daughter should be the means of bringing prosperity to them as soon as she was old enough for the marriage-market. elsa was beautiful! thank the good god for that! kapus had never saved enough to give her a marriage-portion either, and had she been ugly, or only moderately pretty, it would have been practically impossible to find a husband for her. but if she became the beauty of marosfalva--as indeed she was already--there would be plenty of rich men who would be willing to waive the question of the marriage-portion for the sake of the glory of having captured the loveliest matrimonial prize in the whole countryside. "leave irma néni alone, mother," said the man who had first taken up the cudgels in favour of andor; "we all know that she has very ambitious views for elsa. please god she may not be disappointed." from more than one group of spectators came similar or other comments on pretty elsa and her partner. the general consensus of opinion seemed to be that it was as well andor was going away for three years. old kapus and his wife would never allow their daughter to marry a man with pockets as empty as their own, and it was no use waiting for dead men's shoes. lakatos pál, the rich uncle, from whom andor was bound to inherit some day, was little past the prime of life. until he died how would andor and a penniless wife contrive to live? for lakatos pál was a miser and hoarded his money--moreover, he was a confirmed bachelor and woman-hater; he would do nothing for andor if the young man chose to marry. ah, well! it was a pity! for a better-looking, better-matched pair could not be found in the whole county of arad. "lucky for you, béla, that andor goes off to-day for three years," said a tall, handsome girl to her neighbour; "you would not have had much chance with elsa otherwise." the man beside her made no immediate reply; he was standing with legs wide apart, his hands buried in the pockets of his trousers. at the girl's words, which were accompanied by a provocative glance from her large, dark eyes, he merely shrugged his wide shoulders, and jingled some money in his pockets. the girl laughed. "money won't buy everything, you know, my good béla," she said. "it will buy most things," he retorted. "the consent of irma néni, for instance," she suggested. "and a girl's willingness to exchange the squalor of a mud hut for comfort, luxury, civilization." unlike most of the young men here to-night, who wore the characteristic costume of the countryside--full, white linen shirt and trousers, broad leather belt, embossed and embroidered and high leather boots, béla was dressed in a town suit of dark-coloured cloth, cut by a provincial tailor from arad. he was short of stature, though broad-shouldered and firmly knit, but his face was singularly ugly, owing to the terrible misfortune which had befallen him when he lost his left eye. the scar and hollow which were now where the eye had once been gave the whole face a sinister expression, which was further accentuated by the irregular line of the eyebrows and the sneer which habitually hovered round the full, hard lips. béla was not good to look on; and this is a serious defect in a young man in hungary, but he was well endowed with other attributes which made him very attractive to the girls. he had a fine and lucrative position, seeing that he was his lordship's bailiff, and had an excellent salary, a good house and piece of land of his own, as well as the means of adding considerably to his income, since his lordship left him to conclude many a bargain over corn and plums, and horses and pigs. erös béla was rich and influential. he lived in a stone-built house, which had a garden round it, and at least five rooms inside, with a separate kitchen and a separate living-room, therefore he was a very eligible young man and one greatly favoured by mothers of penniless girls; nor did the latter look askance on béla despite the fact that he had only one eye and that never a pleasant word escaped his lips. even now he was looking on at the dancing with a heavy scowl upon his face. the girl near him--she with the dark, oriental eyes and the thin, hooked nose, klara goldstein the jewess--gave him a nudge with her brown, pointed elbow. "i wouldn't let andor see the temper you are in, my friend," she said, with a sarcastic little laugh; "we don't want any broken bones before the train goes off this morning." "there will be broken bones if he does not look out," muttered the other between his teeth, as he drew a tightly clenched fist from his pocket. "bah! why should you care?" retorted klara, who seemed to take an impish delight in teasing the young man, "you are not in love with elsa, are you?" "what is it to you?" growled béla surlily. "nothing," she replied, "only that we have always been friends, you and i--eh, béla?" and she turned her large, lustrous eyes upon him, peering at him through her long black lashes. she was a handsome girl, of course, and she knew it--knew how to use her eyes, and make the men forget that she was only a jewess, a thing to be played with but despised--no better than a gipsy wench, not for a hungarian peasant to look upon as an equal, to think of as a possible mate. béla, whose blood was hot in him, what with the wine which he had drunk and the jealous temper which was raging in his brain, was nevertheless sober enough not to meet the languorous glances which the handsome jewess bestowed so freely upon him. "we are still friends--are we not, béla?" she reiterated slowly. "of course--why not?" he grunted, "what has our friendship to do with andor and elsa?" "only this: that i don't like to see a friend of mine make a fool of himself over a girl who does not care one hairpin for him." béla smothered a curse. "how do you know that?" he asked. "everyone knows that elsa is over head and ears in love with andor, and just won't look at anyone else." "oho!" he sneered, "everyone knows that, do they? well! you can tell that busy-body everyone from me that before the year is out kapus elsa will be tokened to me, and that when andor comes back from having marched and drilled and paced the barrack-yard he will find that kapus elsa is kapus no longer, but erös, the wife of erös béla, the mother of his first-born. to this i have made up my mind, and when i make up my mind to anything, neither god nor the devil dares to stand in my way." "hush! hush! in heaven's name," she protested quickly, "the neighbours will hear you." he shrugged his shoulders, and murmured something very uncomplimentary anent the ultimate destination of those neighbours. some of them certainly had heard what he said, for he had not been at pains to lower his voice. his riches and his position had made him something of an oracle in marosfalva, and he held all the peasantry in such contempt that he cared little what everyone thought of him. he therefore remained indifferent and sulky now whilst many glances of good-humoured mockery were levelled upon him. no one, of course, thought any the worse of erös béla for desiring the beauty of the village for himself--he was rich and could marry whom he pleased, and that he should loudly and openly proclaim his determination to possess himself of the beautiful prize was only in accordance with the impulsive, hot-headed, somewhat bombastic temperament of the magyars themselves. fortunately those chiefly concerned in erös béla's loudly spoken determination had heard nothing of the colloquy between him and the jewess. the wild, loud music of the csárdás, their own gyrations and excitement, shut them out entirely from their surroundings. their stamping, tripping, twirling feet had carried them into another world altogether; ignácz goldstein's barn had become a fairy bower, they themselves were spirits living in that realm of bliss; there was no longer any impending separation, no military service, no blank and desolate three years! andor, his arm tightly clasped round elsa's waist, his head bowed till his lips touched her bare shoulder, contrived to whisper magic words in her ear. magic words?--simple, commonplace words, spoken by myriads of men before and since into myriads of willing ears, in every tongue this earth hath ever known. but to elsa it seemed as if the magyar tongue had never before sounded so exquisite! to her the words were magic because they wrought a miracle in her. she had been a girl--a child ere those words were spoken. she liked andor, she liked her father and her mother, little emma over the way, mari néni, who was always kind. she had loved them all, been pleased when she saw them, glad to give them an affectionate kiss. but now, since that last csárdás had begun, a strange and mysterious current had gone from andor's arm right through her heart; something had happened, which caused her cheeks to glow with a fire other than that produced by the heat of the dance and made her own hands tremble when they rested on andor's shoulder. and there was that in his look which made her eyes burn and fill with tears. "you are beautiful, elsa! i love you!" she could not answer him, of course; how could she, when she felt that her throat was choked with sobs? yet she felt so happy, so happy that never since the day of her first communion, when pater bonifácius had blessed her and assured her that her soul was as white as that of an angel--never since then had she known such perfect, such absolute happiness. she could not speak, she almost thought once that she was going to faint, so strange was the thrill of joy which went right through her when andor's lips rested for one brief, sweet moment upon her shoulder. and now the lights are burning low, the gipsies scrape their fiddles with a kind of wild enthusiasm, which pervades them just as much as the dancers. round and round in a mad twirl now, the men hold the girls with both hands by the waist, the girls put a hand on each of their partner's shoulders; thus they spin round and round, petticoats flying, booted feet stamping the ground. the young faces are all hot and streaming, quick breaths come in short, panting gasps from these young chests. the spectators join in the excitement, the men stamp and clap their heels to the rhythm of the dance, the women beat their hands one against the other to that same wild, syncopated measure. old men grasp middle-aged women round the waist; smiling, self-deprecatingly they too begin to tread; hej! 'tis not so long ago we were young too, and that wild hungarian csárdás fires the blood until it glows afresh. everyone moves, every body sways, it is impossible to keep quite still while that intoxicating rhythm fills the air. only klara the jewess stands by, stolid and immovable; the magyar blood is not in her, hers is the languorous oriental blood, the supple, sinuous movements of the levant. she watches this bacchanalian whirligig with a sneer upon her thin, red lips. beside her erös béla too is still, the scowl has darkened on his face, his one eye leers across the group of twirling dancers to that one couple close to the musicians' platform. in the noise that goes on around him he cannot, of course, hear the words which andor speaks, but he sees the movements of the young man's lips, and the blush which deepens over elsa's face. that one eye of his, keener than any pair of eyes, has seen the furtive kiss, quick and glowing, which grazed the girl's bare shoulder, and noted the quiver which went right through the young, slender body and the look that shot through the quickly-veiled blue eyes. he was only a peasant, a rough son of the soil, whose temperament was hot with passion and whose temper had never known a curb. he had never realized until this moment how beautiful elsa was, and how madly he loved her. for he called the jealous rage within by the sacred name of love, and love to a magyar peasant is his whole existence, the pivot round which he frames his life, his thoughts of the present, his dreams of the future. the soil and the woman!--they are his passions, his desires, his religion--to own a bit of land--of hungarian land--and the woman whom he loves. those two possessions will satisfy him--beyond these there is nothing worth having--a plough, of course--a hut wherein to sleep--an ox or two, perhaps--a cow--a horse. but the soil and the woman on whom he has fixed his love--we'll call it love . . . he certainly calls it so--those two possessions make the hungarian peasant more contented than any king or millionaire of western civilization. erös béla had the land. his father left him a dozen kataszter (land measure about two and three-quarter acres) or so; elsa was the woman whom he loved, and the only question was who--he or andor--would be strong enough to gain the object of his desire. chapter iii "you will wait for me?" but now it is all over, the final bar of the csárdás has been played, the last measure trodden. from the railway station far away the sharp clang of a bell has announced the doleful fact that in half an hour the train will start for arad, thence to brassó, where the recruits will be enrolled, ticketed, docketed like so many heads of cattle--mostly unwilling--made to do service for their country. in half an hour the train starts, and there is so much still to say that has been left unsaid, so many kisses to exchange, so many promises, protestations, oaths. the mothers, fearful and fussy, look for their sons in among the crowd like hens in search of their chicks; their wizened faces are hard and wrinkled like winter apples, they carry huge baskets on their arms, over-filled with the last delicacies which their fond, toil-worn hands will prepare for the beloved son for the next three years:--a piece of smoked bacon, a loaf of rye bread, a cake of maize-flour. the lads themselves--excited after the dance, and not quite as clear-headed as they were before that last cask of hungarian wine was tapped in ignácz goldstein's cellar--feel the intoxication of the departure now, the quick good-byes, the women's tears. a latent spirit of adventure smothers their sorrow at leaving home. the gipsies have struck up a melancholy magyar folksong; the crowd breaks up in isolated groups, mothers and fathers with their sons whisper in the dark corners of the barn. the father who did his service thirty years ago gives sundry good advice--no rebellion, quiet obedience, no use complaining or grumbling, the three years are quickly over. the mother begs her darling not to give way to drink, and not to get entangled with one of the hussies in the towns; women and wine, the two besetting temptations that assail the magyar peasant--let the darling boy resist both for his sorrowing mother's sake. but the lad only listens with half an ear, his dark eyes roam around the barn in search of the sweetheart; he wants one more protestation of love from her lips, one final oath of fidelity. andor has neither father to admonish him, nor mother to pray over him; the rich uncle lakatos pál, with whom he has lived hitherto, does not care enough about him to hang weeping round his neck. and elsa has given her father and mother the slip, and joined andor outside the barn. her blue eyes--tired after fifteen hours of pleasure--blink in the glare of the brilliant sun. andor puts his arm round her waist and she, closing her aching eyes, allows him to lead her away. and now they are wandering down the great dusty high road, beneath the sparse shade of the stunted acacias that border it. they feel neither heat, nor dust, and say but little as they walk. from behind them, muffled by louder sounds, come the sweet, sad strains of the magyar love-song, "csak egy kis lány van a világon." "there is but one girl in all the world, and she is my own white dove. oh! how great must god's love be for me! that he thought of giving you to me." "elsa, you will wait for me?" asked andor, with deep, passionate anxiety at last. "i will wait for you, andor," replied the girl simply, "if the good god will give me the strength." "the strength, elsa, will be in yourself," he urged, "if only you love me as i love you." "three years is such a long time!" she sighed. "i will count the weeks that separate us, elsa--the days--the hours----" "i, too, will be counting them." "when i come back i will at once talk with pali bácsi--he is getting tired of managing his property--i know that at times lately he has felt that he needed a rest, and that he means to ask me to see to everything for him. he will give me that nice little house on the fekete road, and the mill to look after. we can get married at once, elsa--when i come back." he talked on somewhat ramblingly, at times incoherently. it was easy to see that he was trying to cheat sorrow, to appear cheerful and hopeful, because he saw that elsa was quite ready to give way to tears. it was so hard to walk out of fairyland just when she had entered it, and found it more beautiful than anything else in life. the paths looked so smooth and so inviting, and fairy forms beckoned to her from afar; it all would have been so easy, if only the good god had willed it so. she thought of the many sins which--in her innocent life--she had committed, and for which pater bonifácius had given her absolution; perhaps if she had been better--been more affectionate with her mother, more forbearing with her father, the good god would have allowed her to have this happiness in full which now appeared so shadowy. she fell to wishing that andor had not been quite so fine and quite so strong, that his chest had been narrower, or his eyesight less keen. womanlike, she felt that she would have loved him just as much and more, if he were less vigorous, less powerful; and in that case the wicked government would not want him; he could stay at home and help pali bácsi to look after his lands and his mills, and she could marry him before the spring. then the pressure of his arm round her waist recalled her to herself; she turned and met his glowing, compelling eyes, she felt that wonderful vitality in him which made him what he was, strong in body and strong in soul; his love was strong because his body was strong, as was his soul, his spirit and his limbs, and she no longer wished him to be weak and delicate, for then it would no longer be andor--the andor whom she loved. the clang of the distant bell chased away elsa's last hovering dreams. andor did not hear it; he was pressing the girl closer and closer to him, unmindful of his surroundings, unmindful that he was on the high road, and that frequently ox-carts went by laden with people, and that passers-by were hurrying now toward the railway station. true that no one took any notice of this young man and maid; everyone was either too much absorbed in the business of the morning, or too much accustomed to these final scenes of farewell and tenderness ere the lads went off for their three years' service, to throw more than a cursory glance on these two. "i love you, elsa, my dove, my rose," andor reiterated over and over again; "you will wait for my return, will you not?" "i will wait, andor," replied the girl through her sobs. "the thought of you will lighten my nights, and bring sunshine to my dreary days. every morning and every evening when i say my prayers, i shall ask my guardian angel to fly over to yours, and to tell him to whisper in your ear that i love you beyond all else on earth." "we must part now, andor," she said earnestly, "the second bell has gone long ago." "not yet, elsa, not yet," he pleaded; "just walk as far as that next acacia tree. there no one will see us, and i want one more kiss before i go." she never thought to resist him, since her own heart was at one with his wish, and he was going away so soon and for so long. so they walked as far as the next acacia tree, and there he took her in his arms and kissed her on the cheeks, the eyes, the lips. "god alone knows, elsa," he said, and now his own voice was choked with sobs, "what it means to me to leave you. you are the one woman in the world for me, and i will thank the good god on my knees every day of my life for the priceless blessing of your love." after that they walked back hand in hand. they had wandered far, and in a quarter of an hour the train would be starting. it meant a week in prison in arad for any recruit to miss the train, and andor did mean to be brave and straight, and to avoid prison during the three years. the gipsy musicians had carried their instruments over to the railway station; here they had ensconced themselves in full view of the train and were playing one after the other the favourite songs of those who were going away. when andor and elsa reached the station the crowd in and around it was dense, noisy and full of animation and colour. a large batch of recruits who had come by the same train from more distant villages had alighted at marosfalva and joined in the bustle and the singing. they had got over the pang of departure from home half an hour or an hour ago; they had already left the weeping mothers and sweethearts behind, so now they set to with a will in true hungarian fashion to drown regrets and stifle unmanly tears by singing their favourite songs at the top of their rough voices, and ogling those girls of marosfalva who happened to be unattached. the captain in command, with his lieutenant, was pacing up and down the station platform. he now gave a command to a couple of sergeants, and the entraining began. helter-skelter now, for it was no use losing a good seat whilst indulging in a final kiss or tear. there was a general stampede for the carriages and trucks; the recruits on ahead, behind them the trail of women, the mothers with their dark handkerchiefs tied round their heads, the girls with pale, tear-stained faces, their petticoats of many colours swinging round their shapely hips as they run, the fathers, the brothers. here comes pater bonifácius, who has finished saying his mass just in time to see the last of his lads. he has tucked his soutane well up under his sash, and he is running across the platform, his rubicund, kindly face streaming with excitement. "pater! pater! here!" a score of voices cry to him from different carriages, and he hurries on, grasping each rough, hot hand as it is extended out to him. "bless you, my children," he cries, and the large, red cotton handkerchief wanders surreptitiously from his nose to his eyes. "bless you and keep you." "be good lads," he admonishes earnestly, "remember your confession and the holy sacraments! no drinking!" "oh, pater!" comes in protesting accents all around him. "well! not more than is good for you. abstinence on fridays--a regular confession and holy communion and holy mass on sundays will help to keep you straight before the good god." there's the last bell! clang! clang! in two minutes comes the horn, and then we are off. the gipsies are playing the saddest of sad songs, it seems as if one's heartstrings were being wrenched out of one's body. "_there is but one girl in all the world!_" for each lad only one girl!--and she is there at the foot of the carriage-steps, a corner of her ribbon or handkerchief or cotton petticoat stuffed into her mouth, to keep her from bursting into sobs. the mothers now are dry-eyed and silent. they look with dull, unseeing gaze on this railway train, the engine, the carriages, which will take their lads away from them. many have climbed up on the steps of the carriages, hanging on to the handrails, so as to be near the lads as long as possible. their position is a perilous one, the sergeants as well as the railway officials have to take hold of them by the waist and to drag them forcibly down to the ground before they will give way. it is the mothers who are the most obstinate. they cling to the handrails, to the steps, even to the wheels--there will be a fearful accident if they are not driven off by force. and they will yield only to force; guards and porters take hold of them by the waist and drag them away from their perilous positions. they fight with stolid obstinacy; they will hang on to the train--they are the mothers, you see!--and yet from where they are they cannot always see their sons, herded in with forty or fifty other lads in a truck, some standing, some squatting on the ground, or on the provision baskets. but if you cannot see your son, it is always something to be on the step of the train which is about to take him away. the lads are all singing now at the top of their voices, but down below on the platforms there is but little noise; the mothers do not speak, because they are fighting for places on the steps of the railway-carriages, where the boys are; they press their lips tightly together, and when a guard or a porter comes to drag them away they just hit out with their elbows--stolidly, silently. the fathers and the other older men stand about in groups, leaning on their sticks, talking in whispers, recounting former experiences of entraining, or recruiting, of those abominable three years; and the young girls--the sweethearts, the sisters, the friends--dare not speak for fear they should break down and help to unman the lads. andor, by dint of fighting and obstinacy, has kept his place in the door of one of the carriages; he sits on the floor, with his feet down on the step below, and refuses to quit his position for anyone. several lads from the rear have tried to throw him out or to drag him in, but andor is mightily strong--you cannot move him if he be not so minded. elsa, sitting on the step lower down, is resting her elbow on his knee. there is no thought of hiding their love for one another; let the whole village know it, or the whole countryside, they do not care; they are not going to deprive themselves of these last few minutes--these heaven-born seconds, whilst their hands can still meet, their eyes can speak the words which their lips no longer dare frame. "i love you!" "you will wait for me?" in those few words lies all the consolation for the present, all the hope of the future. with these words engraved upon heart and memory they can afford to look more serenely upon these blank and dreary three years. it was as well to have spoken them; as well to have actually put into words what they had already known in their hearts long ago. now they can afford to wait, and andor will do it with confidence, he is a man and he is free. he viewed the future as a master views his slave; the future is his to do with what he likes, to mould, to shape in accordance with his will. the land which must one day be his, and elsa his already! andor almost fell to wishing that the train would start quickly--so many seconds would have been lived of those three intervening years. elsa tries to look as full of hope as he does; she is only a woman, and the future is not hers to make at will. she is not the conqueror, the lord and king of her own destiny; there are so many difficulties in the path of her life which she would like to forget at this moment, so as not to embitter the happiness which has come to her; there is her shiftless mother and vagabond father, there is the pressure of poverty and filial duty--it is easy for andor--he is a man! "you will wait for me, elsa?" andor asks for the twentieth time, and for the twentieth time her lips murmur an assent, even though her heart is heavy with foreboding. there goes the horn! "elsa, my love, one more kiss," cries andor, as he presses her closely, ever more closely to his heart. "god bless you, my rose! you _will_ wait for me?" the engine gives a shrill whistle. all the men now--realizing the danger--drag their women-folk away from the slowly-revolving wheels. the gipsy musicians strike up the first spirited bars of the rákóczy march, as with much puffing and ponderous creakings and groanings the heavily-laden train with its human freight steams away from the little station. "my son! my son!" "benkó! my son!" "jános!" "endre!" a few heartrending cries as each revolution of the wheels takes the lads a little further away from their homes. "elsa, you will wait for me?" comes as a final, appealing cry from andor. he stands in the door of the carriage, which he holds wide open, and through a mist of tears which he no longer tries to suppress he sees elsa standing there, quite still--a small image of beauty and of sorrow. the sun glints upon her hair, it shines and sparkles like living gold; her hands are clasped tightly together, and with her full, many-hued petticoats round her slim waist and tiny red-shod feet she looks like a flower. the crowd below moves alongside of the train--for the first minute or so they all keep up with it, close to the carriage at the door of which can still be seen the head of son or brother or sweetheart. but now the engine puts on more speed, the wheels revolve more quickly--some of the crowd fall away, unable to run so fast. only the mothers try to keep up--the old women, some of them bare-footed, stolid, looking straight before them--hardly looking at the train, just running . . . alongside the train first of all, then they must needs fall back--but still they run along the metals, even though the train moves away so quickly now that soon even a mother could not distinguish her son's head, like a black pin-point leaning out of the carriage window. so they run:--one or two women run thus for over a kilomètre, they run long after the train has disappeared from view. but elsa stood quite still. she did not try to run after the train. through the noise of the puffing engine, the final cries of farewell, through all the noise and the bustle, andor's cry rose above all, his final appeal to her to be true: "elsa! you will wait for me?" chapter iv "now that he is dead." stranger, if you should ever be driving on the main road between szeged and arad, tell your driver to pull up at the village of marosfalva; its one broad street runs inland at right angles from the road; you will then have on your right two or three bits of meadowland overshadowed by willow trees, which slope down to the maros; beyond the maros lies the great plain--the fields of maize and pumpkin, of hemp and sunflower. and who knows what lies beyond the fields? but on your left will be the village of marosfalva with the wayside inn and public bar, kept by ignácz goldstein, standing prominently at the corner immediately facing you. two pollarded acacias are planted near the door of the inn, above the lintel of which a painted board scribbled over with irregular lettering invites the traveller to enter. a wooden verandah, with tumble-down roof and worm-eaten supporting beams, runs along two sides of the house, and from the roof hang a number of gaily-coloured and decorated earthenware pots and jars. the open space in front of the inn and the whole of the length of the one street of marosfalva are very dusty and dry in the summer, in the autumn and spring they are a sea and river of mud, and in the winter the snow hides the deep, frozen crevasses; but place and street are as god made them, and it is not man's place to interfere. to begin with, the cattle and geese and pigs must all pass this way on their way to the water, so of course it is impossible to do anything with the ground even if one were so minded. the inn is the only house in marosfalva which boldly faces the street, all the others seem to be looking at it over their shoulders, the front of one house facing the back of its neighbour, with a bit of garden or yard between, and so on, the whole kilomètre length of the street. but each house has its wooden verandah, which shields the living rooms against the glare of the sun in summer, and shelters them from snow and rain in winter. these wooden verandahs are in a greater or lesser state of repair and smartness, and under the roof of every verandah hang rows of the same quaintly-decorated and picturesque earthenware jars. round every house, too, there are groups of gay sunflowers and of dull green hemp, and the roofs, thatched with maize-stalks, are ornamented along the top with wooden carvings which stand out clear and fantastic against the intense blue of the sky. then, stranger, if you should alight at the top of the street and did wander slowly down its dusty length, you will presently see it widen out just in front of the church. it stands well there, doesn't it?--at one end of this open place, with its flat, whitewashed façade and tower--red-roofed and crowned with a metal cross that glints in the sun--the whole building so like in shape to a large white hen, with head erect and crimson comb and wings spread out flat to the ground. the presbytery is close by--you cannot miss it. it is a one-storied house, with a row of green-shuttered windows along the front and at the side a low gate which leads to a small garden at the back, and over which appears a vista of brilliant perennials and a stiff row of purple asters. there is the tiny school-house, too, which in the late summer is made very gay in front with vividly coloured dahlias--an orgy of yellow and brick-red, of magenta and orange. if your driver has come along with you down the street, he will point out to you the house of barna jenö--mayor of the commune of marosfalva--a personage of vast consideration in the village--a consideration which he shares with hóhér aladár, who is the village justice of the peace, and with erös béla, who is my lord the count's bailiff. then lower down, beyond the church, is the big barn belonging to ignácz goldstein, where on special occasions, as well as on fine sunday afternoons, the young folk meet for their simple-hearted, innocent amusements--for their dancing, their singing and their courtships, and further on still are the houses of the poorer peasants--of men like kapus benkó who has never saved a fillér and until lately, when he was stricken down with illness, had to work as a day labourer for wage, instead of owning a bit of land of his own and planting it up for his own enjoyment. here the houses are much smaller and squalid-looking: they have no verandahs--only a narrow door and tiny, diminutive windows which are not made to open and shut. the pieces of ground around them are also planted, like the others, with hemp and with sunflowers, but even these look less majestic, less prosperous than those which surround the houses higher up the streets; their brown heads are smaller, more sparsely laden with the good oil-bearing seeds, and the stems of the hemp do not look as if they ever would make a thatch. the street itself is wide and a regular heat-trap in summer: in the autumn and the spring it is ankle-deep in mud, and of course in the winter it is buried in snow. but in the late summer it is at its best, one or two heavy showers of rain have laid the dust, and the sunflowers and dahlias round the little school-house and by the presbytery are very gay--such a note of crude and vivid colour which even puts the decorated jars to shame. also the sun has lost some of its unbearable heat; after four o'clock in the afternoon it is pleasant to sit or stand outside one's house for a bit of gossip with a neighbour. the brown-legged, black-eyed children, coolly clad in loose white shifts, bare-footed and bare-headed, can play outside now; the little girls, with bright-coloured kerchiefs tied round their heads, and pink or blue petticoats round their waists, vie with the dahlias in hue. on sunday afternoons it is cool enough to dance in ignácz goldstein's barn. the black day in the calendar--the fourteenth of september--has come and gone, and the lads have gone with it: except for the weeping mothers and sweethearts the ordinary village life has resumed its peaceful course. but then, there are every year a few weeping mothers and sweethearts in marosfalva or kender or görcz, just as there is everywhere else: the lads have to go and do their military service as soon as they come of age. and then others come back about this time, those who have completed their three years, and they must be made welcome with dancing and music--the things which a hungarian peasant loves best in all the world. and as the days are still long and the evenings warm there are the strolls hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm--after the dancing--up the village street as far as the slowly-flowing maros. one or two of the lads who have come home after three years have found their sweethearts waiting for them--but only one or two. three years is a long, long time! girls cannot afford to wait for husbands while their youth and good looks fly away so quickly. and the lads, too, are fickle; some of them have apparently forgotten amongst the more showy, more lively beauties of garrison towns, the doe-eyed girl to whom they had promised faith. they are ready, as soon as they come back, for new courtships, fresh love-making, another girl--with blue eyes this time, and fair hair instead of brown. then, of course, there are those who never will come back. that awful, mysterious place called bosnia has swallowed them up. there was fighting, it seems, in bosnia, and many were killed: two lads from marosfalva, one from fekete and two from kender. bosnia must belong to the crown of hungary--whatever that may mean--the politicians say so, anyhow, and in order that the crown of hungary should have what rightly belongs to it the lads from our villages have to fight and get killed. "is that just, i ask you?" so the mothers argue. the sweethearts weep for awhile and then cast about for fresh fish out of the waters of life. sometimes there are mistakes: lads who have been reported killed turn up at the village on the appointed day, either hale and hearty or maimed and crippled. in either case they are welcome. but at times the mistake is the other way: no black report has come; the mothers, the fathers, the sweethearts, expect the young soldier home--he does not come. the others return on a given day--they arrive by train--laczi or benkó or pál is not amongst them. where is he? well! they were not all in the same regiment; they have seen little or nothing of one another during these three years. the anxious mothers rush to barna jenö--the mayor--and he drafts a letter of inquiry which is duly sent off to the proper authorities at budapest. in the course of time--not very promptly--the reply comes. a letter of condolence, curtly worded: the name of laczi or benkó or pál, as the case may be, was inadvertently omitted from the list of killed after the skirmish near banialuka. sometimes also the young soldier having received his discharge, does not care to return to his native village: he has lost his taste for pigs and geese, for digging and sowing; he has had a glimpse of life and wants to see some more; the emigration agents at budapest are active and persuasive. "america is a land of gold," they say; "no further trouble but to stoop and pick up the gold just where it lies." and the lad listens and ponders. he will not go home, for he is afraid that his mother's tears will deter him from his purpose: he follows the advice of the emigration agent, expends his last fillér, sells his spare shirt and takes passage at fiume on a big ship which conveys him to the land of riches. oh! those lads who go away like that come back sure enough! broken in health and spirits, dying of that relentless and mysterious disease called "homesickness," they drift back after a few years to their villages, having amassed a little money perhaps, but having lost that vitality, that love of life and of enjoyment which is the characteristic of these sons of hungary--the land of warmth and of sunshine, of generous wines and luscious corn. and erös béla, walking arm-in-arm with kapus elsa on that warm sunday afternoon, had talked much of andor and of his untoward fate. the two young people had met outside the church after benediction, they had strolled down as far as the maros and back again into the village. the warm late september sunshine shed a golden glow upon the thatched roofs of the cottages and made every bright-coloured pot that hung under the verandahs gleam with many-hued and dazzling reflections. it touched the red roof of the little church with an additional coat of glittering crimson and caused the metal cross upon the spire to throw out vivid sparks of light. the festive air of a sunday afternoon hung upon the village street, men and maids walked by arm-in-arm, the girls in their finery with cotton petticoats swinging out, and high-heeled boots clinking as they walked, the men with round felt hats tilted rakishly over one eye, their bronzed faces suffused in smiles, the song never for long absent from their lips. from the top of the street a flock of geese in charge of a diminutive maiden of ten was slowly waddling down toward the stream, shaking their grey and white feathers under the hot kiss of the sun, and behind them, in slow majesty, a herd of cows and oxen--snow-white, with graceful, tall horns, lyre-shaped and slender--ambled lazily along. elsa and béla had paused outside the house of hóhér aladár--who was the village justice of the peace and husband to ilona, béla's only sister. a mightily rich man was hóhér aladár, and ilona was noted for being the most thrifty housewife in a country where most housewives are thrifty, and for being a model cook in a land where good cooks abound. her house was a pattern of orderliness and cleanliness: always immaculately whitewashed outside and the little shutters painted a vivid green, it literally shone with dazzling brightness on these hot summer afternoons. the woodwork of the verandah was elaborately carved, the pots that hung from the roof had not a chip or crack in them. no wonder that erös béla was proud of these housewifely qualities in his only sister, and that he loved to make a display of them before his fiancée whose own mother was so sadly lacking in them. now he pushed open the front door and stood aside to allow elsa to enter, and as she did so the sweet scent of rosemary and lavender greeted her nostrils; she looked round her with unfeigned appreciation, and a little sigh--hardly of envy but wholly wistful--escaped her lips. the room was small and raftered and low, but little light came through the two small windows, built one on each side of the front door, but even in the dim light the furniture shone with polish, and the wooden floor bore every sign of persistent and vigorous scrubbing. there was a cloth of coloured linen upon the centre table, beautifully woven in a chess-board pattern of red and blue by ilona's deft hands. the pewter and copper cooking utensils on and about the huge earthenware stove were resplendently bright, and the carved oak dower-chest--with open lid--displayed a dazzling wealth of snow-white linen--hand-woven and hand-embroidered--towels, sheets, pillow-cases, all lying in beautiful bundles, neatly tied with red ribbons and bows. again elsa sighed--in that quaint, wistful little way of hers. if her mother had been as thrifty and as orderly as ilona, then mayhap her own marriage with erös béla need never have come about. she could have mourned for andor quietly by herself, and the necessity of a wealthy son-in-law would probably never have presented itself before her mother's mind. but now she followed ilona into the best bedroom, the sanctum sanctorum of every hungarian peasant home--the room that bears most distinctly the impress of the housewifely character that presides over it. and as elsa stood upon the threshold of her future sister-in-law's precious domain, she forgot her momentary sadness in the hope of a brighter future, when she, too, would make her new home orderly and sweet-scented, with beautifully-polished furniture and floors radiant with cleanliness. the thought of what her own best bedroom would be like delighted her fancy. it was a lovely room, for béla's house was larger by far than his sister's, the rooms were wider and more lofty, and the windows had large, clear panes of glass in them. she would have two beautiful bedsteads in the room, and the bedspreads would be piled up to the ceiling with down pillows and duvets covered in scarlet twill; she would have two beautiful spreads of crochet-work, a washstand with marble top, and white crockery, and there would be a stencilling of rose garlands on the colour-washed walls. so now her habitual little sigh was not quite so wistful as it had been before; the future need not after all be quite so black as she sometimes feared, and surely the good god would be kind to her in her married life, seeing that she obeyed his commandment and honoured her mother by doing what her mother wished. ilona in the best bedroom was busy as usual with duster and brush. she did not altogether approve of béla's choice of a wife, and her greetings of elsa were always of a luke-warm character, and were usually accompanied by lengthy lectures on housewifery and the general management of a kitchen. elsa always listened deferentially to these lectures, with eyes downcast and an attitude of meekness; but in her own heart she was thankful that her future home would lie some distance out of the village and that ilona would probably have but little time to walk out there very often. in the meanwhile, however, she hated these sunday afternoon visits, with their attendant homilies from ilona first, then from aladár--who was self-important and dictatorial, and finally from béla, who was invariably disagreeable and sarcastic whenever he saw his sister and his fiancée together. fortunately, to-day béla had said that she need not stay more than a few minutes. "we'll just pay our respects to ilona and aladár," he had said pompously, "and take another walk before the sun goes down." and elsa--taking him at his word--had made but a meteoric appearance in her future sister-in-law's cottage--a hasty greeting, a brief peck on ilona's two cheeks, and one on aladár's bristly face, then the inevitable homily; and as soon as ilona paused in the latter, in order to draw breath, elsa gave her another peck, by way of farewell, explained hastily that her mother was waiting for her, and fled incontinently from the rigid atmosphere of the best bedroom. béla and his brother-in-law had started on politics, and it took a little time before elsa succeeded in persuading him to have that nice walk with her before the sun went down. but now they were out again in the sunshine at last, and elsa was once more able to breathe freely and with an infinity of relief. "i wonder," said béla dryly, "if you are really taking in all the good advice which ilona so kindly gives you from time to time. you can't do better than model yourself on her. she is a pattern wife and makes aladár perfectly happy. i wonder," he reiterated, with something of a sneer, "if you will learn from her, or if your mother's influence will remain with you for ever?" then, as with her accustomed gentleness she chose to remain silent, rather than resent his sneer, he added curtly: "if you want to make me happy and comfortable you will follow ilona's advice in all things." "i will do my best, béla," she said quietly. then for some reason which the young man himself could not perhaps have explained he once more started talking about andor. "it was very hard on him," he said, with a shrug of his wide shoulders, "to die just when he was on the point of getting his discharge." and after an almost imperceptible moment of hesitation he added with studied indifference: "of course, all that talk of his being still alive is sheer nonsense. i have done everything that lay in my power to find out if there was the slightest foundation for the rumour, but now i--like all sensible people--am satisfied that andor is really dead." elsa was walking beside him, her hand resting lightly on his arm, as was fitting for a girl who was tokened and would be a bride within the week: she walked with head bent, her eyes fixed upon the ground. she made no immediate reply to her fiance's self-satisfied peroration, and her silence appeared to annoy him, for he continued with some acerbity: "don't you care to hear what i did on andor's behalf?" "indeed i do, béla," she said gently, "it was good of you to worry about him--and you so busy already." "i did what i could," he rejoined mollified. "old lakatos pál has hankered after him so, though he cared little enough about andor at one time. andor was his only brother's only child, and i suppose pali bácsi[3] was suddenly struck with the idea that he really had no one to leave his hoardings to. he was always a fool and a lout. if andor had lived it would have been all right. i think pali bácsi was quite ready to do something really handsome for him. now that andor is dead he has no one; and when he dies his money all goes to the government. it is a pity," he added, with a shrug of the shoulders. "if a peasant of marosfalva had it it would do good to the commune." [footnote 3: see footnote on p. 22.] "i am sure if andor had lived to enjoy it he would have spent it freely and done good with it to everyone around," she said quietly. "he would have spent it freely, right enough," he retorted dryly, "but whether he would have done good to everyone around with it--i doubt me . . . to ignácz goldstein, perhaps . . ." "béla, you must not say that," she broke in firmly; "you know that andor never was a drunkard." "i never suggested that he was," retorted béla, whose square, hard face had become a shade paler than before, "so there is no reason for my future wife to champion him quite so hotly as you always do." "i only spoke the truth." "if someone else spoke of me a hundred times more disparagingly than i ever do of andor would you defend me as warmly, i wonder, as you do him?" "don't let us quarrel about andor," she rejoined gently, "it does not seem right now that he is dead." chapter v "love will follow." they had reached the small cottage where old kapus and his wife and elsa lived. it stood at the furthest end of the village, away from the main road, and the cool meadows beside the maros, away from the church and the barn and all the brightest spots of marosfalva. built of laths and mud, it had long ago quarrelled with the whitewash which had originally covered it, and had forcibly ejected it, showing deep gaps and fissures in its walls; the pots and jars which hung from the overhanging thatch were all discoloured and broken, and the hemp which hung in bundles beside them looked uneven and dark in colour, obviously beaten with a slipshod, careless hand. such a contrast to the house of hóhér aladár--the rich justice of the peace and of ilona his wife! elsa knew and expected that the usual homily on the subject would not fail to be forthcoming as it did on every sunday afternoon; she only wondered what particular form it would take to-day, whether béla would sneer at her and her mother for the tumble-down look of the verandah, for the bad state of the hemp, or the coating of dirt upon the earthenware pots. but it was the hemp to-day. "why don't you look after it, elsa?" said béla roughly, as he pointed to the tangled mass of stuff above him, "your mother ruins even the sparse crop which she has." "i can't do everything," said elsa, in that same gentle, even voice which held in its tones all the gamut of hopeless discouragement; "since father has been stricken he wants constant attention. mother won't give it him, so i have to be at his beck and call. then there is the washing . . ." "i know, i know," broke in béla with a sneer, "you need not always remind me that my future wife--the bride of my lord the count's own bailiff--does menial work for a village schoolmistress and a snuffy old priest!" elsa made no reply. she pushed open the door of the cottage and went in; béla followed her, muttering between his teeth. the interior of kapus benkó's home was as squalid, as forlorn looking as its approach; everywhere the hand of the thriftless housewife was painfully apparent, in the blackened crockery upon the hearth, in the dull, grimy look of the furniture--once so highly polished--in the tattered table-cloth, the stains upon the floor and the walls, but above all was it apparent in the dower-chest--that inalienable pride of every thrifty hungarian housewife--the dower-chest, which in ilona's cottage was such a marvel of polish outside, and so glittering in its rich contents of exquisite linen. but here it bore relentless if mute testimony to the shiftless, untidy, disorderly ways of the kapus household. for instead of the neat piles of snow-white linen it was filled with rubbish--with husks of maize and mouldy cabbage-stalks, thrown in higgledy-piggledy with bundles of clothes and rags of every sort and kind. it stood close to the stove, the smoke of which had long ago covered the wood with soot. the lid was thrown open and hung crooked upon a broken hinge. when elsa entered the cottage with erös béla her mother was busy with some cooking near the hearth, and smoke and the odour of _gulyás_ (meat stew) filled the place. close to the fire in an armchair of polished wood sat old kapus benkó, now a hopeless cripple. the fate which lies in wait in these hot countries for the dissolute and the drunkard had already overtaken him. he had had a stroke a couple of years ago, and then another last summer. now he could not move hand or foot, his tongue refused him service, he could only see and hear and eat. otherwise he was like a log: carried from his palliasse on which he slept at night to the armchair in which he sat all day. elsa's strong young arms carried him thus backwards and forwards, she ministered to him, nursed him, did what cheering she could to brighten his days that were an almost perpetual night. at sight of elsa his wrinkled face, which was so like that of a corpse, brightened visibly. she ran to him and said something in his ear which caused his dulled eyes to gleam with momentary pleasure. "what did you bring béla home with you for?" said the mother ungraciously, speaking to her daughter and rudely ignoring the young man, who had thrown his hat down and drawn one of the chairs close to the table. at kapus irma's inhospitable words he merely laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "well, irma néni!" he said, "this is the last sunday, anyhow, that you will be troubled with my presence. after wednesday, as i shall have elsa in my own home, i shall not need to come and visit here." "no!" retorted irma, with a snap of her lean jaws, "you will take good care to alienate her from her duty to her father and to her mother, won't you?" then, in answer to a further sneer from him, she added, more viciously: "you will teach her to be purse-proud like yourself--vain, and disdainful of her old home." béla's one eye--under the distorted brow--wandered with a sullen expression of contempt over every individual piece of furniture in the room. "it's not a home to be proud of, anyway," he said dryly; "is it, irma néni?" "you chose your future wife out of it," retorted irma; "and 'tis from here that you will have to fetch her on wednesday, my friend." she was always ready to quarrel with béla, whose sneering ways she resented, all the more that she knew they were well-deserved. but her last words had apparently poured oil over the already troubled waters of the young man's wrath, for now his sullen expression vanished, and a light of satisfaction and of pride lit up his ungainly face: "and i will fetch my future wife in a style befitting her new position, you may be sure of that," he said, and brought his clenched fist down upon the table with a crash, so that pots and pans rattled upon the hearth and started the paralytic from his torpor. then he threw his head back and began to talk still more arrogantly and defiantly than he had done hitherto. "forty-eight oxen," he said, "shall fetch her in six carts! aye! even though she has not one stick of furniture wherewith to endow her future husband. forty-eight oxen, i tell you, irma néni! never has there been such a procession seen in marosfalva! but erös béla is the richest man in the commune," he added, with an aggressive laugh, "and don't you forget it." but the allusion to elsa's poverty and his own riches had exasperated the old woman. "with all your riches," she retorted, in her turn, with a sneer, "you had to court elsa for many years before she accepted you." "and probably she would not have accepted me at all if you had not bullied and worried her, and ordered her to say 'yes' to me," he rejoined dryly. "children must obey their parents," she said, "it is the law of god." "a law which you, for one, apply to your own advantage, eh, irma néni?" "have you any cause for complaint?" "oh, no! elsa's obedience has served me well. and though i dare say," he added, suddenly casting a sullen look upon the young girl, "she has not much love for me now, she will do her duty by me as my wife, and love will follow in the natural course of things." elsa had taken no part in this wordy warfare between her mother and her future husband. it seemed almost as if she had not heard a word of it. no doubt her ears were trained by now no longer to heed these squabbles. she had drawn a low stool close to the invalid's chair, and sitting near him with her hand resting on his knee, she was whispering and talking animatedly to him, telling him all the gossip of the village, recounting to him every small event of the afternoon and of the morning: pater bonifácius' sermon, the behaviour of the choir boys, patkós emma's new kerchief; when the stock of gossip gave out she began to sing to him, in a low, sweet voice, one of those innumerable folk-songs so dear to every hungarian peasant's heart. irma intercepted the look which béla cast upon his fiancée. she, too, turned and looked at her daughter, and seeing her there, sitting at the feet of that miserable wreck of humanity whom she called "father!" ministering to him, for all the world like the angels around the dying saints, a swift look of pity softened for a moment the mother's hard and pinched face. "you cannot expect the girl to have much love for you now," she said, once more turning a vicious glance upon her future son-in-law; "your mode of courtship was not very tender, you will admit." "i don't believe in all that silly love-making," he rejoined roughly, "it is good enough for the loutish peasants of the _alföld_ (lowlands); they are sentimental and stupid: an educated man does not make use of a lot of twaddle when he woos the woman of his choice." "all men act very much in the same way when they are in love," said irma sententiously. "but i don't believe that you are really in love with elsa." he shrugged his shoulders, and laughed, a short, sarcastic, almost cruel laugh. "perhaps not," he said. "but i want her for my wife all the same." "only because she is the noted beauty of the countryside, and because half the village wanted her." "precisely," he said with a sneer; "there was a good deal of bidding for elsa, eh, irma néni? so you elected to give her to the highest bidder." "you had been courting her longer than anybody," rejoined irma, who this time chose to ignore his taunt. "and i would have won her sooner--on my own--even without your help, if it had not been for that accursed andor." "well! he is dead now, anyway. all doubts, i suppose, are at rest on that point." "there are a few fools still left in the village who maintain that he will turn up some day." "we all hope he will, because of lakatos pál. the poor man is fretting himself into his grave, since he has realized that when he dies his money and land must all go to the government." "he can sell his land and distribute his money while he lives," retorted béla; "but you won't catch him doing that--the old miser." "can't anything more be done?--about andor, i mean." "of course not," he said impatiently; "everything that could be done has been done. it's no use going on having rows by post with the war office about the proofs of a man's death who has been food for worms these past two years." "well! you know, béla, people here are not satisfied about those proofs. i, for one, never held with those who would not believe in andor's death; there are plenty of folk in the village--and pater bonifácius is one of them--who swear that he will come home one of these days--perhaps when pali bácsi is dead. and then he would find himself the richest man in the commune," she added, not without a point of malice, "richer even than you, my good béla." "hold your tongue, you old fool!" broke in béla savagely, as once more the sinister leer which hovered round his sightless eye was turned toward elsa. "didn't i say that i, for one, never believed that rubbish?" retorted irma sullenly; "and haven't i preached to her about it these past two years? but you needn't be afraid," she added, as she turned once more to her stewing-pot, "she didn't hear what i said. when she talks or sings to her father you might shoot off a cannon--she wouldn't hear it. you may say what you like just now, béla, she'll not listen." "oho!" said béla, even as a curious expression of obstinacy, not unmixed with cruelty, crept into his colourless face, "you seem to forget, irma néni, that the rest of elsa's life will have to be spent in listening to me. we'll soon see about that." "elsa!" he called peremptorily. then, as indeed the girl appeared not to hear, but went on softly crooning and singing to the helpless invalid like a mother to its babe, the young man worked himself up into a passion of fury. the veins in his pale forehead and temples swelled up visibly, the glitter in his one eye became more cruel and more menacing, finally he brought his clenched fist once more crashing down upon the table, even while he rose to his feet, as if to give fuller meaning to his future marital authority. "elsa!" he shouted once more, hoarsely. "elsa, do you hear what i say?" chapter vi "i don't wish to marry; not yet." the girl thus roughly apostrophized turned slowly round. she seemed neither hurt nor even surprised at the young man's exhibition of temper. in her blue eyes there was a strange look--one which had lately been habitual to her, but which neither her mother nor béla were able to interpret: it was a look which conveyed the thought of resignation or indifference or both, but also one which was peculiarly lifeless, as of a soul who had touched the cold hand of despair. far be it from me to seek complexity in so simple a soul as was that of this young hungarian peasant girl. elsa kapus had no thought of self-analysis; complicated sex and soul problems did not exist for her; she would never have dreamed of searching the deep-down emotions of her heart and of dragging them out for her mind to scrutinize. the morbid modern craze for intricate and composite emotions was not likely to reach an out-of-the-way hungarian village that slept peacefully on the banks of the sluggish maros, cradled in the immensity of the plain. elsa had loved lakatos andor--the handsome, ardent young lover whose impetuous courtship of her five years ago had carried her on the wings of icarus to a region so full of brightness and of sunlight that it was no wonder that the wings--which had appeared god-like--turned out to be ephemeral and brittle after all, and that she was soon precipitated back and down into the ordinary sea of everyday life. elsa had never heard of icarus, but she had felt herself soaring upwards on heavenly wings when andor--his lips touching her neck--had whispered with passionate ardour: "elsa, i love you!" she had never heard of icarus' fall, but she had experienced her own from the giddy heights of heavenly happiness, down to the depths of dull, aching despair. the fall had been very gradual--there had been nothing grand or heroic or soul-stirring about it: andor had gone away, having told her that he loved her, and adjured her to wait for him. she had waited for three years, patiently, quietly, obstinately, despite the many and varied sieges laid to her heart and her imagination by the inflammable, eligible youth of the countryside. elsa kapus--the far-famed beauty of half the county, counted her suitors by the score. patiently, quietly, obstinately she kept every suitor at bay--even though many were rich and some in high positions--even though her mother, with the same patience, the same quietude, and the same obstinacy worked hard to break her daughter's will. but andor was coming back. andor had adjured her to wait for him: and elsa was still young--just sixteen when andor went away. she was in no hurry to get married. no one, of course, guessed the reason of her obstinate refusal of all the best matrimonial prizes in the county. no one guessed her secret--the depth of her love for andor--her promise to wait for him--her mother guessed it least of all. everyone put her stubbornness down to conceit and to ambition, and no one thought any the worse of her on that account. when she refused young barna--the mayor's eldest son, and nagy lajos, the rich pig merchant from somsó, people shrugged their shoulders and said that mayhap elsa wanted to marry a shopkeeper of arad or even a young noble lord. irma néni said nothing for the first year, and even for two. she saw nagy lajos go away, and young barna court another girl. that was perhaps as it should be. elsa was growing more beautiful every year--and there was a noble lord who owned a fine estate and a castle close by, who had taken lately to riding over on sunday afternoons to marosfalva, and paid marked attention to elsa. noble lords had been known to marry peasant girls--at least in books, so irma néni had been told, and, of course, one never knows! god's ways were wonderful sometimes. but when two years had gone by, when a rich shopkeeper from arad had come and courted and been refused, and when the noble lord had suddenly ceased his sunday afternoon visits to marosfalva, irma became more anxious. she had a long and serious talk with her daughter, which led to no good. to all her mother's wise counsels and sound arguments elsa had opposed the simple statement of facts: "i do not wish to marry, mother dear; not just yet." this, of course, would never do. irma realized that she had allowed her ambition for her daughter to run away with her common-sense. elsa must have got some queer notion or other in her head; that intimacy with the schoolmistress--who came from budapest and talked a vast amount of sentimental stuff which she had imbibed out of books--must be stopped at once, and elsa be taken in hand by her own mother. to aim high was quite one thing, but to let every chance, however splendid, slip through one's fingers was the work of a fool. the work of taking elsa in hand was thus promptly undertaken. fate favoured the mother's intentions: old kapus was stricken with paralysis, and elsa had, from that hour forth, to spend most of her time with her father in the house, and immediately under her mother's eye. though young barna was married by now, and the pig merchant, the noble lord and the rich shopkeeper all gone to seek a sweetheart elsewhere, there were still plenty of suitors dangling round the beauty of the country-side: in fact her well-known pride and aloofness had brought a surfeit of competitors in the lists. foremost among these was erös béla, who was not only young and in a high position as my lord the count's chief bailiff, but was also reputed to be the richest man for miles around. erös béla had long ago made public his determination to win elsa for wife, and he had carried on his courtship unostentatiously but persistently all along, despite the many rivals in the field. elsa never disliked him, she accepted his attentions just as she did those of everyone else. periodically béla would make a formal proposal of marriage, which irma néni, in her own name and that of elsa's paralytic father, invariably accepted. but to his sober and well-worded proposals elsa gave the same replies that she gave to her more impetuous adorers. "i don't want to marry. not yet!" when the work of taking elsa in hand began in earnest, irma used erös béla as her chief weapon of attack. he was very rich, young enough to marry, my lord the count looked upon him as his right hand--moreover béla had made irma néni a solemn promise that if elsa became his wife, his father and mother-in-law should receive that fine house in the kender road to live in, with a nice piece of garden, three cows and five pigs, and a little maid-of-all-work to wait upon them. backed with such a bargain, béla's suit was bound to prosper. and yet, for another whole year, elsa was obstinate. irma had to resort to sterner measures, and in a country like hungary, where much of the patriarchal feeling toward parents still exists, a mother's stern measures become very drastic indeed. a child is a child while she is under her parents' roof. if she be forty she still owes implicit obedience, unbounded respect to them. if she fail in these, she becomes an unnatural creature, denounced to her friends as such, under a cloud of opprobrium before her tiny, circumscribed world. kapus irma brought out the whole armoury of her parental authority, her parental power: and her methods could be severe when she chose. i will not say that she ill-treated the girl, though it was more than once that elsa's right cheek and ear were crimson when the left were quite pale, and that often, on the hot sundays in july and august, when the girls go in low-necked corslets and shifts to church, elsa wrapped a kerchief over her shoulders--the neighbours said in order to hide the corrections dealt by irma néni's vigorous hand. but it was morally that her mother's authority weighed most heavily upon the girl. her commands became more defined, and presently more peremptory. elsa was soon placed in the terrible alternative of either being faithless to andor or disobedient to her mother. and it is characteristic of that part of the world that of the two sins thus in prospect, the latter seemed by far the more heinous. yet andor was due back at the end of the summer. the fourteenth of september came and went and the new recruits went with it--another week, and those who had completed their three years would be coming home. andor would, of course, be among them. there had come no adverse report about him, and no news during those three years is always counted to be good news. no letters or sign of life had come from him, but, then, many of the lads never wrote home while they did their three years, and andor had no one to write to. he would not be allowed to write to elsa, or, rather, elsa would never be allowed to receive letters from him, and his uncle lakatos pál, the old miser, would only be furious with him for spending his few fillérs on note-paper and stamps. but elsa had waited patiently during three years, knowing that though she had no news of him, he would not forget her. she never mistrusted him, she never doubted him. she waited for him, and he did not return. at first, his non-appearance excited neither surprise nor comment in the village. andor had no relations except his uncle lakatos pál, who did not care one brass fillér about him: there had been no one to count the years, the months, the days when he would return: there was only elsa who cared, and she dared not say anything at first, for fear of making her mother angry. but at the turn of the year lakatos pál became ill, and when he got worse and worse and the doctor seemed unable to do anything to make him well, he began to talk of his nephew, andor. that is to say, he bewailed the fact that his only brother's only child was dead, and that he--a poor sick man--had no one to look after him. he first spoke of this to pater bonifácius, who was greatly shocked and upset to hear such casual news of andor's death, and it was only bit by bit that he succeeded in dragging fuller particulars out of the sick man. it seems that when the lad's regiment was out in bosnia there was an outbreak of cholera among the troops. andor was one of those who succumbed. it had all occurred less than a month before his discharge was actually due, in fact these discharges had already been distributed to those who were sick, in the hope that the lads would elect to go home as soon as they could be moved, and thus relieve the government of the burden and expense of their convalescence. but lakatos andor had died in the hospital of slovnitza. an official letter announcing his demise was sent to lakatos pál, his uncle and sole relative, but lakatos only threw the letter into a drawer and said nothing about it to anybody. it was nobody's business, he said. the government would see to the lad's burial, no doubt, but some busy-bodies at marosfalva might think that it was his--lakatos'--duty to put up a stone or something to the memory of his nephew: and that sort of nonsense was very expensive. so no one in marosfalva knew that andor had died of cholera in the hospital of slovnitza until lakatos pál became sick, and in his loneliness spoke of the matter to pater bonifácius. then there was universal mourning in the village. andor had always been very popular: good-looking, as merry as a skylark and a splendid dancer, he was always the life and soul of every entertainment. girls who had flirted with him wept bitter tears, the mothers who thought how rich andor would have been now that old lakatos was sure to die very soon--sighed deep sighs of regret. many there were who never believed that andor was dead. he was not the lad to die of cholera: he might break his neck one day--riding or driving--for he was always daring and reckless--but to lie sick of cholera and to die in a hospital?--no, no, that did not seem like andor. presently it became known that the official letter--announcing the death--had not been quite in order; it was only a rumour--but the rumour quickly gained credence, it fitted in with popular sentiment. pater bonifácius himself, who had seen the letter, declared that the wording of it was very curt and vague--much more curt and vague than such letters usually were. it seems that there were a great many cases of cholera in the isolation hospital at slovnitza and lists were sent up daily from there to budapest of new cases, of severe cases, of discharges and of deaths. in one of these lists andor's name certainly did appear among the dead, and a brief note to that effect had been officially sent to lakatos. but surely the news should have had confirmation! where was the lad buried? who was beside him when he died? where were the few trinkets which he possessed; his mother's wedding-ring which he always wore on his little finger? pater bonifácius wrote to the war office at budapest asking for a reply to these three questions. he received none. then he persuaded barna jenö--the mayor--to write an official document. the war office up at budapest sent an equally official document saying that they had no knowledge on those three points: lakatos andor was one of those whose names appeared on the list of deaths from cholera at slovnitza, and that was quite sufficient proof to offer to any reasonable human being. pater bonifácius sighed in bitter disappointment, lakatos pál continued to bemoan his loneliness until he succeeded in persuading himself that he had always loved andor as his own son, and that the lad's supposed death would presently cause his own. and the neighbours--especially the women--held on to the belief that andor was not dead; they declared that he would return one day to enjoy the good-will of his rich uncle now, to marry a girl of marosfalva, and to look forward to a goodly legacy from pali bácsi by and by. chapter vii "they are jews and we are hungarians." but what of elsa during this time? what of the sorrow, the alternating hope and despair of those weary, weary months? she did not say much, she hardly ever cried, but even her mother--hard and unemotional as she was--respected the girl's secret for awhile, after the news was brought into the cottage that andor was really dead. erös béla had brought the news, and elsa, on hearing it thus blurted out in béla's rough, cruel fashion, had turned deathly pale, ere she contrived to run out of the room and hide herself away in a corner, where she had cried till she had made herself sick and faint. "have you been blind all these years, irma néni?" erös béla had said with his habitual sneer, when irma threw up her bony hands in hopeless puzzlement at her daughter's behaviour. "did you not know that elsa has been in love with andor all along?" "no," said irma in her quiet, matter-of-fact tone, "i did not know it. did you?" "of course i did," he replied dryly; "but i have also known for the past six months that andor was dead." "you knew it?" exclaimed irma with obvious incredulity. "i have told you so, haven't i?" he retorted, "and i am not in the habit of lying." "but how did you come to know it?" "when he did not return last september i marvelled what had happened; i wonder no one else did. then, when lakatos pál first became ill--long even before he confided in pater bonifácius--i made inquiries at the war office and found out the truth." "whatever made you do that?" asked irma, with a shrug of the shoulders. "andor wasn't anything to you." "perhaps not," replied béla curtly; "but, you see, i was afraid that pali bácsi would die and that andor would come back and find himself a rich man. i should have lost elsa then, so i was in a hurry to know." irma once more shrugged her shoulders in her habitual careless, shiftless way--shelving, as it were, the whole responsibility of her life, her fate, and her daughter upon some other power than her own will. she cared nothing about these intrigues of béla's or of anyone else; she only wanted elsa to make a rich marriage, so that she--the mother--might have a happy, comfortable, above all leisurely, old age. but she had enough common sense to see that elsa laboured under the weight of a very great sorrow, and while the girl was in such a condition of grief it would be worse than useless to worry her with suggestions of matrimony. girls had been known to do desperate things if they were overharassed, and kapus irma was no fool; she knew what she wanted, and her instinct, coupled with her greed and cupidity, showed her the best way to get it. so she left elsa severely alone for a time, left her to pursue her household duties, to look after her father, to wash and iron the finery of the more genteel inhabitants of marosfalva--the schoolmistress' blouses, pater bonifácius' surplices. erös béla continued in his unemotional attentions to her--he was more sure of success than ever. his words of courtship were the drops of water that were ultimately destined to wear away a stone. elsa, lulled into security by her mother's placidity and béla's apparent simple friendship, hardly was conscious of the precise moment when the siege against her passive resistance was once more resumed. it was all so gradual, so kind, so persuasive: and she had so little to look forward to in the future. what did it matter what became of her?--whom she married or where her home would be? she saw more of erös béla than she did of anyone else, for erös béla was undoubtedly irma's most favoured competitor. elsa knew that he was of violent temperament, dictatorial and rough; she knew that he was fond of drink, and of the society of klara goldstein, the jewess, but she really did not care. she had kept her promise to andor, she had waited for him until she knew that he never, never could come back; now she might as well obey her mother and put herself right with god, since she cared so little what became of her. and the beauty of marosfalva was tokened to erös béla in the spring of the following year, and presently it was given out that the wedding would take place on the feast of holy michael and all angels at the end of september. congratulations poured in upon the happy pair, rejoicings were held in every house of note in the village. everyone was pleased at the marriage, pleased that the noted beauty would still have her home in marosfalva, pleased that erös béla's wealth would all remain in the place. and elsa received these congratulations and attended these rejoicings with unvarying equanimity and cheerfulness. there was nothing morbid or self-centred in the girl's attitude. people who did not know--and no one really did--and who saw her at mass on sundays or walking arm-in-arm with béla in the afternoons would say that she was perfectly happy. not a radiant bride certainly, not a typical hungarian _menyecske_ whose laughter echoes from end to end of the village, whose merry voice rings all the day, and whose pretty bare feet trot briskly up and down from her cottage to the river, or to the church, or to a neighbour's house, but an equable, contented bride, a fitting wife for a person of such high consideration as was erös béla. her manner to him was always equally pleasant, and though the young pair did not exchange very loving glances--at any rate not in public--yet they were never known to quarrel, which was really quite remarkable, seeing that béla's temper had not improved of late. he was giving way to drink more than he used to, and there were some ugly rumours about my lord the count's dissatisfaction with his erstwhile highly-valued bailiff. many people said that béla would get his dismissal presently if he did not mend his ways; but then he very likely wouldn't care if he did get dismissed, he was a rich man and could give his full time to cultivating his own land. this afternoon, while he was talking with irma and sullenly watching his future wife, he appeared to be quite sober, until a moment ago when unreasoning rage seized hold of him and he shouted to elsa in a rough and peremptory manner. after that, his face, which usually was quite pallid, became hotly flushed, and his one seeing eye had a restless, quivering look in it. nor did elsa's placid gentleness help to cool his temper. when he shouted to her she turned and faced him, and said with a pleasant--if somewhat vague smile: "yes, béla, what is it you want?" "what is it i want?" he muttered, as he sank back into his chair, and resting his elbows on the table he buried his chin in his hands and looked across at the girl with a glowering and sullen look; "what is it i want?" he reiterated roughly. "i want to know what has been the matter with you these last two days?" "nothing has been the matter with me," she replied quietly, "nothing unusual, certainly. why do you ask?" "because for the last two days you have been going about with a face on you fit for a funeral, rather than for a wedding. what is it? let's have it." "nothing, béla. what should it be?" "i tell you there is something," he rejoined obstinately, "and what's more i can make a pretty shrewd guess what it is, eh?" "i don't know what you mean," she said simply. "i mean that the noted beauty of marosfalva does me the honour of being jealous. isn't that it, now? oh! i know well enough, you needn't be ashamed of it, jealousy does your love for me credit, and flatters me, i assure you." "i don't know what you mean, béla," she reiterated more firmly. "i am neither jealous nor ashamed." "not ashamed?" he jeered. "oho! look at your flaming cheeks! irma néni, haven't you a mirror? let her see how she is blushing." "i don't see why she should be jealous," interposed irma crossly, "nor why you should be for ever teasing her. i am sure she has no cause to be ashamed of anything, or of being jealous of anyone." "but i tell you that she is jealous of klara goldstein!" he maintained. "what nonsense!" protested the mother, while the blush quickly fled from the young girl's cheeks, leaving them clear and bloodless. "i tell you she is," he persisted, with wrathful doggedness; "she has been sullen and moody these last two days, ever since i insisted that klara goldstein shall be asked to-morrow to the farewell banquet and the dance." "well, i didn't see myself why you wanted that jewess to come," said irma dryly. "that's nobody's business," he retorted. "i pay for the entertainment, don't i?" "you certainly do," she rejoined calmly. "we couldn't possibly afford to give elsa her maiden's farewell, and if you didn't pay for the supper and the gipsies, and the hire of the schoolroom, why, then, you and elsa would have to be married without a proper send-off, that's all." "and a nice thing it would have been! whoever heard of a girl on this side of the maros being married without her farewell to maidenhood. i am paying for the supper and for everything because i want my bride's farewell to be finer and grander than anything that has ever been seen for many kilomètres round. i have stinted nothing--begrudged nothing. i have given an ox, two pigs and a calf to be slaughtered for the occasion. i have given chickens and sausages and some of the finest flour the countryside can produce. as for the wine . . . well! all i can say is that there is none better in my lord's own cellar. i have given all that willingly. i did it because i liked it. but," he added, and once again the look of self-satisfaction and sufficiency gave way to his more habitual sinister expression, "if i pay for the feast, i decide who shall be invited to eat it." irma apparently had nothing to say in response. she shrugged her shoulders and continued to stir the stew in her pot. elsa said nothing either; obedient to the command of her future lord, she had faced him and listened to him attentively and respectfully all the while that he spoke, nor did her face betray anything of what went on within her soul, anything of its revolt or of its wounded pride, while the storm of wrath and of sneers thus passed unheeded over her head. but béla, having worked himself up into a fit of obstinate rage, was not content with elsa's passive obedience. there had from the first crept into his half-educated but untutored and undisciplined mind the knowledge that though elsa was tokened to him, though she was submissive, and gentle and even-tempered, her heart did not belong to him. he knew but little about love, believed in it still less: in that part of the world a good many men are still saturated with the oriental conception of a woman's place in the world, and even in the innermost recesses of their mind with the oriental disbelief in a woman's soul; but in common with all such men he had a burning desire to possess every aspiration and to know every thought of the woman whom he had chosen for his wife. therefore now, when in response to his rage and to his bombast elsa had only silence for him--a silence which he knew must hide her real thoughts, he suddenly lost all sense of proportion and of prudence; for the moment he felt as if he could hate this woman whom he had wooed and won despite her resistance, and in the teeth of strenuous rivalry; he was seized with a purely savage desire to wound her, to see her cry, to make her unhappy--anything, in fact, to rouse her from this irritating apathy. "i suppose," he said at last, making a great effort to recover his outward self-control, "i suppose that you object to my asking klara goldstein to come to your farewell feast?" thus directly appealed to by her lover, elsa gave a direct reply. "yes, i do," she said. "may i ask why?" "a girl's farewell on the eve of her wedding-day," she replied quietly, "is intended to be a farewell to her girl friends. klara goldstein was never a friend of mine." "she belongs to this village, anyway, doesn't she?" he queried, still trying to speak calmly. he had risen to his feet and stood with squared shoulders, legs wide apart, and hands buried in the pockets of his tightly-fitting trousers. an ugly, ill-tempered, masterful man, who showed in every line of his attitude that he meant to be supreme lord in his own household. "klara goldstein belongs to this village," he reiterated with forced suavity, "she is my friend, is she not?" "she may be your friend, béla," rejoined elsa gently, "and she certainly belongs to this village; but she is not one of us. she is a jewess, not a hungarian, like we all are." "what has her religion to do with it?" he retorted. "it isn't her religion, béla," persisted the girl, with obstinacy at least as firm as his own; "you know that quite well. though it is an awful thing to think that they crucified our lord." "well! that is a good long while ago," he sneered; "and in any case klara and ignácz goldstein had nothing to do with it." "no, i know. therefore i said that religion had nothing to do with it. i can't explain it exactly, béla, but don't we all feel alike about that? hungarians are hungarians, and jews are jews, and there's no getting away from that. they are different to us, somehow. i can't say how, but they are different. they don't speak as we do, they don't think as we do, their sunday is saturday, and their new year's day is in september. jewesses can't dance the csárdás and jews have a contempt for our gipsy music and our songs. they are jews and we are hungarians. it is altogether different." he shrugged his shoulders, unable apparently to gainsay this unanswerable argument. after all, he too was a hungarian, and proud of that fact, and like all hungarians at heart, he had an unexplainable contempt for the jews. but all the same, he was not going to give in to a woman in any kind of disagreement, least of all on a point on which he had set his heart. so now he shifted his ground back to his original dictum. "you may talk as much as you like, elsa," he said doggedly, "but klara goldstein is my friend, and i will have her asked to the banquet first and the dance afterwards, or i'll not appear at it myself." "that's clear, i hope?" he added roughly, as elsa, in her habitual peace-loving way, had made no comment on that final threat. "it is quite clear, béla," she now said passively. "of course the girl shall be asked, béla," here interposed irma néni, who had no intention of quarrelling with her wealthy son-in-law. "i'll see to it, and don't you lose your temper about it. here! sit down again. elsa, bring your father's chair round for supper. béla, do sit down and have a bite. i declare you two might be married already, so much quarrelling do you manage to get through." but béla, as sulky now as a bear with a sore head, refused to stay for supper. "i can't bear sullen faces and dark looks," he said savagely. "i'll go where i can see pleasant smiles and have some fun. i must say, irma néni," he added by way of a parting shot, as he picked up his hat and made for the door, "that i do not admire the way you have brought up your daughter. a woman's place is not only to obey her husband, but to look cheerful about it. however," he added, with a dry laugh, "we'll soon put that right after to-morrow, eh, my dove?" and with a perfunctory attempt at a more lover-like attitude, he turned to elsa, who already had jumped to her feet, and with a pleasant smile was holding up her sweet face to her future lord for a kiss. she looked so exquisitely pretty then, standing in the gloomy half-light of this squalid room, with the slanting golden sunshine which peeped in through the tiny west window outlining her delicate silhouette and touching her smooth fair hair with gold. vanity, self-satisfaction, and mayhap something a little more tender, a little more selfless, stirred in the young man's heart. it was fine to think that this beautiful prize--which so many had coveted--was his by right of conquest. even the young lord whose castle was close by had told erös béla that he envied him his good luck, whilst my lord the count and my lady the countess had of themselves offered to be present at the wedding and to be the principal witnesses on behalf of the most beautiful girl in the county. these pleasant thoughts softened béla's mood, and he drew his fiancée quite tenderly to him. he kissed her on the forehead and on the cheeks, but she would not let him touch her lips. he laughed at her shyness, the happy triumphant laugh of the conqueror. then he nodded to irma and was gone. "he is a very good fellow at heart," said the mother philosophically, "you must try and humour him, elsa. he is very proud of you really, and think what a beautiful house you will have, and all those oxen and pigs and a carriage and four horses. you must thank god on your knees for so much good fortune; there are girls in this village who would give away their ears to be standing in your shoes." "indeed, mother dear, i am very, very grateful for all my good fortune," said elsa cheerfully, as with vigorous young arms she pulled the paralytic's chair round to the table and then got him ready for his meal. after which there was a moment's silence. elsa and her mother each stood behind her own chair: the young girl's clear voice was raised to say a simple grace before a simple meal. the stew had not been put on the table, since béla did not stay for supper. it would do for to-morrow's dinner, and for to-night maize porridge and rye bread would be quite sufficient. elsa looked after her father and herself ate with a hearty, youthful appetite. her mother could not help but be satisfied that the child was happy. the philosophy of life had taught kapus irma a good many lessons, foremost among these was the one which defined the exact relationship between the want of money and all other earthly ills. certainly the want of money was the father of them all. elsa in future would never feel it, therefore all other earthly ills would fall away from her for lack of support. it was as well to think that the child realized this, and was grateful for her own happiness. chapter viii "i put the bunda away somewhere." kapus irma went out after supper to hold a final consultation with the more influential matrons of marosfalva over the arrangements for to-morrow's feast. old kapus had been put to bed on his paillasse in the next room and elsa was all alone in the small living-room. she had washed up the crockery and swept up the hearth for the night; cloth in hand, she was giving the miserable bits of furniture something of a rub-down and general furbishing-up: a thing she could only do when her mother was away, for irma hated her to do things which appeared like a comment on her own dirty, slatternly ways. cleanliness, order and a love of dainty tidiness in the home are marked characteristics of the true hungarian peasantry: the cottages for the most part are miracles of brightness, brightly polished floors, brightly polished pewter, brightly covered feather pillows. kapus irma was a notable exception to the rule, and elsa had often shed bitter tears of shame when one or other of her many admirers followed her into her home and saw the squalor which reigned in it--the dirt and untidiness. she was most ashamed when béla was here, for he made sneering remarks about it all, and seemed to take it for granted that she was as untidy, as slovenly as her mother. he read her long lectures about his sister's fine qualities and about the manner in which he would expect his own wife to keep her future home, and made it an excuse for some of his most dictatorial pronouncements and rough, masterful ways. but to-night even this had not mattered--though he had spoken very cruelly about the hemp--nothing now mattered any more. to-day she had been called for the third time in church, to-morrow evening she would say good-bye to her maidenhood and take her place for the last time among her girl-friends: after to-morrow's feast she would be a matron--her place would be a different one. and on tuesday would come the wedding and she would be erös béla's wedded wife. so what did anything matter any more? after tuesday she would not even be allowed to think of andor, to dream that he had come back and that the past two dreadful years had only been an ugly nightmare. once she was erös béla's wedded wife, it would be no longer right to think of that last morning five years ago, of that final csárdás, and the words which andor had whispered: above all, it would no longer be right to remember that kiss--his warm lips upon her bare shoulder, and later on, out under the acacia tree, that last kiss upon her lips. she closed her eyes for a moment; a sigh of infinite regret escaped through her parted lips. it would have been so beautiful, if only it could have come true! if only something had been left to her of those enchanted hours, something more tangible than just a memory. resolutely now she went back to her work; for the past two years she had found that she could imagine herself to be quite moderately happy, if only she had plenty to do; and she did hope that béla would allow her to work in her new home and not to lead a life of idleness--waited on by paid servants. she had thrown the door wide open, and every now and then, when she paused in her work, she could go and stand for a moment under its narrow lintel; and from this position, looking out toward the west, she could see the sunset far away beyond where the plain ended, where began another world. the plumed heads of the maize were tipped with gold, and in the sky myriads and myriads of tiny clouds lay like a gigantic and fleecy comet stretching right over the dome of heaven above the plain to that distant horizon far, far away. elsa loved to watch those myriads of clouds through the many changes which came over them while the sun sank so slowly, so majestically down into the regions which lay beyond the plain. at first they had been downy and white, like the freshly-plucked feathers of a goose, then some of them became of a soft amber colour, like ripe maize, then those far away appeared rose-tinted, then crimson, then glowing like fire . . . and that glow spread and spread up from the distant horizon, up and up till each tiny cloud was suffused with it, and the whole dome of heaven became one fiery, crimson, fleecy canopy, with peeps between of a pale turquoise green. it was beautiful! elsa, leaning against the frame-work of the door, gazed into that gorgeous immensity till her eyes ached with the very magnificence of the sight. it lasted but a few minutes--a quarter of an hour, perhaps--till gradually the blood-red tints disappeared behind the tall maize; they faded first, then the crimson and the rose and the gold, till, one by one, the army of little clouds lost their glowing robes and put on a grey hue, dull and colourless like people's lives when the sunshine of love has gone down--out of them. with a little sigh elsa turned back into the small living-room, which looked densely black and full of gloom now by contrast with the splendour which she had just witnessed. from the village street close by came the sound of her mother's sharp voice in excited conversation with a neighbour. "it will be all right, irma néni," the neighbour said, in response to some remark of the other woman. "klara goldstein does not expect our village girls to take much notice of her. but i will say that the men are sharp enough dangling round her skirts." "yes," retorted irma, "and i wish to goodness béla had not set his heart on having her at the feast. he is so obstinate: once he has said a thing . . ." "béla's conduct in this matter is not to be commended, my good irma," said the neighbour sententiously; "everyone thinks that for a tokened man it is a scandal to be always hanging round that pert jewess. why didn't he propose to her instead of to elsa, if he liked her so much better?" "hush! hush! my good mariska, please. elsa might hear you." the two women went on talking in whispers. elsa had heard, of course, what they said: and since she was alone a hot blush of shame mounted to her cheeks. it was horrid of people to talk in that way about her future husband, and she marvelled how her own mother could lend herself to such gossip. irma came in a few minutes later. she looked suspiciously at her daughter. "why do you keep the door open?" she asked sharply, "were you expecting anybody to come in?" "only you, mother, and pater bonifácius is coming after vespers," replied the girl. "i stopped outside for a bit of gossip with mariska just now. could you hear what she said?" "yes, mother. i did hear something of what mariska said." "about béla?" "about him--yes." "hej, child! you must not take any notice of what folks say--it is only tittle-tattle. you must not mind it." "i don't mind it, mother. i am sure that it is only tittle-tattle." "your father in bed?" asked irma abruptly changing the subject of conversation. "yes." "and you have been busying yourself, i see," continued the mother, looking round her with obvious disapproval, "with matters that do not concern you. i suppose béla has been persuading you that your mother is incapable of keeping her own house tidy, so you must needs teach her how to do it." "no, mother, nothing was further from my thoughts. i had nothing to do after i had cleared and washed up, and i wanted something to do." "if you wanted something to do you might have got out your father's bunda" (big sheepskin cloak worn by the peasantry) "and seen if the moth has got into it or not. it is two years since he has had it on, and he will want it to-morrow." "to-morrow?" "why, yes. i really must tell you because of the bunda, jankó and móritz and jenö and pál have offered to carry him to the feast in his chair just as he is. we'll put his bunda round him, and they will strap some poles to his chair, so that they can carry him more easily. they offered to do it. it was to be a surprise for you for your farewell to-morrow: but i had to tell you, because of getting the bunda out and seeing whether it is too moth-eaten to wear." while irma went on talking in her querulous, acid way, elsa's eyes had quickly filled with tears. how good people were! how thoughtful! was it not kind of móritz and jenö and the others to have thought of giving her this great pleasure? to have her poor old father near her, after all, when she was saying farewell to all her maidenhood's friends! and what a joy it would be to him!--one that would brighten him through many days to come. oh! people were good! it was monstrously ungrateful to be unhappy when one lived among these kind folk. "where is the bunda, mother?" she asked eagerly. "i'll see to it at once. and if the moths are in it, why i must just patch the places up so that they don't show. where is the bunda, mother?" irma thought a moment, then she frowned, and finally shrugged her shoulders. "how do i know?" she said petulantly; "isn't it in your room?" "no, mother. i haven't seen it since father wore it last." "and that was two years ago--almost to a day. i remember it quite well. it was quite chilly, and your father put on his bunda to go down the street as far as the jew's house. it was after sunset, i remember. he came home and went to bed. the next morning he was stricken. and i put the bunda away somewhere. now wherever did i put it?" she stood pondering for a moment. "under his paillasse?" she murmured to herself. "no. in the cupboard? no." "in the dower-chest, mother?" suggested elsa, who knew of old that that article of furniture was the receptacle for everything that hadn't a proper place. "yes. look at the bottom," said irma placidly, "it might be there." it was getting dark now. through the open door and the tiny hermetically closed windows the grey twilight peeped in shyly. the more distant corner of the little living-room, that which embraced the hearth and the dower-chest, was already wrapped in gloom. elsa bent over the worm-eaten piece of furniture: her hands plunged in the midst of maize-husks and dirty linen, of cabbage-stalks and sunflower-seeds, till presently they encountered something soft and woolly. "here is the bunda, mother," she said. "ah, well! get it out now, and lay it over a chair. you can have a look at it to-morrow--there will be plenty of time before you need begin to dress," said irma, who held the theory that it was never any use doing to-day what could conveniently be put off until to-morrow. "mayn't i have a look at it now, mother?" asked elsa, as she struggled with the heavy sheepskin mantle and drew it out of the surrounding rubbish; "the light will hold out for another half-hour at least, and to-morrow morning i shall have such a lot to do." "you may do what you like while the light lasts, my girl, but i won't have you waste the candle over this stupid business. candle is very dear, and your father will never wear his bunda again after to-morrow." "i won't waste the candle, mother. but pater bonifácius is coming in to see me after vespers." "what does he want to come at an hour when all sensible folk are in bed?" queried irma petulantly. "he couldn't come earlier, mother dear; you know how busy he is always on sundays . . . benediction, then christenings, then vespers. . . . he said he would be here about eight o'clock." "eight o'clock!" exclaimed the woman, "who ever heard of such a ridiculous hour? and candles are so dear--there's only a few centimètres of it in the house." "i'll only light the candle, mother, when the pater comes," said elsa, with imperturbable cheerfulness; "i'll just sit by the open door now and put a stitch or two in father's bunda while the light lasts: and when i can't see any longer i'll just sit quietly in the dark, till the pater comes. i shall be quite happy," she added, with a quaint little sigh, "i have such a lot to think about." "so have i," retorted irma, "and i shall go and do my thinking in bed. i shall have to be up by six o'clock in the morning, i expect, and anyhow i hate sitting up in the dark." she turned to go into the inner room, but elsa--moved by a sudden impulse--ran after her and put her arms round her mother's neck. "won't you kiss me, mother?" she said wistfully. "you won't do it many more times in my old home." "a home you have often been ashamed of, my child," the mother said sullenly. but she kissed the girl--if not with tenderness, at any rate with a curious feeling of pity which she herself could not have defined. "good-night, my girl," she said, with more gentleness than was her wont. "sleep well for the last time in your old bed. i doubt if to-morrow you'll get into it at all, and don't let the pater stay too long and waste the candle." "i promise, mother," said elsa, with a smile; "good-night!" chapter ix "then, as now, may god protect you." the bunda was very heavy. elsa dragged it over her knee, and sat down on a low stool in the open doorway. she had pulled the table a little closer, and on it were her scissors, needles and cotton, as well as the box of matches and the candle which she would be allowed to light presently when pater bonifácius came. the moth certainly had caused many ravages in the sheepskin cloak--there were tiny holes everywhere, and the fur when you touched it came out in handfuls. but as the fur would be turned inwards, that wouldn't matter so much. the bunda was quite wearable: there was just a bad tear in the leather close to the pocket, which might show and which must be mended. elsa threaded her needle, and began to hum her favourite song under her breath: "nincsen annyi tenger csillag az égen mint a hányszor vagy eszembe te nékem." "there are not so many myriads of stars in the sky as the number of times that my thoughts fly to thee!" she was determined not to think any more of the past. in a few hours now that chapter in her life would be closed, and it was useless and wicked to be always thinking of the "might-have-been." rather did she set herself resolutely to think of the future, of that part of it, at any rate, which was bright. there would be her mother installed in that comfortable house on the kender road, and with a nice bit of land and garden round in which to grow vegetables and keep some poultry. there would be her three cows and the pigs which béla was giving her, and which he would graze on his own land. above all, there would be the comfortable bed and armchair for the sick man, and the little maid to wait upon him. there was so much, so much to be thankful for! and since god chose to take andor away, what else was there to live for, save to see her mother and father contented? the light was going fast. elsa had made a splendid job of that one pocket. the other, too, wanted a stitch. it was very badly torn--if only the feeble light would hold out another ten minutes . . . that hole, too, would be securely mended. with the splendid disregard of youth for its most precious gift, elsa strained her eyes to thread her needle once more. she tackled the second pocket of the shabby bunda. there was a long tear at the side, as if the wearer's hand had missed the actual pocket and been thrust carelessly or roughly through the leather. elsa put her hand through the hole, too, to see the extent of the mischief. yes! that was it, her father must more than once have missed the pocket and put his hand into the hole, making it bigger and bigger. why! there was a whole lot of rubbish deep down inside the lining. elsa drew out an empty tobacco-pouch, a bit of string, a length of tinder, and from the very bottom, where it lay in a crinkled mass, a ball of crumpled paper. this she smoothed out, holding it over her knee. it was a letter--one which must have been delivered on the very day when her father last wore the bunda. the envelope had not been broken: old kapus hadn't had time to read his letter, the last which he had received before living death encompassed him. the tears gathered in elsa's eyes at thought of her father handling this very letter with shaking yet still living hands: now they were incapable even of gripping this tiny piece of paper. but then--two years ago, her mother said it was, almost to a day when last he wore the bunda--then he had received the letter from the postman and evidently thrust it into his pocket, meaning to read it at some more convenient time. the peasants of that part of the world have never quite lost their distrust of railways, of telegrams, and even of letters--they are half-afraid of them all, afraid with that vague, unreasoning fear which animals have for things they see yet cannot understand. elsa handled this unopened letter with something of that same fear. she did not think at first of looking at the superscription. who could have been writing to her father two years ago? he had no rich friends who could afford to spend money on note-paper and stamps. there was no news in the great outer world which someone could have wished to impart to him. the light indeed was very dim before elsa, sitting here with the old bunda on her knee, thought of looking more closely at the envelope. she bent down and out toward the light, trying to decipher the writing. the letter was addressed to her. oh! it was quite clear! "tekintetes kapus elsa kisasszonynak." it was quite, quite clearly written. the letter was addressed to her. the postman had brought it here two years ago: her father had taken it from him and thrust it into the pocket of his bunda, meaning to give it presently to his daughter. but that evening perhaps he forgot it altogether: he had been drinking rather heavily of late. and the next day he was stricken down with paralysis, his tongue refused him service, and he no longer could tell his daughter--as no doubt he wanted to do--that a letter had come for her and that it was in the pocket of his bunda. and the bunda was thrust away into the dower-chest with the husks of maize and the cabbage-stalks, and it had never been taken out until to-night--the eve of elsa's wedding-day. she tore open the envelope now with fingers that trembled slightly. the light was very dim, and where the glorious sunset had been such a little while ago there was only the dull grey canopy of an overcast sky. but elsa could just make out the writing: already her eye had wandered to the signature, "your ever-devoted andor." the message seemed to come to her as from the grave, for she thought that these were probably andor's last words to her, penned just before he died in that awful hospital in bosnia. "my sweet dove!" she read. "this is to tell you that i am well: although it has been a close fight between life and death for me. but i did so want to live, my sweetheart, for i have you to look forward to in life. i have been at death's door, and i believe that the doctor here, before he went away one evening, signed the paper to say that i was dead. but that same night i took a turn for the better, and it was wonderful how soon i was up again. i'll tell you all about it some day, my love, some day when i come to claim your promise that you would wait for me. because, dear heart, while i have been ill i have been thinking very seriously. i have not a silver florin to bless myself with: how can i come and dare to ask you to be my wife? your father and mother would kick me out of their house, they would forbid me to see you; they would part you from me, my dear, beautiful angel, and i should feel that it was just. i--a good-for-nothing, penniless lout, daring to approach the queen of beauty, the most exquisite girl on god's earth. i have thought it all over, dear heart, and all will be well if you will be true to me--if you will wait for me another two years. oh! i do not ask you to do it, i am not worthy of your love. who am i, that you should keep yourself for me?--but i will pray to god night and day that he may not take away your love from me. i am going to america, dear heart, with an english gentleman who has been very kind to me. he was the english consul at cettinje, and when there were so many of us--hungarian lads--lying sick of that awful cholera in the hospital at slovnitza, his wife, a sweet, kind lady, used to come and visit us and cheer us up. she was very ugly and had big teeth and no waist, but she was an angel of goodness. she took some interest in me, and once when i was still very weak and ill i told her about you, about our love and what little hope i had of ever winning you, seeing that i was penniless. she was greatly interested, and when i was finally allowed to leave the hospital, she told me to come and see her husband, the english consul. well! dear heart, this kind gentleman is sending me out to a farm which he possesses in a place called australia--i think that it is somewhere in america, but i am not sure. when i get there i shall receive more wage in one week than our alföld labourers get in three months, and it will all be good money, of which i can save every fillér, because my food and housing will be given to me free, and the kind english lady--may the virgin protect her, despite her large teeth and flat chest--gave me a whole lot of clothes to take with me. so every fillér which i earn i can save, and i reckon that in two years i shall have saved two thousand florins" (about £160) "and then i shall come home. if i still find you free, my dove--which i pray to god i may do--we can get married at once. then we'll rent the lepke farm from pali bácsi, as i shall have plenty of money for the necessary security, and if we cannot make that pay and become rich folk within three years, then i am not the man whom i believe myself to be. "but, my darling love, do not think for a moment that i want to bind you to me against your will. god only knows how deeply i love you; during the last three years the thought of you has been the sunshine of my days, the light of my nights. if, when you have received and pondered over this letter, you send me a reply to say that you still love me, that you will be true to me and will wait for my return, then you will change my world into a paradise. no work will be too hard, no difficulty too great to surmount, if it will help me the sooner to come back to you. but if, on the other hand, you tell me or leave me to guess that i am a fool for thinking that you would waste your beauty and your sweetness on waiting for a good-for-nothing scamp like me, why, then, i shall understand. i shall go out to america--or wherever that place called australia may be--but maybe i shall never come back. but i should never curse you, dear heart, i should never cease to love you: i should quite understand. "i have got one of the nurses at the hospital to write this letter for me, to put my rough words into good hungarian and to write down my thoughts in a good, clear hand. that is how it comes to be so well written. you know i was never much of a hand with a pen and paper, but i do love you, my dove! my god, how i love you. "the nurse says that australia is not in america at all--that it is a different place altogether. well! i do not care where it is. i am going there because there i can earn one hundred florins a month, and save enough in two years to marry you and keep you in comfort. but i shall not see you, my dove, before i go: if i saw you again, if i saw hungary again, our village, our alföld, heaven help me! but i don't think i would have the heart to go away again. "farewell, dear heart, i go away full of hope. we go off next week in a big, big ship from here. i go full of sadness, but if you do want me to come back just write me a little letter with the one word 'yes,' and address it as above. then will my sadness be changed to heavenly joy and hope. but if it is to be 'no,' then tell me so quite truly, and i will understand. "then, as now, may god protect you, my dove, my heart, "your ever-devoted "andor." the letter fell out of elsa's hands on to her knee. she took no heed of it, she was staring out into the immensity far away, into the fast-gathering gloom. two years ago! two years of sorrow and vain regrets which never need have been. one word from her father or from the postman, the feel of crisp paper in her father's bunda when it was put away two years ago, and the whole course of her life would have been changed. the village street behind her was silent now, even the footsteps of belated folk hurrying to their homes sent up no echo from the soft, sandy ground. and before her the fast-gathering night was slowly wrapping the plain in its peace-giving shroud. inside the cottage all was still: mother and father lay either asleep or awake thinking of the morrow. a great, heavy sob shook the young girl's vigorous young frame. it seemed too wantonly cruel, this decree of fate which had withheld from her the light of her life. how easy it would have been to wait! how swiftly these two years would have flown past. her heart would have kept young--waiting for andor and for happiness, whereas now it was numb and unsentient, save for a feeling of obedience and of filial duty, of pity for her mother and father, and of resignation to her future state. indeed fate was being wantonly cruel to her to the last in thus putting before her eyes a picture of the might-have-been just when it was too late. in a few hours from now the great vow would be spoken, the irrevocable knot tied which bound her to another man. her troth was already plighted, her confession made to pater bonifácius--in a few hours from now she would be béla's wife, and if andor did come back now, she must be as nothing to him, he as a mere distant friend. but probably he never would come back. he received no reply to his fond letter of farewell, not one word from her to cheer him on his way. no doubt by now he had made a home for himself in that far distant land. another woman--a stranger--revelled in the sunshine of his love, while elsa, whose whole life had been wrapped up in him, was left desolate. for a moment a wild spirit of revolt rose in her. was it too late, after all? was any moment in life too late to snatch at fleeing happiness? why shouldn't she run away to-night--now?--find that unknown country, that unknown spot where andor was? surely god would give her strength! god could not be so unjust and so cruel as men and fate had been! pater bonifácius, turning from the street round the angle of the cottage, found her in this mood, squatting on the low stool, her elbows on her knees, her face buried in her hands. he came up to her quite gently, for though his was a simple soul it was full of tenderness and of compassion for the children of these plains whom god had committed into his charge. "elsa, my girl," he asked softly, "what is it?" chapter x "the best way of all." pater bonifácius had placed his kindly hand on the girl's hunched-up shoulders, and there was something in his touch which seemed to soothe the wild paroxysm of her grief. she raised her tear-stained face to his, and without a word--for her lips were shaking and she could not have spoken then--she handed him andor's letter. "may i go in," he asked, "and light the candle? it is too dark now to read." she rose quickly, and with an instinctive sense of respect for the parish priest she made hasty efforts to smooth her hair and to wipe her face with her apron. then she turned into the room, and though her hand still trembled slightly, she contrived to light the candle. the old priest adjusted his horn-rimmed spectacles on his nose and drew a chair close to the light. he sat down and read andor's letter through very slowly. when he had finished, he handed it back to elsa. "god's ways, my child, are mysterious," he said, with a short sigh; "it is not for us to question them." "mysterious?" exclaimed the girl, with passionate wrath; "i call them cruel and unjust, pater! what have i done, that he should have done this to me? andor loved me and i loved him, he wrote me a letter full of love, begging for a word from me to assure him that i would always love him and that i would wait for him. why was that letter kept from me? why was i not allowed to reply to it? my father would not have kept the letter from me, had he not been stricken down with paralysis on the very day when it came. it is god who kept my happiness away from me. it is god who has spoilt my life and condemned me to regrets and wretchedness, when i had done nothing to deserve such a cruel fate!" "it is god," interposed the priest gently, "who even at this moment forgives an erring child all the blasphemy which she utters." then, as elsa, dry-eyed and with quivering lips, still looked the personification of revolt, he placed his warm, gentle hands upon hers and drew her a little closer to him. "are we, then," he asked softly, "such very important things in the scheme of god's entire creation that everything must be ordered so as to suit us best?" "i only wanted to be happy," murmured elsa, in a quivering voice. "you only wanted to be happy in your own way, my child," rejoined the priest, as he patted her hands tenderly, "but it does not happen to have been god's way. now who shall say which is the best way of being happy? who knows best? you or god?" "if the postman had given me the letter, and not to father," she murmured dully, "if father had not been stricken down with illness the very next day, if i had only had this letter two years ago, instead of to-day . . ." and the sentence was left unfinished, broken by a bitter sigh of regret. "if it all had been as you say, my child," said pater bonifácius kindly, "then you might perhaps have been happy according to your own light, whereas now you are going to be happy in accordance with that of god." she shook her head and once more her eyes filled with tears. "i shall never be happy again," she whispered. "oh, yes, you will, my dear," retorted the kindly old man, whose rugged face--careworn and wrinkled--was lit up with a half-humorous, wholly indulgent smile; "it is wonderful what a capacity for happiness the good god has given to us all. the only thing is that we can't always be happy in our own way; but the other ways--if they are god's ways--are very much better, believe me. why he chose to part you from andor," he added, with touching simplicity, "why he chose to withhold that letter from you until to-night, we shall probably never know. but that it was his way for your future happiness, of that i am convinced." "there could have been no harm this time, pater, in andor and i being happy in our way. there could be no wrong in two people caring for one another, and wanting to live their lives together." "ah! that we shall never know, my child. the book of the 'might-have-been' is a closed one for us. only god has the power to turn over its pages." "andor and i would have been so happy!" she reiterated, with the obstinacy of a vain regret; "and life would have been an earthly paradise." "and perhaps you would have forgotten heaven in that earthly paradise; who knows, your happiness might have drawn you away from god, you might have spent your life in earthly joys, you might have danced and sung and thought more and more of pleasure, and less and less of god. who knows? whereas now you are just going to be happy in god's way: you are going to do your duty by your mother and your father, and, above all, by your husband. you are going to fill your life by thoughts of god first and then of others, instead of filling it with purely selfish joys. you are going to walk up the road of life, my child, with duty to guide you over the roughnesses and hard stones that will bestrew your path: and every roughness which is surmounted, every hardship which is endured, every sacrifice of self which is offered up to one who made the greatest possible sacrifice for us all, will leave you happier than before . . . happier in god's way, the best way of all." he talked on for a long while in this gentle, heartfelt way, and gradually, as the old man spoke, the bitterness and revolt died out of the simple-minded child's heart. hers, after all, was a simple faith--but as firmly rooted within her as her belief in the sunshine, the alternating days and nights, the turns of the season. and the kind priest, who after life's vicissitudes had found anchorage in this forlorn village in the midst of the plains, knew exactly how to deal with these childlike souls. like those who live their lives upon the sea, the hungarian peasant sees only immensity around him, and above him that wonderful dome which hides its ineffable mysteries behind glorious veils of sunset and sunrise, of storm and of fantastic clouds. the plain stretches its apparently limitless expanse to a distance which he--its child--has never reached. untutored and unlearned, he does not know what lies beyond that low-lying horizon into whose arms the sun sinks at evening in a pool of fire. everything around him is so great, so vast, so wonderful--the rising and setting of the sun, the stars and moon at nights, the gathering storms, the rainfalls, the sowing of the maize and the corn, the travail of the earth and the growing and developing of the stately heads of maize from one tiny, dried, yellow grain--that he has no inclination for petty casuistry, for arguments or philosophy. god's work is all that he ever sees: the book of life and death the only one he reads. and because of that simple faith, that sublime ignorance, elsa found comfort and peace in what pater bonifácius said. i will not say that she ceased to regret, nor that the grief of her heart was laid low, but her heart was soothed, and to her already heavy sorrow there was no longer laid the additional burden of a bitter resentment. then for awhile after he had spoken the priest was silent. no one knew better than he did the exact value of silence, whilst words had time to sink in. so they both remained in the gloom side by side--he the consoler and she the healed. the flickering candle light played curious and fantastic tricks with their forms and faces, lighting up now and then the wrinkled, wizened face of the old man, with the horn-rimmed spectacles perched upon his nose, and now and then the delicate profile of the girl, the smooth, fair tresses and round, white neck. "shall we not say a little prayer together?" whispered pater bonifácius at last, "just the prayer which our dear lord taught us--our father which art in heaven . . ." slowly the young girl sank on her knees beside the gentle comforter; her fair head was bowed, her face hidden in her hands. word for word now she repeated after him the sublime invocation taught by divine lips. and when the final whispered amen ceased to echo in the low, raftered room, pater bonifácius laid his hand upon the child's head in a gesture of unspoken benediction. chapter xi "after that, happiness will begin." pater bonifácius' kindliness, his gentle philosophy and unquestioning faith exercised a soothing influence over elsa's spirits. the one moment of rebellion against fate and against god, before the arrival of the old priest, had been the first and the last. there is a goodly vein of oriental fatalism still lurking in the hungarians: "god has willed it!" comes readily enough to their lips. though this unsophisticated child of the plains suffered none the less than would her more highly-cultured sisters in the west, yet she was more resigned--in her humble way, more philosophical--accepting the inevitable with an aching heart, mayhap, but with a firm determination to make the best of the few shreds of happiness which were left to her. elsa had promised before god and before the whole village that she would marry erös béla on the feast of st. michael and all angels, and after that single thought of rebellion, she knew that on the following tuesday this would have to be just as surely as the day follows the night and the night the day. even that selfsame evening, after the pater had gone and before she went to bed, she made her final preparations for the next three days, which were the turning-points of her life. to-morrow her farewell banquet: a huge feast in the big schoolroom, hired expressly for the occasion. fifty people would sit down to that, they were the most intimate friends of the contracting parties, hers and béla's, and her mother's. it is the rule that the bride's parents provide this entertainment, but kapus benkó and his wife had not the means for it, and erös béla, insisting upon a sumptuous feast, was ready enough to pay for this gratification of his own vanity. after the banquet, dancing would begin and would be kept up half the night. then the next morning was the wedding-day. the wedding mass in the morning, then the breakfast, more dancing, more revelling, more jollification, also kept up throughout the night. for it is only on the day following, that the bridegroom goes to fetch his bride out of her home, to conduct her to his own with all the pomp and circumstance which his wealth allows. so many carts, so many oxen, so many friends in the carts, and so many gipsies to make music while the procession slowly passes up the village street. all that was, of course, already arranged for. the banquet for to-morrow was prepared, the ox roasted whole, the pigs and the capons stuffed. erös béla had provided everything, and provided most lavishly. fifty persons would sit down to the farewell banquet, and more like two hundred to the wedding-breakfast; the village was agog with excitement, gipsies from arad had been engaged, my lord the count and the countess were coming to the wedding mass! . . . how could one feeble, weak, ignorant girl set her will against this torrent? elsa, conscious of her helplessness, set to with aching heart, but unwavering determination to put the past entirely behind her. what was the good of thinking, since fate had already arranged everything? she went to bed directly after the pater went away, because there was no more candle in the house, and because her mother kept calling querulously to her; and having stretched her young limbs out upon the hard paillasse, she slept quite peacefully, because she was young and healthy and did not suffer from nerves, and because sorrow had made her very weary. and the next morning, the dawn of the first of those all-important three days, found her busy, alert, quite calm outwardly, even though her cheeks had lost something of their rosy hue, and her blue eyes had a glitter in them which suggested unshed tears. there was a lot to do, of course: the invalid to get ready, the mother's dressing to see to, so that she should not look slovenly in her appearance, and call forth some of those stinging remarks from béla which had the power to wound the susceptibilities of his fiancée. irma was captious and in a tearful humour, bemoaning the fact that she was too poor to pay for her only daughter's farewell repast. "whoever heard of a bridegroom paying for his fiancée's farewell?" she said. "you will despise your poor parents now, elsa." it was certainly an unusual thing under the circumstances; the maiden's farewell to the friends of her girlhood, to their parents and belongings, is a great event in this part of the world in connection with the wedding festivities themselves, of which it is the precursor. the parents of the bride invariably provide the entertainment, and do so in accordance with their means. but erös béla was a proud man in the county: he would not hear of any festival attendant upon his marriage being less than gorgeous and dazzling before the eyes of the whole countryside. he chose to pay the piper, so that he might call the tune, and though elsa--wounded in her own pride--did her best to protest, she was overruled by her mother, who was only too thankful to see this expensive burden taken from off her shoulders. kapus irma was a proud mother to-day, for as elsa finally stood before her, arrayed in all her finery for the coming feast, she fully justified her right to be styled "the beauty of the county." a picture she looked from the top of her small head, with its smooth covering of fair hair, yellow as the ripening corn, to the tips of her small, arched feet, encased in the traditional boots of bright crimson leather. her fair hair was plaited closely from the crown of her head and tied up with strands of red, white and green ribbons, nor did the hard line of the hair drawn tightly away from the face mar the charm of its round girlishness. it gave it its own peculiar character--semi-oriental, with just a remaining _soupçon_ of that mysterious ancestry whose traditions are lost in the far-off mountains of thibet. the tight-fitting black corslet spanned the girlish figure, and made it look all the more slender as it seemed to rise out of the outstanding billows of numberless starched petticoats. necklace and earrings made of beads of solid gold--a present from béla to his fiancée--gave a touch of barbaric splendour to this dainty apparition, whilst her bare shoulders and breast, her sturdy young arms and shapely, if toil-worn, hands made her look as luscious a morsel of fresh girlhood as ever gladdened the heart of man. irma surveyed her daughter from head to foot with growing satisfaction. then, with a gesture of unwonted impulse, she took the young girl by the shoulders and, drawing her closely to her own bony chest, she imprinted two sounding kisses on the fresh, pale cheeks. "there," she said lustily, "your mother's kiss ought to put some colour in those cheeks. heigho, child!" she added with a sigh, as she wiped a solitary tear with the back of her hand, "i don't wonder you are pale and frightened. it is a serious step for a girl to take. i know how i felt when your father came and took me out of my mother's house! but for you it is so easy: you are leaving a poor, miserable home for the finest house this side of the maros and a life of toil and trouble for one of ease! to-day you are still a maid, to-morrow you will be a married woman, and the day after that your husband will fetch you with six carts and forty-eight oxen and a gipsy band and all his friends to escort you to your new home, just as every married woman in the country is fetched from her parents' home the day after she has spoken her marriage vows. after that your happiness will begin: you will soon forget the wretched life you have had to lead for years, helping me to put maize into a helpless invalid's mouth." "i shall never forget my home, dear mother," said elsa earnestly, "and every fillér which i earned and which helped to make my poor father comfortable was a source of happiness to me." "hm!" grunted the mother dryly, "you have not looked these past two years as if those sources of happiness agreed with you." "i shall look quite happy in the future, mother," retorted elsa cheerily; "especially when i have seen you and father installed in that nice house in the kender road, with your garden and your cows and your pigs and a maid to wait on you." "yes," said irma naïvely, "béla promised me all that if i gave you to him: and i think that he is honest and will keep to his promise." then, as elsa was silent, she continued fussily: "there, now, i think i had better go over to the schoolroom and see that everything is going on all right. i don't altogether trust ilona and her parsimonious ways. such airs she gives herself, too! i must go and show her that, whatever béla may have told her, i am the hostess at the banquet to-day, and mean to have things done as i like and not as she may choose to direct. . . . now mind you don't allow your father to disarrange his clothes. móritz and the others will be here by about eleven, and then you can arrange the bunda round him after they have fixed the carrying-poles to his chair. we sit down to eat at twelve o'clock, and i will come back to fetch you a quarter of an hour before that, so that you may walk down the street and enter the banqueting place in the company of your mother, as it is fitting that you should do. and don't let anyone see you before then: for that is not proper. when you fix the bunda round your father's shoulders, make all the men go out of the house before you enter the room. do you understand?" "yes, mother." "you know how particular béla is that everything should be done in orderly and customary style, don't you?" "yes, mother," replied elsa, without the slightest touch of irony; "i know how much he always talks about propriety." "though you are not his wife," continued irma volubly, "and won't be until to-morrow, you must begin to-day to obey him in all things. and you must try and be civil to klara goldstein, and not make béla angry by putting on grand, stiff airs with the woman." "i will do my best, mother dear," said elsa, with a quick short sigh. "good-bye, then," concluded irma, as she finally turned toward the door, "don't crumple your petticoats when you sit down, and don't go too near the hearth, there is some grease upon it from this morning's breakfast. don't let anyone see you and wait quietly for my return." having delivered herself of these admonitions, which she felt were incumbent upon her in her interesting capacity as the mother of an important bride, irma at last sailed out of the door. elsa--obedient to her mother and to convention, did not remain standing beneath the lintel as she would have loved to do on this beautiful summer morning, but drew back into the stuffy room, lest prying eyes should catch sight of the heroine of the day before her state entry into the banqueting hall. with a weary little sigh she set about thinking what she could do to kill the next two hours before móritz and jenö and those other kind lads came to take her father away. with the door shut the room was very dark: only a small modicum of light penetrated through the solitary, tiny window. elsa drew a chair close beside it and brought out her mending basket and work-box. but before settling down she went back into the sleeping-room to see that the invalid was not needing her. of course he always needed her, and more especially to-day, one of the last that she would spend under his roof. he was not tearful about her departure--his senses were too blunt now to feel the grief of separation--he only felt pleasantly excited, because he had been told that móritz and jenö and the others were coming over presently and that they meant to carry him in his chair, just as he was, so that he could be present at his daughter's "maiden's farewell." this had greatly elated him: he was looking forward to the rich food and the luscious wine which his rich future son-in-law was providing for his guests. and now, when elsa came to him, dressed in all her pretty finery, he loved to look on her, and his dulled eyes glowed with an enthusiasm which had lain atrophied in him these past two years. he was like a child now with a pretty doll, and elsa, delighted at the pleasure which she was giving him, turned about and around, allowed him to examine her beautiful petticoats, to look at her new red boots and to touch with his lifeless fingers the beads of solid gold which her fiancé had given her. suddenly, while she was thus displaying her finery for the benefit of her paralytic father, she heard the loud bang of the cottage door. someone had entered, someone with a heavy footstep which resounded through the thin partition between the two rooms. she thought it must be one of the young men, perhaps, with the poles for the carrying-chair; and she wondered vaguely why he had come so early. she explained to the invalid that an unexpected visitor had come, and that she must go and see what he wanted; and then, half ashamed that someone should see her contrary to her mother's express orders and to all the proprieties, she went to the door and opened it. the visitor had not closed the outer door when he had entered, and thus a gleam of brilliant september daylight shot straight into the narrow room; it revealed the tall figure of a man dressed in town clothes, who stood there for all the world as if he had a perfect right to do so, and who looked straight on elsa as she appeared before him in the narrow frame of the inner door. his face was in full light. she recognized him in the instant. but she could not utter his name, she could not speak; her heart began to beat so fast that she felt that she must choke. the next moment his arms were round her, he kicked the outer door to with his foot, and then he dragged her further into the room; he called her name, and all the while he was laughing--laughing with the glee of a man who feels himself to be supremely happy. chapter xii "it is too late." and now there he was, as of old, sitting, as was his wont, on the corner of the table, his two strong hands firmly grasping elsa's wrists. she held him a little at arm's length, frightened still at the suddenness of his apparition here--on this day--the day of her farewell feast. when first he drew her to him, she had breathed his name--softly panting with excitement, "andor!" the blood had rushed to her cheeks, and then flowed back to her heart, leaving her pale as a lily. she did not look at him any more after that first glance, but held her head bent, and her eyes fixed to the ground. slowly the tears trickled down her cheeks one by one. but he did not take his glowing, laughing eyes away from her, though he, too, was speechless after that first cry of joy: "elsa!" he held her wrists and in a happy, irresponsible way was swinging her arms out and in, all the while that he was drinking in the joy of seeing her again. surely she was even more beautiful than she had ever been before. he did not notice that she was dressed as for a feast, he did not heed that she held her head down and that heavy tears fell from her eyes. he had caught the one swift look from her blue eyes when she first recognized him: he had seen the blush upon her cheeks then; the look and the blush had told him all that he wanted to know, for they had revealed her soul to him. manlike, he looked no further. happiness is such a natural thing for wretched humanity to desire, that it is so much easier to believe in it than in misery when it comes. at last he contrived to say a few words. "elsa! how are you, my dove?" he said naïvely. "i am quite well, thank you, andor," she murmured through her tears. then she tried to draw her wrists out of his tenacious clutch. "may i not kiss you, elsa?" he asked, with a light, happy laugh--the laugh of a man sure of himself, and sure of the love which will yield him the kiss. "if you like, andor," she replied. she could not have denied him the kiss, not just then, at any rate, not even though every time that his warm lips found her eyes, her cheeks, her neck, she felt such a pain in her heart that surely she thought that she must die of it. after that he let her wrists go, and she went to sit on a low stool, some little distance away from him. her cheeks were glowing now, and it was no use trying to disguise her tears. andor saw them, of course, but he did not seem upset by them: he knew that girls were so different to men, so much more sensitive and tender: and so now he was only chiding himself for his roughness. "i ought to have prepared you for my coming, elsa," he said. "i am afraid it has upset you." "no, no, andor, it's nothing," she protested. "i did want to surprise you," he continued naïvely. "not that i ever really doubted you, elsa, even though you never wrote to me. i thought letters do get astray sometimes, and i was not going to let any accursed post spoil my happiness." "no, of course not, andor." "you did not write to me, did you, elsa?" he asked. "no, andor. i did not write." "but you had my letter? . . . i mean the one which i wrote to you before i sailed for australia." "the postman," she murmured, "gave it to father when it came. then the next day father was stricken with paralysis; he never gave it to me. only last night . . ." "my god," he broke in excitedly, "and yet you remained true to me all this while, even though you did not know if i was alive or dead! holy mother of god, what have i done to deserve such happiness?" then as she did not speak--for indeed the words in her throat were choked by her tears--he continued talking volubly, like a man who is intoxicated with the wine of joy: "oh! i never doubted you, elsa! but i had planned my home-coming to be a surprise to you. it was not a question of keeping faith, of course, because you were never tokened to me, therefore i just wanted to read in your dear eyes exactly what would come into them in the first moment of surprise . . . whether it would be joy or annoyance, love or indifference. and i was not deceived, elsa, for when you first saw me such a look came into your eyes as i would not exchange for all the angels' glances in paradise." elsa sighed heavily. she felt so oppressed that she thought her heart must burst. andor's happiness, his confidence made the hideous truth itself so much more terrible to reveal. and now he went on in the same merry, voluble way. "i went first to goldstein's this morning. i thought klara would tell me some of the village gossip to while away the time before i dared present myself here. i didn't want pali bácsi or anybody to see me before i had come to you. i didn't want anybody to speak to me before i had kissed you. the jews i didn't mind, of course. so i got klara to walk with me by a round-about way through the fields as far as this house; then i lay in wait for a while, until i saw irma néni go out. i wanted you all to myself at once . . . with no one by to intercept the look which you would give me when first you recognized me." "and . . . did klara tell you anything?" she murmured under her breath. "she told me of uncle pali's illness," he said, more quietly, "and how he seemed to have fretted about me lately . . . and that everyone here thought that i was dead." "yes. what else?" "nothing else much," he replied, "for you may be sure i would not do more than just mention your sweet name before that jewess." "and . . . when you mentioned my name . . . did she say anything?" "no. she laughed rather funnily, i thought. but of course i would not take any notice. she had always been rather jealous of you. and now that i am a rich man . . ." "yes, andor?" "when i say a rich man," he said, with a careless shrug of his broad shoulders, "i only mean comparatively, of course. i have saved three thousand crowns"--(about £120)--"not quite as much as i should have liked; but things are dear out there, and there was my passage home and clothes to pay for. still! three thousand crowns are enough to pay down as a guarantee for a really good farm, and if klara goldstein spoke the truth, and pali bácsi is really so well disposed toward me, why, i need not be altogether ashamed to present myself before your parents. need i, my dove?" "before my parents?" she murmured. "why, yes," he said, as he rose from the table now and came up quite close to her, looking down with earnest, love-filled eyes on the stooping figure of this young girl, who held all his earthly happiness in her keeping; "you knew what i meant, elsa, did you not, when i came back to you the moment that i could, after all these years? it was only my own poverty which kept me from your side all this long while. but you did not think that i had forgotten you, did you, elsa?--you could not think that. how could a man forget you who has once held you in his arms and kissed those sweet lips of yours? why, there has not been a day or night that i did not think of you. . . . night and day while i worked in that land which seemed so far away from home. homesick i was--very often--and though we all earned good money out there, the work was hard and heavy; but i didn't mind that, for i was making money, and every florin which i put by was like a step which brought me nearer to you." "andor!" the poor girl was almost moaning now, for every word which he spoke was like a knife-thrust straight into her heart. "being so far away from home," he continued, speaking slowly and very earnestly now, in a voice that quivered and shook with the depth of the sentiment within him, "being so far away from home would have been like hell to me at times. i don't know what there is, elsa, about this land of hungary! how it holds and enchains us! but at times i felt that i must lie down and die if i did not see our maize-fields bordered with the tall sunflowers, our distant, low-lying horizon on which the rising and the setting sun paints such glowing colours. this land of australia was beautiful too: there were fine fields of corn and vast lands stretching out as far as the eye could reach; but it was not hungary. there were no white oxen with long, slender horns toiling patiently up the dusty high roads, the storks did not build their nests in the tall acacia trees, nor did the arms of distant wells stretch up toward the sky. it was not hungary, elsa! and it would have been hell but for thinking of you. the life of an exile takes all the life out of one. i have heard of some of our hungarian lads out in america who get so ill with homesickness that they either die or become vicious. but then," he added, with a quick, characteristic return to his habitual light-hearted gaiety, "it isn't everyone who is far from home who has such a bright star as i had to gaze at in my mind . . . when it came night time and the lights were put out . . ." "andor!" she pleaded. but he would not let her speak just then. he had not yet told her all that there was to say, and perhaps the innate good-heartedness in him suggested that she was discomposed, that she would prefer to sit quietly and listen whilst she collected her thoughts and got over the surprise of his sudden arrival. "do you know, elsa," he now said gaily, "i chalked up the days--made marks, i mean, in a book which i bought in fiume the day before we sailed. seven hundred and thirty days--for i never meant to stay away more than two years; and every evening in my bunk on board ship and afterwards in the farm where i lodged, i scratched out one of the marks and seemed to feel myself getting a little bit nearer and then nearer to you. by the saints, my dove," he added, with a merry laugh, "but you should have seen me the time i got cheated out of one of those scratches. i had forgotten that accursed twenty-ninth of february last year. i don't think that i have ever sworn so wickedly in my life before. i had to go to melbourne pretty soon, i tell you, and make confession of it to the kind pater there. and then . . ." he paused abruptly. the laughter died upon his lips and the look of gaiety out of his eyes, for elsa sat more huddled up in herself than before. he could no longer see her face, for that was hidden in her hands, he only saw her bowed shoulders, and that they were shaking as if the girl had yielded at last to a paroxysm of weeping. "elsa!" he said quietly, as a puzzled frown appeared between his brows, "elsa! . . . you don't say anything . . . you . . . you . . ." he passed his rough hand across his forehead, on which rose heavy beads of perspiration. for the first time in the midst of his joy and of his happiness a hideous doubt had begun to assail him. a hideous, horrible, poison-giving doubt! "elsa!" he pleaded, and his voice grew more intense, as if behind it there was an undercurrent of broken sobs, "elsa, what is the matter? you are not going to turn your back on me, are you? look at me, elsa! look at me! you wouldn't do it, would you . . . you wouldn't do it? . . . the lord forgive me, but i love you, elsa . . . i love you fit to kill." he was babbling like a child, and now he fell on his knees beside that low stool on which she sat hunched up, a miserable bundle of suffering womanhood. he hid his face in her petticoats--those beautiful, starched petticoats that were not to be crumpled--and all at once his manliness broke down in the face of this awful, awful doubt, and he sobbed as if his heart would break. "andor! andor!" she cried, overwhelmed with pity for him, pity for herself, with the misery and the hopelessness of it all. "andor, i beg of you, pull yourself together. someone might come . . . they must not see you like this." she put her hand upon his head and passed her cool, white fingers through his hair. the gentle, motherly gesture soothed him: her words brought him back to his senses. gradually his sobs were stilled; he made a great effort to become quite calm, and with a handkerchief wiped the tears and perspiration from his face. then he rose and went back to the table, and sat down on the corner of it as he always liked to do. the workings of his face showed the effort which he made to keep his excitement and those awful fears in check. "you are quite right, elsa," he said calmly. "someone might come, and it would not be a very fine home-coming for lakatos andor, would it? to be found crying like an infant into a woman's petticoats. why, what would they think? that we had quarrelled, perhaps, on this my first day at home. god forgive me, i quite lost myself that time, didn't i? it was foolish," he added, with heartbroken anxiety, "wasn't it, elsa?" "yes, andor," she said simply. "it was foolish," he reiterated, still speaking calmly, even though his voice was half-choked with sobs, "it was foolish to think that you would turn your back on a fellow who had just lived these past five years for you." "it isn't that, andor," she murmured. "it isn't that?" he repeated dully, and once more the frown of awful puzzlement appeared between his dark, inquiring eyes. "then what is it? no, no, elsa!" he added quickly, seeing that she threw a quick look of pathetic anxiety upon him, "don't be afraid, my dove. i am not going to make a fool of myself again. you . . . you are not prepared to marry me just now, perhaps . . . not just yet?--is that it? . . . you have been angry with me. . . . i am not surprised at that . . . you never got my letter . . . you thought that i had forgotten you . . . and you want to get more used to me now that i am back . . . before we are properly tokened. . . . is that it, elsa? . . . i'll have to wait, eh?--till the spring, perhaps . . . till we have known one another better again . . . then . . . perhaps . . ." he was speaking jerkily, and always with that burning anxiety lurking in the tone of his voice. but now he suddenly cried out like a poor creature in pain, vehemently, appealingly, longing for one word of comfort, one brief respite from this intolerable misery. "but you don't speak, elsa! . . . you don't speak. . . . my god, why don't you speak?" and she replied slowly, monotonously, for now she seemed to have lost even the power of suffering pain. it was all so hopeless, so dreary, so desolate. "i can never marry you, andor." he stared at her almost like one demented, or as if he thought that she, perhaps, had lost her reason. "i can never marry you," she repeated firmly, "for i am tokened to erös béla. my farewell banquet is to-day; to-morrow is my wedding day; the day after i go to my new home. i can never marry you, andor. it is too late." she watched him while she spoke, vaguely wondering within her poor, broken heart when that cry of agony would escape his lips. his face had become ghastly in hue, his mouth was wide open as if ready for that cry; his twitching fingers clutched at the neckband of his shirt. but the cry never came: the wound was too deep and too deadly for outward expression. he said nothing, and gradually his mouth closed and his fingers ceased to twitch. presently he rose, went to the door, and pulled it open; he stood for a moment under the lintel, his arm leaning against the frame of the door, and the soft september breeze blew against his face and through his hair. from far away down the village street came the sound of laughter and of singing. the people of marosfalva were very merry to-day, for it was kapus elsa's wedding time and erös béla was being lavish with food and wine and music. nobody guessed that in this one cottage sorrow, deep and lasting, had made a solemn entry and never meant to quit these two loving hearts again. chapter xiii "he must make you happy." andor shut the door once more. he did not want the people of the village to see him just now. he turned back quietly into the room, and went to sit at his usual place, across the corner of the table. elsa, mechanically, absently, as one whose mind and soul and heart are elsewhere, was smoothing out the creases in her gown made wet by andor's tears. "how did it all come about, elsa?" he asked. "well, you know," she replied listlessly, "since klara goldstein told you--that everyone here believed that you were dead. i did not believe it myself for a long time, though i did think that if you had lived you would have written to me. then, as i had no news from you . . . no news . . . and mother always wished me to marry béla . . . why! i thought that since you were dead nothing really mattered, and i might as well do what my mother wished." "my god!" he muttered under his breath. "we were so poor at home," she continued, in that same listless, apathetic voice, for indeed she seemed to have lost all capacity even for suffering, "and father was so ill . . . he wanted comfort and good food, and mother and i could earn so very little . . . béla promised mother that nice house in the kender road, he promised to give her cows and pigs and chickens. . . . what could i do? it is sinful not to obey your parents . . . and it seemed so selfish of me to nurse thoughts of one whom i thought dead, when i could give my own mother and father all the comforts they wanted just by doing what they wished. . . . i had to think of father and mother, andor. . . . what could i do?" "that is so, elsa," he assented, speaking very slowly and deliberately. . . . "that is so, of course . . . i understand . . . i ought to have known . . . to have guessed something of the kind at any rate. . . . my god!" he added, with renewed vehemence, "but i do seem to have been an accursed fool!--thinking that everything would go on just the same while i was weaving my dreams out there on the other side of the globe. . . . i ought to have guessed, i suppose, that they wouldn't leave you alone . . . you the prettiest girl in the county. . . ." "i held out as long as i could. . . . but i felt that if you were dead nothing really mattered." "my poor little dove," he whispered gently. gradually he felt a great calmness descending over him. it was her helplessness that appealed to him, the pathos of her quiet resignation: he felt how mean and unmanly it would be to give way to that rebellious rage which was burning in his veins. three years under the orders of ofttimes brutal petty officers had taught him a measure of self-restraint; the two further years of hard, unceasing toil under foreign climes, the patient amassing of florin upon florin to enable him to come back and claim the girl whom he loved, had completed the work of changing an irresponsible, untrammelled child of these hungarian plains into a strong, well-balanced, well-controlled man of a wider world. his first instinct, when the terrible blow had been struck to all his hopes and all his happiness, had been the wild, unreasoning desire to strike back, and to kill. had he been left to himself just then and then found himself face to face with the man who had robbed him of elsa, the semi-civilization of the past five years would have fallen away from him, he would once more have relapsed into the primeval, unfettered state of his earlier manhood. the crude passions of these sons of the soil are only feebly held in check by the laws of their land: at times they break through their fetters, and then they are a law unto themselves. but andor loved elsa with a gentler and purer love than usually dwells in the heart of a man of his stamp. he had proved this during the past five years spent in daily, hourly thoughts of her. now that he found her in trouble, he would not add to her burden by parading his own before her. manlike, his first thought had been to kill, his second to seize his love with both arms and to carry her away with him, away from this village, from this land, if need be. after all, she was not yet a wife, and the promise of marriage is not so sacred nor yet so binding as a marriage vow. he could carry her away, leaving the scandal-mongers to work their way with her and him: he could carry her to that far-off land which he knew already, where work was hard and money plentiful, and no one would have the right to look down on her for what she had done. but seeing her there, looking so helpless and so pathetic, he knew, by that unerring intuition which only comes to a man at such times as this, that such a dream could never be fulfilled. the future was as it was, as no doubt it had been pre-ordained by god and by fate: nothing that he could do or say now would have the power to alter it. tradition, filial duty and perhaps a certain amount of womanly weakness too, were all ranged up against him; but filial duty would fight harder than anything else and would remain the conqueror in the end. the relentless hand of the inevitable was already upon him, and because of it, because of that vein of oriental fatalism which survives in every hungarian peasant, the tumult in his soul had already subsided, and he was able to speak to elsa now with absolute gentleness. "so to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "yes! it must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "it will be in the schoolroom, i suppose," he said indifferently. "yes. and some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. they have arranged to carry him all the way. isn't it good of them?" "to carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "ah, yes! klara told me something about that." "so in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, móritz and jenö and imre and jankó are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. isn't it good of them? and i think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. we are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. he has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . it was yesterday, when i took it out in order to mend it, that i found the letter which you wrote me from fiume. it had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "and are you happy, elsa?" he broke in abruptly. she hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "yes, andor. i am fairly happy." "béla?" he asked again. "is he fond of you?" "i think so." "you are not sure?" "oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "i am quite sure." "he hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . he was a little inclined that way at one time." "oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "i don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." she went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. there was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "elsa! i shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "there is nothing to tell, andor." "yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about béla which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . now, listen to me, elsa, for i mean every word which i am going to say . . . i can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what i could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . so if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to béla, i will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if i can." "don't talk so wildly, andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "the whole thing is only foolishness on my part, i know." "then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the goldsteins' all the time." "oh! it's klara, is it?" "i can't bear that girl," said elsa, with sudden vehemence. he looked at her keenly. "you are jealous, elsa," he said. "is it because you love béla?" "i don't like his hanging round klara," she replied evasively. he rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. the inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give elsa back to him again. "i had better go now, i suppose," he said. "mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "not just yet, i think. i thought of asking pater bonifácius if he could give me a bed for a night. pali bácsi might not be ready for me yet." "but you will come to my farewell feast?" asked elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "if you wish it, elsa," he replied. "i do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. they would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "then i will come," he concluded. he went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. he was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. béla and her plighted troth to him stood now between andor and that past which he must forget. but as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "the past, elsa," he said, "is done with. henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. you will forget me easily enough. . . . i wish that i had never come back to disturb the peace which i see is rapidly spreading over your life. my only wish now is that with you it should be peace. my heart has already given you up to béla--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . he must make you happy . . . i tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "if he does not, he will have to reckon with me. heaven help him, i say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . i shall see it, i shall know it. . . . i shall not leave this village till i am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." he stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. chapter xiv "it is true." by the time that andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. klara goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. she did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to andor about elsa's coming wedding. she merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that lakatos andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. and andor had always been popular before. he was doubly so now that he had come back from america or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. the gypsies who had just arrived by train from arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. they were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the rákóczy march without more ado, in honour of the finest son of marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. it was with much difficulty that at last andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. the women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and god-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with hungary in general and the village of marosfalva in particular. the heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing andor's aching heart. the sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. with a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. he stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. from the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the rákóczy march to one of the dreamy magyar love-songs which suited their own languid oriental temperament far better than the martial music. but here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. andor drew a long breath. he seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. it was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. it was the day before he had to leave marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. it seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--pater bonifácius himself came to the door. his old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of andor's home-coming, and the old pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. he took andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "it is true then, pater," said andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "it is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "what is true, my son?" asked the pater. "that elsa is to marry erös béla to-morrow?" "yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. and thus andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. chapter xv "that is fair, i think." an hour later, andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. she held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. irma néni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead barna móritz, the mayor's second son, fehér jenö, whose father worked the water-mill on the maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, erös béla, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with klara goldstein, the jewess, upon his arm. klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. the looks that were cast by the village folk upon the jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at erös béla's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted klara goldstein in the least. she knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that erös béla's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. she felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. she carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "it was kind of you, my dear elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. as the young count was saying to me only last night, 'you will give irma néni and little elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which i admire so much.' so affable, the young count, is he not? he told me that nothing would do but when i get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." but once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, klara goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. before elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome jewess had already spied andor's face among the crowd. "there is the hero of the hour, béla," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" then, as béla somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to andor and held out his hand to him, klara continued glibly: "poor old andor! he is a trifle glum now. i never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. never mind, my little andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the maros than has come out of it. and i thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty elsa!" "i think you did quite right, klara," said andor indifferently. but in the meanwhile béla had contrived to come up quite close to elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "a bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to klara goldstein and i will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . that is fair, i think, eh, irma néni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "don't be foolish, béla," retorted kapus irma dryly. "why you should be for ever teasing elsa, i cannot think. you must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. and that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "don't be afraid, mother," said elsa quietly; "i don't feel the least like crying." "that's splendid," exclaimed béla, with ostentatious gaiety. "here's irma néni trying to teach me something about girls. as if i didn't know about them all that there is to know. eh, andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "we men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. what? now, irma néni, take your daughter into the house. there is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. miss klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? friends, come in all, will you? all those, i mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. irma néni, do lead the way. elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, i suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. andor, you shall sit next to elsa if you like. . . . you must have lots to tell her. your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . eh? . . . and irma néni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. whew! but it is hot already! come along, friends. by thunder, klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." he talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but erös béla was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward klara the jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. but he was in a mood not to care. he was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. his wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an hungarian village than all the codes framed by the parliament which sits in budapesth. he was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. his naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of marosfalva. the hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. they acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. so now, though erös béla was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to klara goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of arad, the pater, my lord the count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. the presence of the jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. no one felt this more keenly than andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. he felt that klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon elsa, even without béla's conspicuously unworthy conduct. elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. he tried to remember all that the pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about god's will. personally, andor did not altogether believe that it was god's will that elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. chapter xvi "the waters of the maros flow sluggishly." but even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. by the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. the time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. the gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. they, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. the leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. for thus custom demands it. there are hundreds and hundreds of hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. the songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the magyar language. when we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of kossuth's followers fought against the austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of russia and of austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of hungary. the sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. and the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. and now when andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the magyar tongue. it begins thus: "a maros vize folyik csendesen!" "the waters of the maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. andor had never cared for it before. he used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching elsa's pale, tearful face. she had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. béla had practically confined his attentions to the jewess, and elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. she should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. if it had not been for andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, god knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. something of the respect which erös béla demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. she was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. and this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as béla's indifference towards her. it seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. the whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. the girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. the matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. the magyar peasant is an epicure. his rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. and erös béla had done the feast in style. nothing was stinted. you just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [footnote 4: a kind of pike peculiar to hungarian rivers.] no wonder that spirits were now running high. the gipsy band was quite splendid, and presently barna móritz, the second son of the mayor--a smart young man who would go far--was on his feet proposing the health of the bride. well! of course! one mugful was not enough to do honour to such a toast, they had to be refilled and then filled up again: wine was so plentiful and so good--not heady, but just a delicious white wine which tasted of nothing but the sweet-scented grape. soon the bridegroom rose to respond, whereupon fehér jenö, whose father rented the mill from my lord the count, loudly desired that everyone should drink the health of happy, lucky erös béla, and then, of course, the latter had to respond again. elsa felt more and more every moment a stranger among them all. fortunately the innate kindliness of these children of the soil prevented any chaffing remarks being made about the silence of the bride. it is always an understood thing that brides are shy and nervous, and though there had been known cases in marosfalva where a bride had been very lively and talkative at her "maiden's farewell" it was, on the whole, considered more seemly to preserve a semi-tearful attitude, seeing that a girl on the eve of her marriage is saying good-bye to her parents and to her home. the bridegroom's disgraceful conduct was tacitly ignored: it could not be resented or even commented on without quarrelling with erös béla, and that no one was prepared to do. you could not eat a man's salt and drink his wine and then knock him on the head, which it seemed more than one lad--who had fancied himself in love with beautiful kapus elsa--was sorely inclined to do. kapus benkó, in his invalid's chair, sat some distance away from his daughter, the other side of klara goldstein. elsa could not even exchange glances with him or see whether he had everything he wanted. thus she seemed cut off from everyone she cared for; only andor was near her, and of andor she must not even think. she tried not to meet his gaze, tried hard not to feel a thrill of pleasure every time that she became actively conscious of his presence beside her. and yet it was good to feel that he was there, she had a sense that she was being protected, that things could not go very wrong while he was near. chapter xvii "i am here to see that you be kind to her." pater bonifácius came in at about four o'clock to remind all these children of their duty to god. to-day was the vigil of st. michael and all angels, there would be vespers at half-past four, and the bride and bridegroom should certainly find the time to go to church for half an hour and thank the good god for all his gifts. the company soon made ready to go after that. everyone there intended to go to church, and in the meanwhile the gipsies would have the remnants of the feast, after which they would instal themselves in the big barn and dancing could begin by about six. bride and bridegroom stood side by side, close to the door, as the guests filed out both singly and in pairs, and as they did so they shook each one by the hand, wished them good health after the repast, and begged their company for the dancing presently and the wedding feast on the morrow. once more the invalid father, hoisted up on the shoulders of the same sturdy lads, led the procession out of the school-house, then followed all the guests, helter-skelter, young men and maids, old men and matrons. the wide petticoats got in the way, the men were over bold in squeezing the girls' waists in the general scramble, there was a deal of laughing and plenty of shouting as hot, perspiring hands were held out one by one to elsa and to béla, and voices, hoarse with merriment, proffered the traditional "_egésségire!_" (your very good health!), and then, like so many birds let out of a cage, streamed out of the narrow door into the sunlit street. andor had acquitted himself of the same duty, and elsa's cool little hand had rested for a few seconds longer than was necessary in his own brown one. she had murmured the necessary words of invitation for the ceremonies on the morrow, and he was still standing in the doorway when klara goldstein was about to take her leave. klara had stayed very ostentatiously to the last, just as if she were the most intimate friend or an actual member of the family; she had stood beside béla during the general exodus, her small, dark head, crowned with the gorgeous picture hat, held a little on one side, her two gloved hands resting upon the handle of her parasol, her foot in its dainty shoe impatiently tapping the ground. as the crowd passed by, scrambling in their excitement, starched petticoats crumpled, many a white shirt stained with wine, hot, perspiring and panting, a contemptuous smile lingered round her thin lips, and from time to time she made a remark to béla--always in german, so that the village folk could not understand. but andor, who had learned more than his native hungarian during his wanderings abroad, heard these sneering remarks, and hated the girl for speaking them, and béla for the loud laugh with which he greeted each sally. now she held out her small, thin hand to elsa. "your good health, my dear elsa!" she said indifferently. after an obvious moment of hesitation, elsa put her toil-worn, shapely little hand into the gloved one for an instant and quickly withdrew it again. there was a second or two of silence. klara did not move: she was obviously waiting for the invitation which had been extended to everyone else. a little nervously she began toying with her parasol. "the glass is going up; you will have fine weather for your wedding to-morrow," she said more pointedly. "i hope so," said elsa softly. another awkward pause. andor, who stood in the doorway watching the little scene, saw that béla was digging his teeth into his underlip, and that his one eye had a sinister gleam in it as it wandered from one girl to the other. "may the devil! . . ." began klara roughly, whose temper quickly got the better of her airs and graces. "what kind of flea has bitten your bride, béla, i should like to know?" "flea?" said béla with an oath, which he did not even attempt to suppress. "flea? no kind of a flea, i hope. . . . look here, my dove," he added, turning to elsa suddenly, "you seem to be forgetting your duties--have you gone to sleep these last five minutes?--or can't you see that klara is waiting." "i can see that klara is waiting," replied elsa calmly, "but i don't know what she can be waiting for." she was as white as the linen of her shift, and little beads of sweat stood out at the roots of her hair. andor, whose love for her made him clear-sighted and keen, saw the look of obstinacy which had crept round her mouth--the sudden obstinacy of the meek, which nothing can move. he alone could see what this sudden obstinacy meant to her, whose natural instincts were those of duty and of obedience. she suffered terribly at this moment, both mentally and physically; the moisture of her forehead showed that she suffered. but she had nerved herself up for this ordeal: the crushed worm was turning on the cruel foot that had trodden it for so long. she did not mean to give way, even though she had fully weighed in the balance all that she would have to pay in the future for this one moment of rebellion. parents first and husbands afterwards are masterful tyrants in this part of the world; the woman's place is to obey; the oriental conception of man's supremacy still reigns paramount, especially in the country. elsa knew all this, and was ready for the chastisement--either moral, mental or even physical--which would surely overtake her, if not to-day, then certainly after to-morrow. "you don't know what klara is waiting for?" asked béla, with an evil sneer; "why, my dove, you must be dreaming. klara won't come to our church, of course, but she would like to come to the ball presently, and to-morrow to our wedding feast." a second or perhaps less went by while elsa passed her tongue over her parched lips; then she said slowly: "since klara does not go to our church, béla, i don't think that she can possibly want to come to our wedding feast." béla swore a loud and angry oath, and andor, who was closely watching each player in this moving little drama, saw that klara's olive skin had taken on a greenish hue, and that her gloved hands fastened almost convulsively over the handle of her parasol. "but i tell you . . ." began béla, who was now livid with rage, and turned with a menacing gesture upon his fiancée, "i tell you that . . ." already andor had interposed; he, too, was pale and menacing, but he did not raise his voice nor did he swear, he only asked very quietly: "what will you tell your fiancée, man? come! what is it that you want to tell her on the eve of her wedding day?" "what's that to you?" retorted béla. in this land where tempers run high, and blood courses hotly through the veins, a quarrel swiftly begun like this more often than not ends in tragedy. on andor's face, in his menacing eyes, was writ the determination to kill if need be; in that of béla there was the vicious snarl of an infuriated dog. klara goldstein was far too shrewd and prudent to allow her name to be mixed up in this kind of quarrel. her reputation in the village was not an altogether unblemished one; by a scandal such as would result from a fight between these two men and for such a cause she might hopelessly jeopardize her chances in life, even with her own people. her own common sense, too, of which she had a goodly share, told her at the same time that the game was not worth the candle: the satisfaction of being asked to the most important wedding in the village, and there queening it with her fashionable clothes and with the bridegroom's undivided attention over a lot of stupid village folk, would not really compensate her for the scandal that was evidently brewing in the minds of andor and of elsa. so she preferred for the nonce to play the part of outraged innocence, a part which she further emphasized by the display of easy-going kindliness. she placed one of her daintily-gloved hands on béla's arm, she threw him a look of understanding and of indulgence, she cast a provoking glance on andor and one of good-humoured contempt on elsa, then she said lightly: "never mind, béla! i can see that our little elsa is a trifle nervy to-day; she does me more honour than i deserve by resenting your great kindness to me. but bless you, my good béla! i don't mind. i am used to jealousies: the petty ones of my own sex are quite endurable; it is when you men are jealous that we poor women often have to suffer. leopold hirsch, who is courting me, you know, is so madly jealous at times. he scarce can bear anyone to look at me. as if i could help not being plain, eh?" then she turned with a smile to elsa. "i don't think, my dear," she said dryly, "that you are treating béla quite fairly. he won't let you suffer from his jealousies; why should you annoy him with yours?" another glance through her long, dark lashes on both the men, and klara goldstein turned to go. but before she could take a step toward the door, béla's masterful hand was on her wrist. "what are you doing?" he asked roughly. "going, my good béla," she replied airily, "going. what else can i do? i am not wanted here now, or later at your feast; but there are plenty in this village and around it who will make me welcome, and their company will be more pleasing to me, i assure you, than that of your friends. we thought of having some tarok[5] this evening. leopold will be with us, and the young count is coming. he loves a gamble, and is most amusing when he is in the mood. so i am going where i shall be most welcome, you see." [footnote 5: a game of cards--the source of much gambling in that part of europe.] she tried to disengage her wrist, but he was holding her with a tight, nervous grip. "you are not going to do anything of the sort," he muttered hoarsely; "she is daft, i tell you. stay here, can't you?" "not i," she retorted, with a laugh. "enough of your friends' company, my good béla, is as good as a feast. look at elsa's face! and andor's! he is ready to eat me, and she to freeze the marrow in my bones. so farewell, my dear man; if you want any more of my company," she added pointedly, "you know where to get it." she had succeeded in freeing her wrist, and the next moment was standing under the lintel of the door, the afternoon sun shining full upon her clinging gown, her waving feathers and the gew-gaws which hung round her neck. for a moment she stood still, blinking in the glare, her hands, which trembled a little from the emotion of the past little scene, fumbled with her parasol. béla turned like a snarling beast upon his fiancée. "ask her to stop," he cried savagely. "ask her to stop, i tell you!" "keep your temper, my good béla," said klara over her shoulder to him, with a laugh; "and don't trouble about me. i am used to tantrums at home. leo is a terror when he has a jealous fit, but it's nothing to me, i assure you! his rage leaves me quite cold." "but this sort of nonsense does not leave me cold," retorted béla, who by now was in a passion of fury; "it makes my blood boil, i tell you. what i've said, i've said, and i'm not going to let any woman set her will up against mine, least of all the woman who is going to be my wife. whether you go or stay, klara, is your affair, but elsa will damn well have to ask you to stay, as i told her to do; she'll have to do as i tell her, or . . ." "or what, béla?" interposed andor quietly. béla threw him a dark and sullen look, like an infuriated bull that pauses just before it is ready to charge. "what is it to you?" he muttered savagely. "only this, my friend," replied andor, who seemed as calm as the other was heated with passion, "only this: that i courted and loved elsa when she was younger and happier than she is now, and i am not going to stand by and see her bullied and brow-beaten by anyone. understand?" "take care, béla," laughed klara maliciously; "your future wife's old sweetheart might win her from you yet." "take care of what?" shouted béla in unbridled rage. he faced andor, and his one sinister eye shot a glance of deadly hatred upon him. "let me tell you this, my friend, lakatos andor. i don't know where you have sprung from to-day, or why you have chosen to-day to do it . . . and it's nothing to me. but understand that i don't like your presence here, and that i did not invite you to come, and that therefore you have no business to be here, seeing that i pay for the feast. and understand too that i'll trouble my future wife's sweetheart to relieve her of his presence in future, or there'll be trouble. and you may take that from me, as my last word, my friend. understand?" "what an ass you are, béla!" came as a parting shot from klara, who had succeeded in opening her parasol, and now stood out in the open, her face and shoulders in shadow, looking the picture of coolness and of good-temper. "andor," she added, with a pleasing smile to the young man, "you know your way to ignácz goldstein's. father and i will be pleased to see you there at any time. the young count will be there to-night, and we'll have some tarok. farewell, béla," she continued, laughing merrily. "don't worry, my good man, it's not worth losing your temper about trifles on the eve of your wedding-day. and bless your eyes! i don't mind." then she swept a mock curtsy to elsa. "farewell, my pretty one. good luck to you in your new life." she nodded and was gone. her rippling laugh, with its harsh, ironical ring was heard echoing down the village street. "call her back!" shouted béla savagely, turning on his fiancée. she looked him straight in that one eye which was so full of menace, and said with meek but firm obstinacy: "i will not." "call her back," he exclaimed, "you . . ." he was almost choking with rage, and now he raised his clenched fist and brandished it in her face. "call her back, or i'll . . ." but already andor was upon him, had seized him by collar and wrist. he was as livid as the other man was crimson, but his eyes glowed with a fury at least as passionate. "and i tell you," he said, speaking almost in a whisper, very slowly and very calmly, but with such compelling power of determination that béla, taken unawares, half-choked with the grip on his throat, and in agonized pain with the rough turn on his wrist, was forced to cower before him, "i tell you that if you dare touch her . . . look here, my friend," he continued, more loudly, "just now you said that you didn't know where i'd sprung from to-day, or why i chose to-day in which to do it. well! let me tell you then. god in heaven sent me, do you see? he sent me to be here so as to see that no harm come to elsa through marrying a brute like you. you have shown me the door, and i don't want to eat your salt again and to take your hospitality, for it would choke me, i know . . . but let me tell you this much, that if you bully elsa . . . if you don't make her happy . . . if you are not kind to her . . . i'll make you regret it to your dying day." he had gradually relaxed his hold on béla's throat and wrist, and now the latter was able to free himself altogether, and to readjust his collar and the set of his coat. for a moment it almost seemed as if he felt ashamed and repentant. but his obstinate and domineering temper quickly got the better of this softened mood. "you'll make me regret it, will you?" he retorted sullenly. "you think that you will be allowed to play the guardian angel here, eh? with all your fine talk of god in heaven, which i am inclined to think even the pater would call blasphemy. i know what's at the back of your mind, my friend, don't you make any mistake about that." "you know what's at the back of my mind?" queried andor, with a puzzled frown. "what do you mean?" "i mean," said béla, with a return to his former swagger, "that you have been saying to yourself this past half-hour: 'oho! but elsa is not married yet! the vows are not yet spoken, and until they are i still have my chance.' that's what you have been saying to yourself, eh, mr. guardian angel?" "you d----d liar!" "oh! insulting me won't help you, my friend. and i am not going to let you provoke me into a fight, and kill me perhaps, for no doubt that is what you would like to do. i am not going to give elsa up to you, you need not think it; and you can't take her from me, you can't make her break her solemn promise to me, without covering her with a disgrace from which she would never recover. you know what happened when bakó mariska broke off her marriage on the eve of her wedding-day, just because lajos had got drunk once or twice? though her mother whipped her for her obstinacy, and her father broke his stick across her shoulders, the whole countryside turned against her. they all had to leave the village, for no one would speak to mariska. a scandal such as that the ignorant peasants round about here will never forgive. mariska ultimately drowned herself in the maros: when she no longer could stand the disgrace that pursued her everywhere. when you thought that to make a girl break off her engagement the day before her wedding was such an easy matter, you had not thought of all that, had you, my friend?" "and when you thought of frightening me by all that nonsensical talk," retorted andor quietly, "you had not thought perhaps that there are other lands in the world besides hungary, and that i am not quite such an ignorant peasant as those whom you choose to despise. but you have been wasting your breath and your temper. i am not here to try and persuade elsa into doing what she would think wrong; but i am here to see that at least you be kind to her." "pshaw!" ejaculated béla, with a contemptuous snap of his fingers. "oh! you need not imagine that i wouldn't know how you treated her. i would know soon enough. i tell you," he continued, with slow and deliberate emphasis, "that what you do to her i shall know. i shall know if you bully her, i shall know if you make her unhappy. i shall know--and god help you in that case!--if you are not kind to her. just think in future when you speak a rough word to her that lakatos andor will hear you and make you pay for every syllable. think when you browbeat her that lakatos andor can see you! for i _will_ see you, i tell you, in spite of your turning me out of your house, in spite of your fences and your walls. so just you ask her pardon now for your roughness, kiss her little hand and take her to vespers. but take this from me, my friend, that if you ever dare raise your hand against your wife i'll pay you out for it, so help me god!" he had sworn the last oath with solemn earnestness. now he turned to elsa and took her cold little hand in his and kissed her trembling finger-tips, then, without another look on the man whom he hated with such an overwhelming and deadly hatred, he turned on his heel and fled precipitately from the room. béla stood sullen and silent for a moment after he had gone. wrath was still heating his blood so that the veins in his forehead stood up like cords. but he was not only wrathful, he also felt humiliated and ashamed. he had been cowed and overmastered in the presence of elsa. his swagger and domineering ways had availed him nothing. andor had threatened him and he had not had the pluck or the presence of mind to stand up to that meddling, interfering peasant. now it was too late to do anything; the thoughts of retaliation which would come to his mind later on had not yet had the time to mature. all that he knew was that he hated andor and would get even with him some day; for elsa he felt no hatred, only a great wrath that she should have witnessed his humiliation and that her obstinacy should have triumphed against his will. the same pride in her and the same loveless desire was still in him. he did not hate her, but he meant to make her suffer for what he had just gone through. to him matrimony meant the complete subjection of the woman to the will of her lord; for every rebellion, for every struggle against that subjection she must be punished in accordance with the gravity of her fault. elsa had caused him to be humiliated, and it was his firm resolve to humiliate her before many hours had gone by. already a plan was forming in his brain; the quietude of vespers would, he thought, help him to complete it. outside, the lads and maids were loudly demanding the appearance of the bride and bridegroom: the vesper bell had long ago ceased its compelling call. erös béla offered his silent fiancée his arm. she took it without hesitation, and together they walked across the square to the church. chapter xviii "i must punish her." the little village inn kept by ignácz goldstein was not more squalid, not more dark and stuffy, than are the village inns of most countries in europe. klara did her best to keep the place bright and clean, which was no easy matter when the roads were muddy and men brought in most of the mud of those roads on their boots, and deposited it on the freshly-washed floors. the tap-room was low and narrow and dark. round the once whitewashed walls there were rows of wooden benches with narrow trestle tables in front of them. opposite the front door, on a larger table, were the bottles of wine and silvorium,[6] the jars of tobacco and black cigars, which a beneficent government licensed ignácz goldstein the jew to sell to the peasantry. [footnote 6: a highly alcoholic, very raw gin-like spirit distilled from a special kind of plum.] the little room obtained its daylight mainly from the street-door when it was open, for the one tiny window--on the right as you entered--was not constructed to open, and its dulled glass masked more of daylight than it allowed to filtrate through. opposite the window a narrow door led into a couple of living rooms, the first of which also had direct access to the street. the tap-room itself was always crowded and always busy, the benches round the walls were always occupied, and klara and her father were never allowed to remain idle for long. she dispensed the wine and the silvorium, and made herself agreeable to the guests. ignácz saw to the tobacco and the cigars. village women in hungary never frequent the public inn: when they do, it is because they have sunk to the lowest depths of degradation: a woman in drink is practically an unknown sight in the land. klara herself, though her ways with the men were as free and easy as those of her type and class usually are, would never have dreamed of drinking with any of them. this evening she was unusually busy. while the wedding feast was going on lower down in the village, a certain number of men who liked stronger fare than what is usually provided at a "maiden's farewell" dance, as well as those who had had no claim to be invited, strolled into the tap-room for a draught of silvorium, a gossip with the jewess, or a game of tarok if any were going. ignácz goldstein himself was fond of a game. like most of his race, his habits were strictly sober. as he kept a cool head, he usually won; and his winnings at tarok made a substantial addition to the income which he made by selling spirits and tobacco. leopold hirsch, who kept the village grocery store, was also an inveterate player, and, like goldstein, a very steady winner. but it was not the chance of a successful gamble which brought him so often to the tap-room. for years now he had dangled round klara's fashionable skirts, and it seemed as if at last his constancy was to be rewarded. while she was younger--and was still of surpassing beauty--she had had wilder flights of ambition than those which would lead her to rule over a village grocery store: during those times she had allowed leopold hirsch to court her, without giving him more than very cursory encouragement. as the years went on, however, and her various admirers from arad proved undesirous to go to the length of matrimony, she felt more kindly disposed toward leo, who periodically offered her his heart and hand, and the joint ownership of the village grocery store. she had looked into her little piece of mirror rather more closely of late than she had done hitherto, and had discovered two or three ominous lines round her fine, almond-shaped eyes, and noted that her nose showed of late a more marked tendency to make close acquaintance with her chin. then she began to ponder, and to give the future more serious consideration than she had ever done before. she ticked off on her long, pointed fingers the last bevy of her admirers on whom she might reasonably count: the son of the chemist over in arad, the tenant of the kender road farm, the proprietor of the station cabs, and there were two or three others; but they were certainly falling away, and she had added no new ones to her list these past six months. erös béla's formally declared engagement to kapus elsa had been a very severe blow. she had really reckoned on béla. he was educated and unconventional, and though he professed the usual anti-semitic views peculiar to his kind, klara did not believe that these were very genuine. at any rate, she had reckoned that her fine eyes and provocative ways would tilt successfully against the man's racial prejudices. erös béla was rich and certainly, up to a point, in love with her. klara was congratulating herself on the way she was playing her matrimonial cards, when all her hopes were so suddenly dashed to the ground. béla was going to marry that silly, ignorant peasant girl, and she, klara, would be left to marry leopold after all. her anger and humiliation had been very great, and she had battled very persistently and very ably to regain the prize which she had lost. she knew quite well that, but for the fact that she belonged to the alien and despised race, erös béla would have been only too happy to marry her. his vanity alone had made him choose kapus elsa. he wanted the noted beauty for himself, because the noted beauty had been courted by so many people, and where so many people had failed he was proud to succeed. nor would he have cared to have it said that he had married a jewess. there is always a certain thought of disgrace attached to such a marriage, whether it has been contracted by peer or peasant, and erös béla's one dominating idea in life was to keep the respect and deference of his native village. but he had continued his attentions to klara, and klara had kept a wonderful hold over his imagination and over his will. she was the one woman who had ever had her will with him--only partially, of course, and not to the extent of forcing him into matrimony--but sufficiently to keep him also dangling round her skirts even though his whole allegiance should have belonged to elsa. the banquet this afternoon had been a veritable triumph. whatever she had suffered through béla's final disloyalty to herself, she knew that kapus elsa must have suffered all through the banquet. the humiliation of seeing one's bridegroom openly flaunting his admiration for another woman must have been indeed very bitter to bear. not for a moment did klara goldstein doubt that the subsequent scene was an act of vengeance against herself on elsa's part. she judged other women by her own standard, discounted other women's emotions, thoughts, feelings, by her own. she thought it quite natural that elsa should wish to be revenged, just as she was quite sure that béla was already meditating some kind of retaliation for the shame which andor had put upon him and for elsa's obstinacy and share in the matter. she had not spoken to anyone of the little scene which had occurred between the four walls of the little schoolroom: on the contrary she had spoken loudly of both the bridegroom's and the bride's cordiality to her during the banquet. "elsa wanted me to go to the dancing this evening," she said casually, "but i thought you would all miss me. i didn't want this place to be dull just because half the village is enjoying itself somewhere else." it had been market day at arad, and at about five o'clock klara and her father became very busy. cattle-dealers and pig-merchants, travellers and pedlars, dropped in for a glass of silvorium and a chat with the good-looking jewess. more than one bargain, discussed on the marketplace of arad, was concluded in the stuffy tap-room of marosfalva. "shall we be honoured by the young count's presence later on?" someone asked, with a significant nod to klara. everyone laughed in sympathy; the admiration of the noble young count for klara goldstein was well-known. there was nothing in it, of course; even klara, vain and ambitious as she was, knew that the bridge which divided the aristocrat from one of her kind and of her race was an impassable one. but she liked the young count's attentions--she liked the presents he brought her from time to time, and relished the notoriety which this flirtation gave her. she also loved to tease poor leopold hirsch. leo had been passionately in love with her for years; what he must have endured in moral and mental torture during that time through his jealousy and often groundless suspicions no one who did not know him intimately could ever have guessed. these tortures which klara wantonly inflicted upon the wretched young man had been a constant source of amusement to her. even now she was delighted because, as luck would have it, he entered the tap-room at the very moment when everyone was chaffing her about the young count. leopold hirsch cast a quick, suspicious glance upon the girl, and his dull olive skin assumed an almost greenish hue. he was not of prepossessing appearance; this he knew himself, and the knowledge helped to keep his jealousy and his suspicion aflame. he was short and lean of stature and his head, with its large, bony features, seemed too big for his narrow shoulders to carry. his ginger-coloured hair was lank and scanty; he wore it--after the manner of those of his race in that part of the world--in corkscrew ringlets down each side of his narrow, cadaverous-looking face. his eyes were pale and shifty, but every now and then there shot into them a curious gleam of unbridled passion--love, hate or revenge; and then the whole face would light up and compel attention by the revelation of latent power. this had happened now when a fellow who sat in the corner by the window made some rough jest about the young count. leopold made his way to klara's side; his thin lips were tightly pressed together, and he had buried his hands in the pockets of his ill-fitting trousers. "if that accursed aristocrat comes hanging round here much more, klara," he muttered between set teeth, "i'll kill him one of these days." "what a fool you are, leopold!" she said. "why, yesterday it was erös béla you objected to." "and i do still," he retorted. "i heard of your conduct at the banquet to-day. it is the talk of the village. one by one these loutish peasants have come into my shop and told me the tale--curse them!--of how the bridegroom had eyes and ears only for you. you seem to forget, klara," he added, while a thought of menace crept into his voice, "that you are tokened to me now. so don't try and make a fool of me, or . . ." "the lord bless you, my good man," she retorted, with a laugh, "i won't try, i promise you. i wouldn't like to compete with the almighty, who has done that for you already." "klara . . ." he exclaimed. "oh! be quiet now, leo," she said impatiently. "can't you see that my hands are as full as i can manage, without my having to bother about you and your jealous tempers?" she elbowed him aside and went to the counter to serve a customer who had just arrived, and more than a quarter of an hour went by before leopold had the chance of another word with her. "you might have a kind word for me to-night, klara," he said ruefully, as soon as a brief lull in business enabled him to approach the girl. "why specially to-night?" she asked indifferently. "your father must go by the night train to kecskemét," he said, with seeming irrelevance. "there is that business about the plums." "the plums?" she asked, with a frown of puzzlement, "what plums?" "the fruit he bought near kecskemét. they start gathering at sunrise to-morrow. he must be there the first hour, else he'd get shamefully robbed. he must travel by night." "i knew nothing about it," rejoined klara, with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. "father never tells me when he is going to be away from home." "no!" retorted leopold, with a sneer, "he knows better than to give all your gallants such a brilliant opportunity." "don't be a fool, leo!" she reiterated with a laugh. "i don't give any of them an opportunity, either," resumed the young man, while a curious look of almost animal ferocity crept into his pale face. "whenever your father has to be away from home during the night, i take up my position outside this house and watch over you until daylight comes and people begin to come and go." "very thoughtful of you, my good leo," she rejoined dryly, "but you need not give yourself the trouble. i am well able to look after myself." "if any man molested you," continued leopold, speaking very calmly, "i would kill him." "who should molest me, you silly fool? and anyhow, i won't have you spying upon me like that." "you must not call it spying, klara. i love to stand outside this house in the peace and darkness of the night, and to think of you quietly sleeping whilst i am keeping watch over you. you wouldn't call a watchdog a spy, would you?" "i know that to-night i shan't sleep a wink," she retorted crossly, "once father has gone. i shall always be thinking of you out there in the dark, watching this house. it will make me nervous." "to-night . . ." he began, and then abruptly checked himself. once more that quick flash of passion shot through his pale, deep-set eyes. it seemed as if he meant to tell her something, which on second thoughts he decided to keep to himself. her keen, dark eyes searched his face for a moment or two; she wondered what it was that lurked behind that high, smooth forehead of his and within the depths of that curiously perverted brain. before she had time, however, to question him, erös béla made noisy irruption into the room. he was greeted with a storm of cheers. "hello, béla!" "not the bridegroom, surely?" "who would have thought of seeing you here?" while leopold hirsch muttered audibly: "what devil's mischief has brought this fellow here to-day, i wonder?" béla seemed in boisterous good-humour--with somewhat ostentatious hilarity he greeted all his friends, and then ordered some of ignácz goldstein's best wine for everybody all round. "bravo, béla!" came from every side, together with loud applause at this unexpected liberality. "it is nice of you not to forget old friends," klara whispered in his ear, as soon as he succeeded in reaching her side. "whew!" he ejaculated with a sneer, "you have no idea, my good klara, how i've been boring myself these past two hours. those loutish peasants have no idea of enjoyment save their eternal gipsy music and their interminable csárdás." "for a man of your education, béla," said klara, with an insinuating smile, "it must be odiously dull. you would far rather have had a game of cards, wouldn't you now?" "i would far rather have had you at that infernal dance, so as to have had somebody to talk to," he retorted savagely. "oh!" she said demurely, "that would never have done. elsa must have such a lot to say to you herself. it would not be seemly for me to stand in the way." "elsa, as you know, has that silly csárdás on the brain. she has been dancing ever since six o'clock and has only given me about ten minutes of her company. she seems to belong to-night to every young fool that can dance, rather than to me." "ah well! when you are married you can stop all that, my good béla. you can forbid your wife to dance the csárdás, you know. i know many men who do it. then elsa will learn to appreciate the pleasure of your conversation. though she is no longer very young, she is still very ignorant. you will have to educate her . . . bring her up to your own level of intelligence and of learning. in the meanwhile, do sit down and drink with those who, like yourself, have come here for an hour or two to break the monotony of perpetual czigány music and dancing." she busied herself with drawing the corks of a number of bottles, which she then transferred from the end of the room where she stood to the tables at which sat her customers; she also brought out some fresh glasses. béla watched her for a moment or two in silence, unconscious of the fact that he, too, was being watched by a pair of pale eyes in which lurked a gleam of jealousy and of hate. suddenly, as klara brushed past him carrying bottles and glasses, he took hold of her by the elbow and drew her close to him. "these louts won't stay late to-night, will they?" he whispered in her ear. "no, not late," she replied; "they will go on to the barn in time for the supper, you may be sure of that. why do you ask?" "i will have the supper served at ten o'clock," he continued to whisper, "but i'll not sit down to it. not without you." "don't be foolish, béla," she retorted. but even as he spoke, a little gleam of satisfaction, of gratified vanity, of anticipatory revenge, shot through her velvety dark eyes. "i warned elsa," he continued sullenly; "i told her that if you were not at the feast, i should not be there either. she has disobeyed me. i must punish her." "so?" she rejoined, with an acid smile. "it is only in order to punish elsa that you want to sup with me?" "don't be stupid, klara," he retorted. "i'll come at ten o'clock. will you have some supper ready for me then? i have two or three bottles of french champagne over at my house--i'll bring them along. will you be ready for me?" "be silent, béla," she broke in hurriedly. "can't you see that that fool leo is watching us all the time?" "curse, him! what have i got to do with him?" muttered béla savagely. "you will be ready for me, klara?" "no!" she said decisively. "better make your peace with elsa. i'll have none of her leavings. i've had all i wanted out of you to-day--the banquet first and now your coming here. . . . it'll be all over the village presently--and that's all i care about. have a drink now," she added good-humouredly, "and then go and make your peace with elsa . . . if you can." she turned abruptly away from him, leaving him to murmur curses under his breath, and went on attending to her customers; nor did he get for the moment another opportunity of speaking with her, for leopold hirsch hovered round her for some considerable time after that, and presently, with much noise and pomp and circumstance, no less a personage than the noble young count himself graced the premises of ignácz goldstein the jew with his august presence. chapter xix "now go and fetch the key." he belonged to the ancient family of rákosy, who had owned property on both banks of the maros for the past eight centuries, and feri rákosy, the twentieth-century representative of his mediæval forbears, was a good-looking young fellow of the type so often met with among the upper classes in hungary: quite something english in appearance--well set-up, well-dressed, well-groomed from the top of his smooth brown hair to the tips of his immaculately-shod feet--in the eyes an expression of habitual boredom, further accentuated by the slight, affected stoop of the shoulders and a few premature lines round the nose and mouth; and about his whole personality that air of high-breeding and of good, pure blood which is one of the chief characteristics of the true hungarian aristocracy. he did little more than acknowledge the respectful salutations which greeted him from every corner of the little room as he entered, but he nodded to erös béla and smiled all over his good-looking face at klara, who, in her turn, welcomed him with a profusion of smiles which brought a volley of muttered curses to leopold hirsch's lips. while he held her one hand rather longer than was necessary she, with the other, took his hat from him, and then, laughing coquettishly, she pointed to a parcel which was causing the pocket of his well-cut norfolk jacket to bulge immoderately. "is that something for me?" she asked. "of course it is," he replied lightly; "i bought it at the fair in arad for you to-day." "how thoughtful of you!" she said, with a little sigh of pleasure. "thoughtful?" he retorted, laughing pleasantly. "my good klara, if i hadn't thought of you i would have died of boredom this afternoon. here, give me a glass of your father's best wine and i'll tell you." he sat down with easy familiarity on the corner of the table which served as a counter. klara, after this, had eyes and ears only for him. how could it be otherwise, seeing that it was not often a noble lord graced a village tap-room with his presence. conversations round the room were now carried on in whispers; tarok cards were produced and here and there a game was in progress. those who had drunk overmuch made themselves as inconspicuous as they could, drawing themselves closely against the wall, or frankly reclining across the table with arms outstretched and heads buried between them out of sight. an atmosphere of subdued animation and decorum reigned in the place; not a few men, oppressed by their sense of respect for my lord, had effected a quiet exit through the door, preferring the jovial atmosphere of the barn, from whence came, during certain hushed moments, the sounds of music and of laughter. the young man--whose presence caused all this revulsion in the usually noisy atmosphere of the tap-room--took no heed whatever of anything that went on around him: he seemed unconscious alike of the deference of the peasants as of the dark, menacing scowl with which leopold hirsch regarded him. he certainly did not bestow a single glance on erös béla who, at my lord's appearance, had retreated into the very darkest corner of the room. béla did not care to encounter the young count's sneering remarks just now--and these would of a certainty have been levelled against the bridegroom who was sitting in a tap-room when he should have been in attendance on his bride. but indeed my lord never saw him. to this young scion of a noble race, which had owned land and serfs for centuries past, these peasants here were of no more account than his oxen or his sheep--nor was the owner of a village shop of any more consequence in my lord's eyes. he came here because there was a good-looking jewess in the tap-room whose conversation amused him, and whose dark, velvety eyes, fringed with long lashes, and mouth with full, red lips, stirred his jaded senses in a more pleasant and more decided way than did the eyes and lips of the demure, well-bred young countesses and baronesses who formed his usual social circle. whether his flirtation with klara, the jewess, annoyed the girl's jew lover or not, did not matter to him one jot; on the contrary the jealousy of that dirty lout hirsch enhanced his amusement to a considerable extent. therefore he did not take the trouble to lower his voice now when he talked to klara, and it was quite openly that he put his arm round her waist while he held his glass to her lips--"to sweeten your father's vinegar!" he said with a laugh. "you know, my pretty klara," he said gaily, "that i was half afraid i shouldn't see you to-day at all." "no?" she asked coquettishly. "no, by gad! my father was so soft-hearted to allow erös a day off for his wedding or something, and so, if you please, i had to go to arad with him, as he had to see about a sale of clover. i thought we should never get back. the roads were abominable." "i hardly expected your lordship," she said demurely. to punish her for that little lie, he tweaked her small ear till it became a bright crimson. "that is to punish you for telling such a lie," he said gaily. "you know that i meant to come and say good-bye." "your lordship goes to-morrow?" she asked with a sigh. "to shoot bears, my pretty klara," he replied. "i don't want to go. i would rather stay another week here for you to amuse me, you know." "i am proud . . ." she whispered. "so much do you amuse me that i have brought you a present, just to show you that i thought of you to-day and because i want you not to forget me during the three months that i shall be gone." he drew the parcel out of his pocket and, turning his back to the rest of the room, he cut the string and undid the paper that wrapped it. the contents of the parcel proved to be a morocco case, which flew open at a touch and displayed a gold curb chain bracelet--the dream of klara goldstein's desires. "for me?" she said, with a gasp of delight. "for your pretty arm, yes," he replied. "shall i put it on?" she cast a swift, apprehensive glance round the room over his shoulder. "no, no, not now," she said quickly. "why not?" "father mightn't like it. i'd have to ask him." "d----n your father!" "and that fool, leopold, is so insanely jealous." "d----n him too," said the young man quietly. whereupon he took the morocco case out of klara's hand, shut it with a snap and put it back into his pocket. "what are you doing?" cried klara in a fright. "as you see, pretty one, i am putting the bracelet away for future use." "but . . ." she stammered. "if i can't put the bracelet on your arm myself," he said decisively, "you shan't have it at all." "but . . ." "that is my last word. let us talk of something else." "no, no! we won't talk of something else. you said the bracelet was for me." she cast a languishing look on him through her long upper lashes; she bared her wrist and held it out to him. leopold and his jealousy might go hang for aught she cared, for she meant to have the bracelet. the young man, with a fatuous little laugh, brought out the case once more. with his own hands he now fastened the bracelet round klara goldstein's wrist. then--as a matter of course--he kissed her round, brown arm just above the bracelet, and also the red lips through which the words of thanks came quickly tumbling. klara did not dare to look across the room. she felt, though she did not see, leopold's pale eyes watching this little scene with a glow in them of ferocious hate and of almost animal rage. "i won't stay now, klara," said the young count, dropping his voice suddenly to a whisper; "too many of these louts about. when will you be free?" "oh, not to-day," she whispered in reply. "after the fair there are sure to be late-comers. and you know erös béla has a ball on at the barn and supper afterwards. . . ." "the very thing," he broke in, in an eager whisper. "while they are all at supper, i'll come in for a drink and a chat. . . . ten o'clock, eh?" "oh, no, no!" she protested feebly. "my father wouldn't like it, he . . ." "d----n your father, my dear, as i remarked before. and, as a matter of fact, your father is not going to be in the way at all. he goes to kecskemét by the night train." "how do you know that?" "my father told me quite casually that goldstein was seeing to some business for him at kecskemét to-morrow. so it was not very difficult to guess that if your father was to be in kecskemét to-morrow in time to transact business, he would have to travel up by the nine o'clock train this evening in order to get there." then, as she made no reply, and a blush of pleasure gradually suffused her dark skin, lending it additional charm and giving to her eyes added brilliancy, he continued, more peremptorily this time: "at ten o'clock, then--i'll come back. get rid of as many of these louts by then as you can." she was only too ready to yield. not only was she hugely flattered by my lord's attentions, but she found him excessively attractive. he could make himself very agreeable to a woman if he chose, and evidently he chose to do so now. moreover klara had found by previous experience that to yield to the young man's varied and varying caprices was always remunerative, and there was that gold watch which he had once vaguely promised her, and which she knew she could get out of him if she had the time and opportunity, as she certainly would have to-night if he came. count feri, seeing that she had all but yielded, was preparing to go. her hand was still in his, and he was pressing her slender fingers in token of a pledge for this evening. "at ten o'clock," he whispered again. "no, no," she protested once more, but this time he must have known that she only did it for form's sake and really meant to let him have his way. "the neighbours would see you enter, and there might be a whole lot of people in the tap-room at that hour: one never knows. they would know by then that my father had gone away and they would talk such scandal about me. my reputation . . ." no doubt he felt inclined to ejaculate in his usual manner: "d----n your reputation!" but he thought better of it, and merely said casually: "i need not come in by the front door, need i?" "the back door is always locked," she remarked ingenuously. "my father invariably locks it himself the last thing at night." "but since he is going to kecskemét . . ." he suggested. "when he has to be away from home for the night he locks the door from the inside and takes the key away with him." "surely there is a duplicate key somewhere? . . ." "i don't know," she murmured. "if you don't know, who should?" he remarked, with affected indifference. "well! i shall have to make myself heard at the back door--that's all!" "how?" "wouldn't you hear me if i knocked?" "not if i were in the tap-room and a lot of customers to attend to." "well, then, i should hammer away until you did hear me." "for that old gossip rézi to hear you," she protested. "her cottage is not fifty paces away from our back door." "then it will have to be the front door, after all," he rejoined philosophically. "no, no!--the neighbours--and perhaps the tap-room full of people." "but d----n it, klara," he exclaimed impatiently, "i have made up my mind to come and spend my last evening with you--and when i have made up my mind to a thing, i am not likely to change it because of a lot of gossiping peasants, because of old rézi, or the whole lot of them. so if you don't want me to come in by the front door, which is open, or to knock at the back door, which is locked, how am i going to get in?" "i don't know." "well, then, you'll have to find out, my pretty one," he said decisively, "for it has got to be done somehow, or that gold watch we spoke of the other day will have to go to somebody else. and you know when i say a thing i mean it. eh?" "there is a duplicate key," she whispered shyly, ". . . to the back door, i mean." "i thought there was," he remarked dryly. "where is it?" "in the next room. . . . it hangs on a nail by father's bedside." "go and get it, then," he said more impatiently. "not now," she urged. "leopold is looking straight at you and me." he shrugged his aristocratic shoulders. "you are not afraid of that monkey?" he said with a laugh. "well, no! not exactly afraid. but he is so insanely jealous; one never knows what kind of mischief he'll get into. he told me just now that whenever father is away from home he takes his stand outside this house from nightfall till morning--watching!" "a modern argus--eh?" "a modern lunatic!" she retorted. "well!" resumed the young man lightly, "lunatic or not, he won't be able to keep an eye on you to-night, even though your father will be away." "how do you mean?" "hirsch is off to fiume in half an hour." "to fiume?" "yes. you know he has a brother coming home from america." "i know that." "his ship is due in at fiume the day after to-morrow. leopold must start by the same train as your father to-night, in order to catch the express for fiume at budapesth to-morrow." "did he tell you all that?" "i have known all along that he meant to meet his brother at fiume, and yesterday he said something about it again. so you see, my pretty one, that we can have a comfortable little supper this evening without fear of interruption. we'll have it at ten o'clock, when the supper-party is going on at the barn, eh? we shan't be interrupted then. so give me that duplicate key, will you, and i can slip in quietly through the back door without raising a bit of gossip or scandal. hurry up now! i shall have to be going." "i can't now," she protested. "leopold hasn't taken his eyes off me all this time." "oh! if that is all that is troubling you, my dear," said the young man coolly, "i can easily settle our friend leopold. hirsch!" he called loudly. "my lord?" queried the other, with the quick obsequiousness habitual to the down-trodden race. "my horse is kicking up such a row outside. i wish you'd just go and see if the boy is looking after him properly." of course it was impossible to do anything but obey. my lord had commanded; in the ordinary way the poor jew shopkeeper would have felt honoured to have been selected for individual recognition. nor did he do more now than throw one of those swift looks of his--so full of hatred and of menace--upon klara and the young man; but the latter, having given his orders, no longer condescended to take notice of the jew and had once more engaged the girl in animated conversation. had klara thought of looking up when leopold finally obeyed my lord's commands and went to look after the horse, she could not have failed to realize the danger which lurked in the young man's pale eyes then. his face, always pale and olive-tinted, was now the colour of ashes, grey and livid and blotched with purple, his lips looked white and quivering, and his eyebrows--of a reddish tinge--met above his nose in a deep, dark scowl. but my lord had thrown out a casual hint about a gold watch, and klara had no further thought for her jealous admirer. "now go and fetch the key," said count feri, as soon as the door had closed on leopold. the hint of the gold watch had stirred klara's pulses. a _tête-à-tête_ with my lord was, moreover, greatly to her liking. he could be very amusing when he chose, and was always generous; and klara's life was often dull and colourless. a pleasant evening spent in his company would compensate her in a measure for her disappointment at not being asked to elsa's ball, and there was the gold watch to look forward to, above all. taking an opportunity when her father was absorbed in his game of tarok, she went into the next room and presently returned with a key in her hand, which she surreptitiously gave to my lord. "splendid!" exclaimed the young man gaily. "klara, you are a gem, and after supper you shall just ask me for anything you have a fancy for, and i'll give it to you. now i'd better go. good-bye, little one. ten o'clock sharp, eh?" "ten o'clock," she repeated, under her breath. he strode to the door, outside which he found leopold waiting for him. "the horse was quite quiet, my lord," said the jew sullenly; "the boy had never left it for a moment." "oh! that's all right, hirsch," rejoined my lord indifferently. "i only wanted to know." of course he never thought of saying a word of thanks or of excuse to the other man. what would you? a jew! bah! not even worth a nod of the head. count feri rákosy had quickly mounted his pretty, half-bred arab mare--a click of the tongue and she was off with him, kicking up a cloud of dust in her wake. but leopold hirsch had remained for a moment standing on the doorstep of ignácz goldstein's house. he watched horse and rider through that cloud of dust, and along the straight and broad highway, until both had become a mere speck upon the low-lying horizon. "may you break your accursed neck!" he muttered fervently. then he went back to the tap-room. chapter xx "you happen to be of my race and of my blood." he strode at once to klara, who greeted him with an ironical little smile and a coquettish look out of her dark eyes. "you never told me that you were going away to-night, my dear leopold," she said suavely. "who told you that i was?" he retorted savagely. "it seems to be pretty well known about the place. you seemed to have been talking about it pretty freely that you were going to fiume to meet your brother when the ship he is on comes in." "i meant to tell you just now, only his lordship's arrival interrupted me," he said more quietly. "and since then you have been busy making a fool of yourself before my lord, eh?" she asked. "bah!" "and compromising me into the bargain, what? but let me tell you this, my good leopold, before we go any further, that i am not married to you yet, and that i don't like your airs of proprietorship, _sabe_?" he could not say anything more just then, for customers were departing, and she had to attend to them; he did not try to approach her while she was thus engaged, but presently, when her back was turned, he contrived to work his way across to the door which gave on the inner room, and to push it slightly open with his hand, until he could peep through the aperture and take a quick survey of the room beyond. klara had not seen this manoeuvre of his, although she had cast more than one rapid and furtive glance upon him while she attended to her customers. she was thankful that he was going away for a few days; in his present mood he was positively dangerous. she had lighted the oil lamp which hung from the centre of the low, raftered ceiling, the hour was getting late, customers were all leaving now one by one. erös béla was one of the last to go. he had drunk rather more silvorium than was good for him. he knew quite well that by absenting himself from the pre-nuptial festivals he had behaved in a disgraceful and unjustifiable manner which would surely be resented throughout the village, and though he was quite sure that he did not care one brass fillér what all those ignorant peasants thought of him, yet he felt it incumbent upon him to brace up his courage now, before meeting the hostile fusillade of eyes which would be sure to greet him on his return to the barn. he meant to put in a short appearance there, and then to finish his evening here in klara's company. he felt that his dignity demanded that he should absent himself at any rate from the supper, seeing that elsa had so grossly defied him. "at ten o'clock i'll be back, klara," he whispered, in the girl's ear, as he was about to take his departure along with some of his friends, who also intended to go on to the dance in the barn. "indeed you won't," she retorted decisively, "i have no use for you, my good béla. you are almost a married man now, remember!" she added with a laugh. "i'll bring those bottles of champagne," he urged; "don't be hard on me, klara. i'll give you a good time to-night, and a nice present into the bargain." "and ruin my reputation for ever, eh? by walking into the tap-room when it's full of people and carrying two bottles of champagne under your arm--or staying on ostentatiously after everyone has gone and for everyone to gossip. no, thank you; i've already told you that i am not going to lend myself to your little games of vengeance. it isn't me you want, it's petty revenge upon elsa. to that i say no, thank you, my good man." "klara!" he pleaded. "no!" she said, and unceremoniously turned her back on him. he went off, sullen and morose, and not a little chaffed for his moroseness by his friends. the tap-room was almost deserted for the moment. in one or two corners only a few stragglers lingered; they were sprawling across the tables with arms outstretched. ignácz goldstein's silvorium had proved too potent and too plentiful. they lay there in a drunken sleep--logs that were of no account. presently they would have to be thrown out, but there was no hurry for that--they were not in the way. ignácz goldstein had gone into the next room. klara was busy tidying up the place; leopold approached her with well-feigned contrition and humility. "i am sorry, klara," he said. "i seemed to have had the knack to-night of constantly annoying you. so i'd best begone now, perhaps." "i bear no malice, leo," she said quietly. "i thought i'd come back at about nine o'clock," he continued. "it is nearly eight now." she, thinking that he had his own journey in mind, remarked casually: "you'd best be here well before nine. the train leaves at nine-twenty, and father walks very slowly." "i won't be late," he said. "best give me the key of the back door. i'll let myself in that way." "no occasion to do that," she retorted. "the front door will be open. you can come in that way like everybody else." "it's just a fancy," he said quietly; "there might be a lot of people about just then. i don't want to come through here. i thought i'd just slip in the back way as i often do. so give me the key, klara, will you?" "how can i give you the key of the back door?" she said, equally quietly; "you know father always carries it in his coat pocket." "but there is a second key," he remarked, "which hangs on a nail by your father's bedside in the next room. give me that one, klara." "i shan't," she retorted. "i never heard such nonsense! as if i could allow you to use the private door of this house just as it suits your fancy. if you want to come in to-night and say good-bye, you must come in by the front door." "it's just a whim of mine, klara," urged leopold, now still speaking quietly--almost under his breath--but there was an ominous tremor in his voice and sudden sharp gleams in his eyes which the girl had already noted and which caused the blood to rush back to her heart, leaving her cheeks pale and her lips trembling. "nonsense!" she contrived to say, with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. "just a whim," he reiterated. "so i'll take the key, by your leave." he turned to the door of the inner room and pushed it open, just as he had done awhile ago, and now--as then--he cast a rapid glance round the room. klara, through half-closed lids, watched his every movement. "why!" he exclaimed, turning back to her, and with a look of well-feigned surprise, "the key is not in its place." "i know it isn't," she retorted curtly. "then where is it?" "i have put it away." "when? it was hanging on its usual nail when i first came here this afternoon. i remember the door being open, and my glancing into the room casually. i am sure it was there then." "it may have been: but i put it away after that." "why should you have done that?" "i don't know, and, anyhow, it's no business of yours, is it?" "give me that back-door key, klara," insisted the young man, in a tone of savage command. "no!" she replied, slowly and decisively. there was silence in the little, low raftered room after that, a silence only broken by the buzzing of flies against the white globe of the lamp, and by the snores of the sleepers who sprawled across the tables. leopold hirsch had drawn in his breath with a low, hissing sound; his face, by the yellow light of the lamp, looked ghastly in colour, and his hands were twitching convulsively as the trembling fingers clenched and opened with a monotonous, jerky movement of attempted self-control. klara had not failed to notice these symptoms of an agony of mind which the young man was so vainly trying to hide from her. for the moment she almost felt sorry for him--sorry and slightly remorseful. after all, leo's frame of mind, the agony which he endured, came from the strength of his love for her. neither erös béla, nor the young count, nor the many admirers who had hung round her in the past until such time as their fancy found more permanent anchorage elsewhere, would have suffered tortures of soul and of heart because she had indulged in a mild flirtation with a rival. erös béla would have stormed and cursed, the young count would have laid his riding-whip across the shoulders of his successful rival and there would have been an end of the matter. leopold hirsch would go down to hell and endure the torments of the damned, then return to heaven at a smile from her, and go back to hell again and glory in his misery. but just now she was frightened of him; he looked almost like a living corpse; the skin on his face was drawn so tightly over the bones that it gave him the appearance of a skull with hollow eyes and wide, grinning mouth. outside an owl hooted dismally. klara gave a slight shiver of fear and looked furtively round her to see if any of the drunkards were awake. then she recollected that her father was in the next room, and presently, from afar, came shouts of laughter and the sound of music. she woke as from a nightmare, gave her fine shoulders a little shake, and looked boldly into her jealous lover's face. "by the lord, leo!" she said, with a little forced laugh, "you have given me the creeps, looking as you do. how dare you frighten me like that? with your clenched hands, too, as if you wanted to murder me. there, now, don't be such a silly fool. you have got a long journey before you; it's no use making yourself sick with jealousy just before you go." "i am not going on a journey," he said, in a toneless, even voice, which seemed to come from a grave. "not going?" she said, with a frown of puzzlement. "you were going to fiume to meet your brother, don't you remember? the ship he is on is due in the day after to-morrow. if you don't start to-night you won't be able to catch the express at budapesth to-morrow." "i know all that," he said, in the same dull, monotonous tone; "i am not going, that's all." "but . . ." "i have changed my mind. your father is going away. i must watch over you to see that no one molests you. thieves might want to break in . . . one never knows . . . anyhow, my brother can look after himself . . . i stay to look after you." for a moment or two she stood quite still, her senses strained to grasp the meaning, the purport of the present situation--this madman on the watch outside--the young count, key in hand, swaggering up to the back door at ten o'clock, when most folk would be at supper in the barn, her father gone, the village street wrapped in darkness! leopold, by a violent and sudden effort, had regained mastery over the muscles of his face and hands, these no longer twitched now, and he answered her look of mute inquiry with one of well-feigned quietude. only his breath he could not control, it passed through his throat with a stertorous sound, and every now and then he had to pass his tongue over his dry, cracked lips. thus they stood for a moment eye to eye; and what she read in his glance caused a nameless fear to strike at her heart and to paralyse her will. but the next instant she had recovered her presence of mind. with quick, febrile movements she had already taken off her apron and with her hands smoothed her unruly dark hair. then she made for the door. less than a second and already he had guessed her purpose: before she could reach the door he had his back against it and his nervy fingers had grasped her wrist. "where are you going?" "out," she said curtly. "what for?" "that's none of your business." "what for?" he reiterated hoarsely. "let go my wrist," she exclaimed, "you are hurting me." "i'll hurt you worse," he cried, in a broken voice, "if you cross this threshold to-night." but he released her wrist, and she, wrathful, indignant, terrified, retreated to the other end of the room. "go out by the back door," he sneered, "if you want to go out. you have the key, haven't you?" "my father . . ." she began. "yes!" he said. "go and tell your father that i, leopold hirsch, your affianced husband, am browbeating you--making a scene, what?--because you have made an assignation with my lord the young count, here--at night--under your father's roof--under the roof of a child of israel! you! an assignation with a dirty christian! . . . bah! go and tell your father that! and he will thrash you to within an inch of your life! we are jews, he and i, and hold the honour of our women sacred--more sacred than their life!" "don't be a fool, leopold," she cried, feeling that indeed, between her father and this madman, her life had ceased to be safe. she looked round her helplessly. three or four besotted fools lying helpless across the tables, and all the village dancing and making merry some two hundred mètres away, her father--implacable, as she well knew, where her conduct was concerned--and this madman ready to kill to satisfy his lust of vengeance and of hate--she felt that indeed, unless heaven performed a miracle, here was the beginning of an awful, an irredeemable tragedy. "leopold, don't be a fool," she reiterated, trying with all her might not to appear frightened or scared or confused. "i have promised kapus elsa to go to her dance for half an hour. i had forgotten all about it. i must go now." "go and change your dress, then," he retorted with a sneer, "then you can go out by the back way. you have put the key away somewhere, haven't you? you know where it is." "you are mad about doors to-night. i tell you i am going out now, by that front door--at once." "and i tell you," he said, slowly and deliberately, "that if you cross the front door step i will call your father and tell him that you go and meet your lover--a christian lover--the young count--who would as soon think of marrying you as he would a nigger or a kitchen slut. before you will have reached the high road your father and i will be on your heels, and either he or i will strangle you ere you come within sight of my lord's castle." "you are mad!" she cried. "or else an idiot." "better look for that back-door key," he retorted. "what has the back-door key to do with it?" she asked sullenly. "only this," he replied, "that while that monkey-faced dog of a christian was whispering to you just now, i know that the key was hanging on its usual peg, but i heard something about 'supper' and about 'ten o'clock.' may he break his neck, i say, and save me the job. then he ordered me out of the room. oh! i guessed! i am no fool, you know! when i came back i looked into your father's room--the key was gone, and i knew. and what i say is, why can't he come in by the front door like a man, if he has nothing to hide? why must you let him come in like a thief by a back-door, if you have nothing to be ashamed of? the tap-room is open to anybody. anybody can walk in and get a drink if they want to. then why this whispering and this sneaking?" he was working himself up to a greater and ever greater passion of fury. he kept his voice low because he didn't want ignácz goldstein to hear--not just yet, at any rate--for ignácz was a hard man and a stern father, and god only knew what he might not do if he was roused. leopold did not want klara hurt--not yet, at any rate--not until he was quite sure that she meant to play him altogether false. she was vain and frivolous, over-fond of dress and of queening it over the peasant girls of the village, but there was no real harm in her. she was immensely flattered by the young count's attentions and over-ready to accept his presents in exchange for kisses and whisperings behind closed doors, but there was no real harm in her--so at least leopold hirsch kept repeating to himself time and again, whenever jealousy gnawed at his heart more roughly than he could endure. just now that torment was almost unbearable, and the passion of fury into which he had worked himself blinded him momentarily to the dull, aching pain. klara, as he spoke thus hoarsely, and brought his contorted face closer and closer to hers, had gradually shrunk more and more into the corner of the room, and there she remained now, flattened against the wall, her wide-open, terror-filled eyes fixed staringly upon this raving madman. "you asked just now," he continued, in the same hoarse, guttural whisper, which seemed literally to be racking and tearing his throat as it came, "what the back-door key had to do with my not going to meet my brother at fiume. well! it has this much to do with it, that you happen to be my tokened wife, that you happen to be of my race and of my blood, a sober, clean-living jewess, please god, and not one of those frivolous, empty-headed christian girls--you are that now, i know; if you were not i would kill you first and myself afterwards: therefore, if to-night i catch a thief--any thief, i don't care who he is--sneaking into this house by a back door when you happen to be here alone and seemingly unprotected, if i catch any kind of thief or malefactor, i say . . ." he paused, and she, through teeth that chattered, contrived to murmur: "well? what do you say? why don't you go on?" "because you understand," he said, with calm as sudden and as terrible as his rage had been awhile ago. "i am not a christian, you know, nor yet a gentleman. i cannot walk up either to my lord's castle or to one of these christian magyar peasants and strike him in the face for trying to rob me of that which is more precious to me than life. i am a jew . . . a low-born, miserable jew, whose whole race, origin and upbringing are despicable in the sight of the noble lords as well as of the hungarian peasantry. just a wretched creature whom one orders to hold one's horse, to brush one's boots, to stand out of one's way, anyhow; but not to meet as man to man, not to fight openly and frankly for the woman whom one loves. well! you happen to be a jewess too, and tokened to a jew, and if either my lord or one of these d----d magyar peasants chooses to come sneaking round you like a thief in the night, well . . ." he paused, and from the pocket of his shabby trousers he half drew out a long, sheathed hunting-knife, and then quickly hid it again from her sight. klara smothered a desperate cry of terror. leopold now turned his back on her; he went up to the table and seizing a carafe of water, he poured himself out a huge mugful and drank it down at a draught. the edge of the mug rattled against his teeth, his hand was trembling so that half the contents were poured down on his clothes. he did not look again on klara, but having put the mug down, he passed his hand once or twice across his forehead as if to chase away some of those horrible thoughts which were still lurking in his brain. then he took his cigarette-case out of his pocket, selected a cigarette, struck a match and lit it, still avoiding klara's fixed and staring gaze. "i'll go and smoke this outside," he said quietly. "i can see both doors from the corner. when you have found that back-door key you may go to elsa kapus' wedding feast, but not before." he took a final look round the room, and his eyes, which had once more become dull and pale, rested with an infinite look of contempt upon the two or three besotted drunkards who, throughout this scene, had done no more than open and blink a sleepy eye. "shall i turn these louts out for you now?" he asked. "no, no," she replied mechanically, "let them have their sleep. when they wake they'll go away all right." just then the outer door was opened and lakatos andor's broad figure appeared upon the threshold. leopold hirsch gave him a nod, and without another look on klara, he strode out into the night. chapter xxi "jealous, like a madman." "i came to see if béla was still here," said andor, as soon as the door had closed on leopold hirsch. "one or two chaps whom i met awhile ago told me that he had not been seen in the barn this hour past, and that there was a lot of talk about it. i thought that if he were here, i could persuade you . . ." he paused, and looked more keenly at the girl. "what is it, klara?" he asked; "you seem ill or upset . . ." she closed her eyes once or twice like someone just waking out of a dream, then she passed her hands over her forehead and over her hair. she felt completely dazed and stupid, as if she had received a stunning blow on the head, and while andor talked she looked at him with staring eyes, not understanding a word that he said. "yes--yes, andor?" she said vaguely. "what can i do for you?" "nothing much, my good klara," he replied; "it was only about béla . . ." "yes--about béla," she stammered; "won't . . . won't you sit down?" "thank you, i will for a moment." she moved forward in order to get him a chair, but she found that she could not stand. the moment that she relinquished the prop of the wall, her knees gave way under her and she lurched forward against the table. she would have fallen had not andor caught her and guided her to a chair, whereon she sank half fainting, with eyes closed and cheeks and lips the colour of ashes. just for the moment the wild thought flew through his mind that she had been induced to drink by one of the men, but a closer look on her wan, pale face and into those dilated eyes of hers convinced him that the girl was in real and acute mental distress. he went up to the table and poured out a mug of wine, which he held to her lips. she drank eagerly, looking up at him the while with a strangely pathetic, eagerly appealing gaze. when he had taken the mug from her and replaced it on the table, he drew a chair close to her and said as kindly as he could, for he did not feel very well-disposed toward the girl who was the cause of much unhappiness to elsa: "now, klara, you are going to tell me what is the matter with you." but already she had recovered herself a little, and lakatos andor's somewhat dictatorial tone grated upon her sensitive ear. "there's nothing the matter with me," she retorted, with a return of her habitual flippancy. "what should be the matter?" "i don't know," he said dryly; "and, of course, if you tell me that it's a private affair of your own and none of my business, why i'll be quite satisfied, and not ask any more questions. but if it's anything to do with béla . . ." "no, of course not," she broke in impatiently. "what should béla have to do with my affairs? béla has been gone from here this hour past." "and he is not coming back?" asked andor searchingly. "i trust not," she replied fervently, and the young man noticed that the staring, terror-filled look once more crept into her eyes. "very well, then," he said, rising, "that is all i wanted to know. i am sorry to have disturbed you. good-night, klara." "good-night," she murmured. he turned to go, and already his hand was on the latch of the door when an involuntary cry, like a desperate appeal, escaped her lips. "andor!" "what is it?" he said, speaking over his shoulder. he didn't like the girl: she had been offensive and insolent to elsa, the cause of elsa's tears; but just now, when he turned back in answer to that piteous call from her, she looked so forlorn, so pathetic, so terrified that all the kindliness and chivalry which are inherent in the true magyar peasant rose up in his heart to plead on her behalf. "you were quite right just now, andor," she murmured. "i am in trouble--in grave, terrible trouble. . . ." "is there anything i can do to help you?" he asked. "no, no, don't get up," he added hurriedly, for she had tried to rise and obviously was still unable to stand, "just stay where you are, and i'll come and sit near you. is there anything i can do to help you?" "yes!" she whispered under her breath. "what is it?" "i don't know what you'll think of me." "never mind what i think," he said, a little impatiently; "if there's anything i can do to help you in your trouble i'll do it, but of course i can do nothing unless you tell me all about it." she was trying to make up her mind to tell him, but it was desperately difficult. she had always been so careful of her reputation--so careful that not a breath of real scandal should fall on her. she, of the downtrodden race, the jewess whom even the meanest of the peasant girls thought it her right to despise, had been doubly careful not to give any loophole for gossip. she flirted with all the men, of course--openly and sometimes injudiciously, as in the case of erös béla on the eve of his wedding-day; but up to now she had never given any cause for scandal, nor anyone the right to look down on her for any other reason but that of her race and blood, which she could not help. it was hard, therefore, to have to own to something that distinctly savoured of intrigue, and this to a man who she felt had no cause to be her friend. but the situation was desperate; there was that madman outside! god only knew of what he would be capable if he found that his jealous suspicions had some measure of foundation! and the young count--ready to walk presently, without thought of coming danger, into the very clutches of that lunatic. that of course was unthinkable. there had been murder in leo's pale eyes when he fingered that awful-looking knife. the girl felt that such a risk could not be run: even the good opinion of the entire village became as nothing in her mind. and of course there was the hope and chance that andor would be chivalrous enough to hold his tongue. the young man's keen eyes had watched every phase of the conflict which was so distinctly reflected in the jewess's mobile face. he waited patiently until he saw determination gradually asserting its sway over her hesitation. the girl interested him, and she was evidently in great trouble. though he had no liking for her, he was anxious to know what had disturbed her so terribly and genuinely intended to be of use to her. he had no doubt that the trouble had something to do with leopold hirsch. everyone knew the latter's jealous disposition, and andor had not been home half a day before he had heard plenty of gossip on the subject. "well, klara?" he asked quietly after awhile, when he saw that she appeared to be more calm and more able to speak coherently. "you don't deny that you are in trouble. . . . you have half made up your mind to tell me. . . . well, then, out with it. . . . what is it?" "only that leopold is a swine," she blurted out roughly. "why? what has he done?" "jealous," she said; "like a madman." "oh?" "and i'm at my wits' end, andor," she moaned appealingly. "i don't know what to do." "hadn't you better tell me, then?" she threw back her head and looked him squarely in the face with a sudden determination to end the present agonizing suspense at all costs. "it is about young count feri." "my lord?" he exclaimed--for, indeed, up to this last moment he had been quite sure in his mind that her trouble had to do with erös béla and with her impudent flirtation of this afternoon. "yes," she said sullenly, "he's a little sweet on me, you know--he admires me and thinks me amusing--he likes to come here sometimes, when he gets tired of starchy countesses and baronesses over at his castle. he means no harm," she added fiercely, "and if leo wasn't such a beast . . ." "he has found you out, has he?" commented andor dryly. "not exactly. there was nothing to find out. but count feri wanted to come and see me this evening to say 'good-bye,' as he is off to-morrow for some weeks to shoot bears. he couldn't come till about ten o'clock, and didn't want to be seen walking into the tap-room at that hour of the night. there is the back door, you know," she continued, talking a little excitedly and volubly, "which my father always keeps locked and the key in his pocket, and count feri wanted me to give him the duplicate key, so that he could slip in that way unobserved." "hm!" mused andor. "what would your father have said to that?" "father is going to kecskemét presently by the nine o'clock train." "and leopold?" "leopold was going with him. he was to have gone to fiume with the express to-morrow to meet his brother, who is coming home from america." "well--and . . . ?" "well! he has changed his mind. he is not going to fiume. he was watching me all the afternoon like a regular spy. people had told him that at the banquet to-day erös béla had been very attentive, so one of his jealous fits was on him." "not without cause, i imagine," said andor, with a sarcastic laugh. "of course you would stick up for him," she retorted; "men always band themselves together against an unfortunate girl. but leo has behaved like a brute. he watched me while my lord was talking to me, and caught snatches of our conversation. then my lord sent him out of the room to look after his horse whilst he pressed me to give him the key of the back door." "i understand." "how could i guess that leopold would be such a swine! it seems that when he came back he peeped into father's room and noticed at once that the key was gone. he guessed, of course--now he has threatened to tell father if i attempt to go out of this house. he won't let me out of his sight, and yet i must go and give count feri a warning and get that key back from him. if leo tells father, father will half kill me, and already leo has threatened to strangle me if he finds me on the high road on my way to the castle. my lord suspects nothing, of course . . ." she added, while tears of impotence and of terror choked the words in her throat. "he'll come here presently, and as like as not leopold will do for him." she burst into a passionate fit of weeping. andor waited quietly until the first paroxysm of sobs had subsided, and she could hear what he said, then he remarked quite quietly: "as like as not, as you say." "but i won't have him hurt," she murmured through her tears. "leo would kill him for sure. you don't know, andor, what leopold is like when the jealous rage is in him. he is outside this house now, watching. and there he will stand and wait and watch; and he will waylay count feri when he comes, and stab him with a hideous knife which he always carries in his pocket. oh! it's horrible!" she moaned, "horrible! i don't know what to do. what can i do? andor, tell me, what can i do?" "what would you like to do?" he asked more gently, for indeed the girl's grief and terror were pitiable to behold. "run over to the castle," she replied, "and get the key back from count feri, and tell him on no account to come to-night. it is only a step; i could be back here in half an hour, and father is asleep in the next room. i should be back before he need start for the station. but leopold is watching outside. he declared that he would strangle me or else tell father if i set foot outside this house. he is a brute, isn't he?" "well, you see, my dear klara, i understand that you are tokened to leopold now, and a man has a way of thinking that his affianced wife is his own, and not for other men to hang round her and make a fool of him!" "curse him!" she muttered savagely; "i'll never marry him after this." "oh, yes, you will," he retorted, with a light laugh; "you'll like him all the better presently for these outbursts of jealousy. a woman often gets fondest of the man she fears the most. but in the meanwhile you are at your wits' ends, eh, my pretty klara? you can't think of any way out of your present difficulty, what? and to-night at ten o'clock there will be an awful scandal and worse--murder, perhaps!--and where will you be after that, eh, my pretty klara? even if your father does not break his stick over your shoulders, you'll have anyhow to leave this village, for the village will be too hot to hold you. and as your father does mighty good business at marosfalva, he will not look too kindly on the daughter who, by her scandalous conduct, has driven him to seek a precarious fortune elsewhere. the situation certainly is a desperate one for you, my pretty one, what?" "you need not tell me all that, andor," she said sullenly. "don't i know it?" "it seems to me," he continued, slowly and deliberately, "that there never was a woman before quite so desperately in need of a friend as you are, eh, klara?" "i have no friend," she murmured. "a friend, i mean, who would go and do your errand for you over at the castle, what?--and warn his young and noble lordship not to show his aristocratic face in marosfalva to-night." "i haven't such a friend, andor, unless you . . ." "well! you don't want me to go out and kill leopold hirsch, do you?" he said dryly. "of course not." "or engage him in a brawl while you run round to the castle?" "it would be no good. he'd only tell father," she said, while a shiver ran through her body; "and they would kill me on my return." "exactly. what you want is, to stay here quite quietly, just as if nothing had happened, whilst the friend of whom i spoke just now went and got back that key which is causing so much trouble." "yes, yes, that's what i want, andor," she cried eagerly; "and if you . . ." "stop a bit," he broke in quietly; "i didn't say that i was that friend, did i?" "then you are only tormenting me. it isn't kind when i'm in such trouble." "i didn't mean to torment you, klara," he said more softly. "i will even go so far as to say that i might be that useful friend. you understand?" "yes! you'll make conditions for doing that friendly act for me. i understand well enough," she said, still speaking with fierce sullenness. "what are your conditions?" she asked. "look here, klara," he replied earnestly, "a bargain is a bargain, isn't it? i will get you out of this trouble, and what's more, i'll hold my tongue about it. but you leave erös béla alone . . . understand?" "what do you mean?" "oh! you know well enough what i mean," he said, almost roughly now, for the name of erös béla, which he himself had brought into this matter, had at once conjured up in his mind the painful visions of this afternoon--elsa's tears, her humiliation and unhappiness--and had once more hardened his heart against the woman who had been the cause of it all. "you know well enough what i mean. erös béla is full of vanity, your attentions to-day pleased him, and he neglected elsa as he had no right to do. now i don't say for a moment that you meant any harm. it was only your vanity that was pleasantly tickled too, but you made elsa unhappy, and that is what i mean when i say that a bargain is a bargain. if i get you out of your trouble to-night, you must leave erös béla severely alone in the future." "you are a fine one to preach," she retorted, with a harsh laugh. "as if you weren't in love with elsa, though elsa will be béla's wife to-morrow." "my being in love with elsa has nothing to do with the matter. nor am i preaching to you. you want me to do you a service and i've told you my price. you can accept it or not as you please." "i can't help erös béla running after me," came as a final sullen protest from the girl. "then you will have to try and help it, that's all," he said emphatically, "if you want me to help you." she said nothing for a moment, whilst her dark eyes searched his own, trying to see how much determination lay behind that stern-looking face of his, then she murmured gently: "and if i promise . . . what you want me to promise, andor . . . will you go and see count feri at once?" "a promise isn't enough," he said. "an oath, then?" "yes. an oath." "and you will bring me back that abominable key, and tell count feri just what has happened." "if you will swear," he insisted. "yes, yes, i will swear," she cried eagerly now, for indeed a heavy load had been lifted off her heart, and her natural buoyancy of temperament was already reasserting its sway over her terrors and agony of mind. "what do you want me to say?" "swear by almighty god," he said earnestly, "to leave erös béla alone, never to flirt with him or do anything to cause elsa the slightest unhappiness." "i swear it by almighty god," she said solemnly, "and you need not be afraid," she added slowly; "i will not break my oath." "no! i am not afraid that you will, for if you do . . . well! we won't talk about that," he continued more lightly. "i suppose there isn't much time to be lost." "no, no, there isn't," she urged, "and don't make straight for the main road; go up the village first and then back through the fields; leopold might suspect something--one never knows." "all right, klara, i'll do my best. we can but pray that i shall find my lord at home, in which case i can be back in twenty minutes. i'll pick up a friend or even two when i return, as then we can all walk into the tap-room together. it won't be so conspicuous as if i came in alone. what is the time now?" he asked. she went to the partition door, opened it and peeped into her father's room. "just ten minutes to nine," she said; "father will have gone by the time you come back." "that'll be as well, won't it?" he concluded, as he finally turned to go. "if you are not in the tap-room when i come back, what shall i do with the key?" she pointed to a small brass tray which stood on the table in among the litter of bottles, glasses, mugs and tobacco-jars. "just on there," she said, "then if i come into the room later, i can see it there at a glance; and oh! what a relief it will be!" the colour had come back to her cheeks. indeed, she felt marvellously cheerful now and reassured. she knew that andor would fulfil his share of the bargain, and the heavy cloud of trouble and of terror would be permanently lifted from her within the next half-hour. in her usual, light-hearted, frivolous way she blew a kiss to andor. but the young man, without looking again on her, had already opened the door, and the next moment he had gone out into the dark night on his errand of friendship. chapter xxii "i go where i shall be more welcome." in the meanwhile, in the barn time had been flying along on the wings of enjoyment. ever since six o'clock, when vespers were well over and the gipsies had struck up the first csárdás, merry feet had been tripping it almost incessantly. it is amazing what a capacity the young hungarian peasant--man or woman--has for footing the national dance. with intervals of singing and of gossiping these young folk in the barn had been going on for over three hours. and they were not even beginning to get tired. to the hungarian peasants, be it remembered, the csárdás is not merely a dance, though they enjoy the movement, of course, the exhilaration and the excitement of the music, just as all healthy young animals would enjoy gambolling on a meadow; there is a deeper meaning to these children of the plains in the sweet, sad strains of their songs and in the mazes and intricacies of their dance. they put their whole life, their entire sentiment for country and sweetheart, in the music and in the dance, and the music and the dance give outward expression to their feelings, speak in the language of poetry which they feel well enough, but which their untutored tongue cannot frame. a hungarian peasant in sorrow or distress will probably, like his western prototype, seek to drown his grief in drink; far be it from his chronicler's mind to suggest that his sentiments are more elevated than those of the peasantry of other nations, or his morality more sound. he will get drunk, too, like men of other nations, but he will do it to the accompaniment of music. the gipsy band must be there, when he is in trouble or in joy--one or two fiddles, perhaps a clarionet, always a czimbalom--just these few instruments to play his favourite songs. they don't ease his sorrow, but they help to soothe it by bringing tears to his eyes and softening the bitterness of his grief. and in joy he will invariably dance; when he is in love he will dance, for the csárdás helps him to explain to the girl whom he loves exactly what he feels for her. and she understands. one csárdás will reveal to a hungarian village maid the state of her lover's heart far more clearly than do all the whisperings behind hedges in more civilized lands. it was in the csárdás five years ago that elsa had learned from andor how much he loved her; it was during the mazes of the dance that she was able to overcome her shyness and tell him mutely that she loved him in return. and now it was in the csárdás that she was bidding farewell to-day to her girlhood and to the companions of her youth; to jenö and móritz, who had loved her ardently and hopelessly these past two years, and who must henceforth become to her mere friends. it was in the turns and the twirls, with the wild music marking step, that she conveyed all that there was in her simple heart of regret for the past and cheerful anticipation for the future. elsa was a perfect dancer; it was a joy to have her for a partner, and she was indefatigable this afternoon. it seemed as if living fire was in her blood, her cheeks glowed, her eyes shone like dark-blue stars; she gave herself neither rest nor respite. determined to enjoy every minute of the day, she had forcibly put behind her the sorrowful incidents of the afternoon. she would not remember and she would not think. andor was not here, and as the spirit of music and of dancing crept more and more into her brain, she almost got to the stage of believing that his appearance to-day had only been a dream. nor would she look to see if erös béla were here. she knew that he had gone off soon after dancing began. he had slipped away quietly, and at first no one had noticed his absence. he had always professed a lofty contempt for gipsy music and for the csárdás, a contempt which has of late come into fashion in hungary among the upper classes, and has unfortunately been aped by those whose so-called education has only succeeded in obliterating the fine national spirit of the past without having the power to graft more modern western culture into this oriental race. erös béla belonged to this same supercilious set, and had made many enemies by his sarcastic denunciations of things that were almost thought sacred in marosfalva. it was therefore quite an understood thing that the moment a csárdás was struck up, erös béla at once went to seek amusement elsewhere. of course to-day was a very different occasion to the more usual village entertainments. to-day he should have thought of nothing but his fiancée's pleasure. she was over-fond of dancing, and looked a picture when she danced. it was clearly a bridegroom's duty, under these circumstances, to stand by and watch his fiancée with all the admiration that should be filling his heart. after the wedding, if he disapproved of the csárdás, why of course he could forbid his wife to dance it, and there would be an end of the matter. to-day he was still the groom, the servant of his fiancée--to-morrow only would he become her master. but everyone was so intent upon enjoyment that a long time went by before gossip occupied itself exclusively with erös béla's absence from his pre-nuptial feast. when once it began it raged with unusual bitterness. the scandal during the banquet was being repeated now. béla was obviously sitting in the tap-room of the inn, flirting with the jewess, when he should have been in attendance on his bride. elsa could not help but hear the comments that were being made by all the mothers and fathers and older people who were not dancing, and who, therefore, had plenty of leisure for talk. all the proprieties were being outraged--so it was declared--and elsa, who might have married so well at one time, was indeed now an object of pity. she hated to hear all this talk, and felt hideously ashamed that people should be pitying her. vainly did she try to get some measure of comfort from her mother. kapus irma, irritated by the looks of commiseration which were being levelled at her daughter, dubbed the latter a fool for not having the sense to know how to keep her bridegroom by her side. it was past eight o'clock before béla put in an appearance at all. a csárdás was in full swing. the compact group of dancers was crowded round the musicians' platform, for the csárdás can only be properly danced under the very bow--as it were--of the gipsy leader. the barn looked gaily lighted up with oil-lamps swinging down from the rafters above, and it had been most splendidly decorated for the occasion with festoons of paper flowers and tri-colour flags. petticoats and ribbons were flying, little feet in red leather boots were kicking up clouds of dust. there was no moon to-night, the sky was heavy with clouds, so the village street had been very dark. erös béla blinked as he entered the barn, so dazzling did the picture present itself to his gaze. and there was such an atmosphere of merriment and of animation about the place that instinctively béla's thoughts flew back to the dismal and dingy little tap-room whence he had just come, with a few drunken fellows sprawling in corners and leopold hirsch's ugly face leering out of the shadows. here everyone was gay and good-tempered. the gipsies scraped their fiddles till one would have thought their arms would break, the young people danced, the men shouted and sang. it was a pandemonium of giddiness and music and laughter. and béla, as he blinked and looked upon the scene, remembered that he had paid for it all. he had paid for the hire of the barn, the music and the lighting; he had paid for the lavish supper which would be served presently. and as he had had more silvorium to drink in the tap-room than was altogether good for the clearness of his brain, he fell to thinking that he ought now to be received and welcomed with all the deference which his lavishness deserved. he thought that the young people should have left off dancing when he appeared, and should have greeted him, as they would undoubtedly have greeted my lord the count, had the latter deigned to come. and what, after all, was my lord on such an occasion in comparison with the donor of the feast? even elsa--though she must, of course, have seen him--did not stop in her senseless gyrations. she was dancing with barna móritz--the mayor's youngest son and a splendid dancer--and the two young people went on twirling and twisting and flirting and laughing just as if he--the real host--had not been there. enraged at all this indifference, this want of recognition of his dignity, he elbowed his way through the dense group of spectators which formed a phalanx round the dancers. the wide and voluminous petticoats of the women formed a veritable hedge through which he had to scramble and to push. as the people recognized him they gave him pleasant greetings, for the hungarian peasant is by nature kindly and something of an opportunist; there was no occasion to quarrel openly with erös béla, who was rich and influential. but he paid no heed either to the greetings or to the whispered comments that followed in their wake. he just felt that he was the master of this place, and he meant everyone else to know and acknowledge this fact. so he strode up to the czigány and ordered them peremptorily to draw this interminable csárdás to an end; it had lasted quite long enough, he said, and the girls looked a sight with their crimson, perspiring faces; he was not going to have such vulgar goings-on at any of his wedding feasts. the gipsy leader never thought of disobeying, of course; it was the _tekintetes úr_ (honoured gentleman) who was paying them for their work, and they had to do as they were told. despite loud protests from the dancers, the csárdás was brought to a lovely and whirling close. panting, hot and beaming, the dancers now mingled with the rest of the throng, and a pandemonium of laughter and chatter soon filled the barn from end to end. elsa, in accordance with the custom which holds sway even at village dances, was even now turning to walk away with her partner, whose duty it was to conduct her to her mother's side. she felt wrathful with béla--as wrathful, at least, as so gentle a creature could be. she was ashamed of his behaviour, ashamed for herself as well as for him, and she didn't want to speak with him just now. but he, still feeling dictatorial and despotic, had not yet finished asserting his authority. he called to her loudly and peremptorily: "elsa! i want a word with you." "i'll come directly, béla," she replied, speaking over her shoulder. "i want to speak to mother for a minute." "you can speak to her later," he rejoined roughly. "i want a word with you now." and without more ado he pushed his way up close to elsa's side, elbowing barna móritz with scant ceremony. an angry word rose to the younger man's lips, and a sudden quarrel was only averted by a pleading look from elsa's blue eyes. it would have been very unseemly, of course, to quarrel with one's host on such an occasion. móritz, swallowing his wrath, withdrew without a word, even though he cursed béla for a brute under his breath. béla took elsa's arm and led her aside out of the crowd. "you know," he said roughly, "how i hate you to mix with that rowdy lot like you do; and you know that i look on the csárdás as indecent and vulgar. why do you do it?" "the rowdy lot, as you call them, béla," she replied firmly, "are my friends, and the csárdás is a dance which all true magyars dance from childhood." "i don't choose to allow my wife to dance it," he retorted. "and after to-morrow i will obey you, béla. to-day i asked my mother if i might dance. and she said yes." "your mother's a fool," he muttered. "and remember that to-night i take leave of my girlhood," she said gently, determined not to quarrel. "my friends like to monopolize me . . . it's only natural." "well! they are not my friends, anyway, and i'd rather you did not dance another csárdás to-night." "i am sorry, béla," she said quietly, "but i have promised fehér károly and also jenö. they would be disappointed if i broke my promise." "then they'll have to be disappointed, that's all." she made no reply, but looking at her face, which he saw in profile, he could not fail to note that her lips were tightly set and that there was an unwonted look of determination round her mouth. he drew in his breath, for he was quite ready for a second conflict of will to-day, nor, this time, was the issue for a moment in doubt in his mind. women were made to obey--their parents first and then their husbands. in this case béla knew well enough that his authority was fully backed by that of elsa's mother--the invalid father, of course, didn't count, but kapus irma wanted that house on the kender road, she wanted the servant and the oxen, the chickens and the pigs, she wanted all the ease and the luxury which her rich son-in-law would give her. no! there was no fear that elsa would break her tokened word. in this semi-oriental land, where semi-oriental thought prevails, girls do not do that sort of thing--if they do, it is to their own hurt, and elsa was not of the stuff of which rebellious or perjured women are made. therefore béla now had neither fear nor compunction in asserting that authority which would be his to the full to-morrow. he felt that there was a vein of rebellion in elsa's character, and this he meant to drain and to staunch till it had withered to nothingness. it would never do for him--of all men--to have a rebellious or argumentative wife. "well, then, that's settled," he said, with absolute finality, "you can go and talk to your precious friends as much as you like, so long as you behave yourself as a tokened bride should, but i will not have you dance that abominable csárdás again to-night." "and have you behaved to-day, béla," she retorted quite gently, "as a tokened bridegroom should?" "that's nothing to do with it," he replied, with a harsh laugh. "i am a man, and you are a girl, and even the most ignorant hungarian peasant will tell you that there is a vast difference there. but i am not going to argue about it with you, my dear. i merely forbid you to dance a dance which i consider indecent. that's all." "and i am sorry, béla," she said, speaking at least as firmly as he did, "but i have given my promise, and even you would not wish me to break my word." "you mean to disobey me, then?" he asked. "certainly not after to-morrow. to-day i have my mother's permission, and i am going to dance one csárdás now with fehér károly and one after supper again with jenö." they had both unconsciously raised their voices during these last few words, and thus aroused the attention of some of the folk, who had stood by to listen. of course, everyone knew of béla's aversion to the csárdás, and curiosity prompted gaffers and gossips to try and hear what would be the end of this argument between the pretty bride--who certainly looked rather wilful and obstinate now--and her future lord and master. "well said, little elsa!" came now in ringing accents from the foremost group in the little crowd; "we must see you dance the csárdás once or twice more before that ogre has the authority to shut you up in his castle." "moreover, your promise has been made to me," asserted fehér károly lustily, "and i certainly shall not release you from it." "nor i," added jenö. "don't you listen to béla, my little elsa," said one of the older women; "you are still a free girl to-day. you just do as you like--to-morrow will be time enough to do as he tells you." but this opinion the married men present were not prepared to endorse, and one or two minor arguments and lectures ensued anent a woman's duty of obedience. béla had said nothing while these chaffing remarks were being passed over his head; and now that public attention was momentarily diverted from him, he took elsa's hand and passed it under his arm. "you had better go to your mother now, hadn't you?" he said, with what seemed like perfect calm. "you said just now that you wished to speak to her." elsa allowed him to lead her away. she tried vainly to guess what was going on in his mind. she knew, of course, that he must be very angry. erös béla beaten in an argument was at no time a very pleasant customer, and now he surely was raging inwardly, for he had set his heart on exerting his authority over this matter of the csárdás and had signally failed. but she could not see how he felt, for he kept his face averted from her inquiring gaze. kapus irma greeted her future son-in-law with obvious acerbity. "i hear you have been teasing elsa again," she said crossly. "why can't you let her enjoy herself just for to-night, without interfering with her?" "oh! i am not going to interfere with her," he replied, with a sneer. "you have given her such perfect lessons of disobedience and obstinacy that it will take me all my time in the future to drill her into proper wifely shape. but to-night i am not going to interfere with her. she has told me plainly that she means to do just as she likes and that you have given her leave to defy me. public opinion, it seems, is all in her favour too. so i have just brought your dutiful daughter back to you, and now i am free to make myself scarce." "to make yourself scarce?" exclaimed irma. "what do you mean?" "just what i say. i am not going to stay here, where i am jeered at by a lot of loutish, common peasants, who seem to have forgotten that i am paying for their enjoyment and for all the food and drink which they will consume presently. however, that's neither here nor there. everyone seems to look upon this entertainment as elsa's feast, and upon elsa as the hostess and the queen. i am so obviously in the way and of no consequence. i go where i shall be more welcome." he had dropped elsa's arm and was turning to go, but irma had caught hold of his coat. "where are you going?" she gasped. "that's nothing to do with you, is it, irma néni?" he replied dryly. "indeed it is," she retorted; "why, you can't go away like that--not before supper--you can't for elsa's sake--what would everybody say?" "i don't care one brass fillér what anybody says, irma néni, and you know it. as for elsa, why should i consider her? she has plenty of friends to stand by her, it seems, in her disobedience to my wishes. she has openly defied me, and made me look a fool. i am not going to stand that, so i go elsewhere--or i might do or say something which i might be sorry for later on--see?" he tried to speak quietly and not to raise his voice, but it was also obvious that self-control was costing him a mightily vigorous effort, for the veins in his temples were standing up like cords, and his one eye literally shone with a sinister and almost cruel glow. kapus irma turned to her daughter. "elsa," she said fretfully, "don't be such a goose. i won't have you quarrelling with béla like this, just before your wedding. just you kiss him now, and tell him you didn't mean to vex him. we can't have everybody gossiping about this affair! my goodness! as if a csárdás or two mattered." . . . but here béla's harsh laugh broke in on her mutterings. "don't waste your breath, irma néni," he said roughly. "even if elsa were to come and beg my pardon now i would not remain here. i don't care for such tardy, perfunctory obedience, and this she will learn by and by. for to-night, if you and she feel ashamed and uncomfortable, well! so much the better. village gossip doesn't affect me in the least. i do as i like, and let all the chattering women go to h----l. good-night, irma néni--good-night, elsa! i hope you will be in a better frame of mind to-morrow." and before kapus irma could detain him or utter another protest, he was gone, and she turned savagely on her daughter. "elsa!" she said, "you are never going to let us all be shamed like this? run after him at once, and bring him back!" "he wouldn't come back, mother, if i begged him ever so . . ." said elsa drearily; "and besides--where should i find him?" "on his way to ignácz goldstein's, of course. if you run you can easily overtake him." "i can't, mother," protested elsa; "how can i?" "you'll just do as i tell you, my girl!" said irma firmly, and with a snap of her lean jaws. "by the holy virgin, child! are you going to disobey your mother now? god will punish you, you know, if you go on like that. go at once as i tell you. run out by this door here. no one will see you, you will overtake béla before he is half-way down the street, and then you must just bring him back. that's all." long habits of obedience were so ingrained in the girl that at this moment--though she felt quite sure that all her attempts would be in vain, and though she felt bitterly humiliated at having to make such attempts--she never thought of openly defying her mother. indeed, she quite believed that god would punish her if she rebelled so constantly, for this had been drilled into her since her earliest childhood's days. fortunately for the moment everyone's attention was concentrated on a table of liquid refreshments in a remote corner of the barn, and elsa and her mother were practically isolated here, and the last little scene had gone by unobserved. irma picked a shawl from off her own shoulders and put it round her daughter; then she gave her a final significant push. elsa, with her tear-dimmed eyes, could scarcely find the little side door which was fashioned in the wooden wall itself, and gave direct access into the street. god would punish her if she defied her mother; well! god's wrath must be harder to bear than the bitter humiliation to which her mother had so airily condemned her. to beg béla's forgiveness, to assure him of her obedience, to stand shamed before him and before all her friends, surely god couldn't want her to do all that? but already she had crossed the threshold and was out in the dark, silent street. she ran on mechanically in the direction of the inn; her mother's commands seemed to be moving her along, for certainly her own will had nothing to do with it. her cheeks were aflame, and her eyes burned with all the tears which she would not shed, but she herself felt cold and numb, as she ran on blindly, stupidly, to where she had just seen a tiny speck of light. the night was dark but exquisitely calm--perfectly still, yet full of those mysterious whisperings which come from the bosom of the plain, the flutter of birds' wings, snug in their night's lodgings amongst the drooping branches of pollarded willows, the quiver of the plumed heads of maize, touched by some fairy garment as it brushed by, the call of the cricket from among the tall sunflowers and the quiver of the glow-worm on the huge pumpkin leaves. elsa knew all these soft whisperings; she was a child of this immense and majestic plain, and all the furtive little beasts that dwelt within its maze were bosom friends of hers. at other times, when her mind and heart had been at peace, she loved these dark, calm nights, when heavy clouds hid the light of the moon and sounds grew louder and more distinct as the darkness grew more tense; neither fluttering of unseen wings nor quiver of stealthy footsteps had the power to startle her; they were all her friends, these tiny dwellers of the plain, these midnight marauders of whom townsfolk are always so afraid. at first, when she perceived the tiny speck of light on ahead, she thought that it must be a glow-worm settled on the leaves of the dahlias outside the school-house, for glow-worms had been over-abundant this late summer, but soon she saw that the burning speck was moving along, on ahead in the same direction as she herself was going--on the way to ignácz goldstein's. béla had lighted a cigar when he left the barn; nursing his resentment, he had walked along rapidly toward the inn, his head whirling with thoughts of the many things which he meant to do in order to be revenged on elsa this night. of course a long visit to klara fully entered into those schemes, and now he paused just at the foot of the verandah steps breathing in the soft evening air with fully dilated nostrils and lungs, so that his nerves might regain some semblance of that outward calm which his dignity demanded. and thus, standing still, he heard through the silence the patter of small, high-heeled boots upon the hard road. he guessed at once that elsa had been sent along by her mother to bring him back, and a comforting glow of inward satisfaction went right through his veins as, after a slight moment of hesitation, he made up his mind to await elsa's coming here, to listen to her apologies, to read her the lecture which she fully deserved, but nevertheless to continue the plan of conduct which he had mapped out for himself. chapter xxiii "on the eve of one's wedding day too." he could not see elsa till she was quite close to him, and even then he could only vaguely distinguish the quaint contour of her wide-sleeved shift and of her voluminous petticoats. but his cigar had gone out, and when elsa stood quite close to him, and softly murmured his name, he struck a match very deliberately, and held it to the cigar so that it lighted up his face for a few seconds. he wanted her to see how indifferent was the expression in his eye, and that there was not the slightest trace of a welcoming smile lurking round his lips. therefore he held the lighted match close to his face much longer than was necessary; he only dropped it when it began to scorch his fingers. then he blew a big cloud of smoke out of his cigar straight into her face, and only after that did he say, speaking very roughly: "what do you want?" "mother sent me, béla," she said timidly, as she placed a trembling little hand on his coat-sleeve. "i wouldn't have come, only she ordered me, and i couldn't disobey her, so i . . ." "couldn't disobey your mother, eh?" he sneered; "you couldn't defy her as you did me, what?" "i didn't mean to defy you, béla," she said, striving with all her might to keep back the rebellious words which surged out of her overburdened heart to her quivering lips. "i couldn't be unkind to jenö and károly, and all my old friends, just this last evening, when i am still a girl amongst them." "you preferred being obstinate and wilful toward me, i suppose?" "don't let us quarrel, béla," she pleaded. "i am not quarrelling," he retorted. "i came to the barn just now looking forward to the pleasure of having you to myself for a little bit. there was a lot i wanted to say to you--just quietly, in a corner by our two selves. and how did i find you? hot and panting, after an hour's gyrations, hardly able to stand, and certainly not able to speak; and at my simple request that you should give up a dance of which i whole-heartedly disapprove, you turned on me with impudence and obstinacy. i suppose you felt yourself backed up by your former sweetheart, and thought you could just treat me like the dirt under your feet." he certainly had proved himself a good advocate in his own cause. the case thus put succinctly and clearly before her appeared very black to elsa against herself. ever ready for self-deprecation, she began to think that indeed she had behaved in a very ugly, unwomanly and aggressive manner, and her meekness cost her no effort now when she said gently: "i am sorry, béla! i seem to have been all queer the whole of to-day. it is a very upsetting time for any girl, you must remember. but pater bonifácius said that if any sin lay on my conscience since my last confession, i could always find him in church at seven o'clock to-morrow morning, before our wedding mass, so as to be quite clear of sin before holy communion." "that's all right, then," he said, with a hard laugh. "you had better find him in church to-morrow morning, and tell him that you have been wilful and perverse and disobedient. he'll give you absolution, no doubt. so now you'd better go back to your dancing. your many friends will be pining for you." "won't you . . . won't you come back with me, béla?" she pleaded. "no. i won't. i have told your mother plainly enough that i wasn't coming back. so why she should have sent you snivelling after me, i can't think." "i think that even if mother hadn't sent me i should have come ultimately. i am not quite sure, but i think i should have come. i know that i have done wrong, but we are all of us obstinate and mistaken at times, aren't we, béla? it is rather hard to be so severely punished," she added, with a wistful little sigh, "on the eve of one's wedding day too, which should be one of the happiest days in a girl's life." "severely punished?" he sneered. "bah! as if you wanted me over there. you've got all your precious friends." "but i do want you, béla. all the time that you were not in the barn this afternoon i . . . i felt lonesome." "then why didn't you send for your old sweetheart? he would have cheered you up." "don't say that, béla," she said earnestly, and once more her little hand grasped his coat-sleeve; "you don't know how it hurts. i don't want to think of andor. i only want to think of you, and if you would try and be a little patient, i am sure that we would understand one another better very soon." "i hope so, my dear," he rejoined dryly, "for your sake--as i am not a patient man; let me tell you that. come, give me a kiss and run back to your mother. i can't bear to have a woman snivelling near me like that." he drew her toward him with that rough, perfunctory gesture which betokened the master rather than the lover. then with one hand he raised her chin up and brought her face quite close to his. even then he could not see her clearly because of the heavy clouds in the sky. but the air seemed suddenly to have become absolutely still, not a breath of wind stirred the leaves of the acacia trees, and all those soft sighings and mysterious whisperings which make the plain always appear so full of life were for the moment hushed. only from far away came the murmur of the sluggish waters of the maros, and from its shores the call of a heron to its mate. elsa made vigorous efforts to swallow her tears. the exquisite quietude of nature, that call of the heron, the scent of dying flowers which lingered in the autumn air, made her feel more strongly than she had ever felt before how beautiful life might have been. pater bonifácius' words rang in her ears: "you are going to be happy in god's way, my child, which may not be your way, but must be an infinitely better one." well! for the moment elsa didn't see how this was going to be done; she did not see how she could ever be happy beside this tyrannical, arrogant man who would be, and meant to be, her master rather than her mate. even now the searching look wherewith his one eye, with its sinister expression, tried to read her very soul had in it more of pride of possession, more of the appraiser of goods than the ardour of a bridegroom. béla cursed the darkness which prevented his reading now every line of that pure young face which was held up to his; he longed with all the passionate masterfulness of his temperament to know exactly how much awe, how much deference, how much regard she felt for him. of love he did not think, nor did he care if it never came; but this beautiful prize which had been coveted by so many was his at last, and he meant to mould it and wield it in accordance with his pleasure. but in spite of his callousness and his selfishness, the intense womanliness of the girl stirred the softer emotions of his heart; there was so much freshness in her, so much beauty and so much girlishness that just for one brief second a wave, almost of tenderness, swept over his senses. he kissed the pure young lips and drank in greedily their exquisite sweetness, then he said somewhat less harshly: "you are too pretty, my dove, to put on those modern airs of emancipated womanhood. if you only knew how much better you please me like this, than when you try to argue with me, you would always use your power over me, you little goose." she made no reply, for, despite the warm woollen shawl round her shoulders, she had suddenly felt cold, and a curious shiver had gone right through her body, even whilst her future lord did kiss her. but no doubt it was because just then an owl had hooted in the poplar trees far away. "you are coming back then, béla?" she asked, after a few seconds of silence and with enforced cheerfulness. "i'll think about it," he said condescendingly. "but . . ." "there, now, don't begin again," he broke in impatiently. "haven't i said that i'll think about it? you run back to your mother now. i may come later--or i may not. but if you bother me much more i certainly won't. if i come, i come of my own free will; there's no woman living who has ever persuaded me to do anything against my will." and without vouchsafing her another word or look, without deigning to see her safely on her way back to the barn, he turned leisurely on his heel, and mounting the steps of the verandah before him, he presently pushed open the tap-room door and disappeared within. chapter xxiv "if you loved me." elsa stood for a moment quite still there in the dark, with the silence of the night and all its sweet sounds encompassing her, and the scent of withered flowers and slowly-dying leaves mounting to her quivering nostrils. what did it all mean? what did life mean? and what was the meaning of god? she, the ignorant, unsophisticated peasant girl, knew nothing save what pater bonifácius had taught her, and that was little enough--though the little was hard enough to learn. resignation to god's will; obedience to parents first and to husband afterwards; renunciation of all that made the days appear like a continual holiday and filled the nights with exquisite dreams! but if life only meant that, only meant duty and obedience and resignation, then why had god made such a beautiful world, why had he made the sky and the birds and the flowers, the nodding plumes of maize and the tiny, fleecy clouds which people the firmament at sunset? was it worth while to deck this world in such array if the eyes of men were always to be filled with tears, and their backs bent to their ever-recurring tasks? a heavy sigh escaped from the girl's overburdened heart: the riddle of the universe was too hard an one for her simple mind to solve. perhaps it was best after all not to think of these things which she was too ignorant to understand. she looked at the door of the tavern through which béla had gone. he had left it wide open, and she caught a glimpse of him now as he sat at one of the tables, and leaning his elbow on it, rested his chin in his hand. then, with another little sigh, she was just turning to go when the sound of her name spoken in a whisper and quite close to her sent her pulses quivering and made her heart beat furiously. "elsa! wait a moment!" "is that you, andor?" she whispered. "yes. i came up just now and heard your voice and béla's. i waited on the off-chance of getting a word with you." "i mustn't stop, andor. mother will be wondering." "no, she won't," he retorted with undisguised bitterness. "the mother who sent you on this abominable and humiliating errand won't worry much after you." "no one seems to worry much about me, do they, andor?" she said, a little wistfully. he drew a little closer to her, so close that he could feel her shoulder under the shawl quivering against his arm. her many petticoats brushed about his shins, and he could hear her quick, warm breath as it came and went. he bent his head quite close to her, as he had done that day, five years ago, in the mazes of the csárdás, and now--as then--his lips almost touched her soft young neck. "then why should you worry about them, elsa?" he whispered slowly in her ear. "why shouldn't you let them all be?" "let them all be?" she said. "but everyone will be wondering if i don't go back--at least for supper." "i don't mean about the dance and the supper, elsa," he continued, still speaking in a whisper and striving to subdue the hoarseness in his voice which was engendered by the passion which burned in his veins, "i don't only mean to-night. i mean . . . for good." . . . "for good?" she repeated slowly. "let me take you away, elsa," he entreated, "away from here. leave all these rough, indifferent and selfish folk. come out with me to australia, and let all these people be." at first, of course, she didn't understand him; but gradually his meaning became clear and she gave one long, horrified gasp. "andor! how can you?" "it has been borne upon me, elsa, these hours past, that i am a coward and a villain to let you go on with this miserable life. nay! it's worse than that, for your future life with that bully, that brute, will be far more wretched than you have any idea now. he doesn't care for you, elsa--not really--not as i care for you, not as you--the sweetest, gentlest, purest woman in the world--should be cared for and cherished. he doesn't love you, elsa, he doesn't even really want you--not as i want you--i, who would give my life, every drop of my blood, to have you for myself alone!" gradually, as he spoke, his arms had clasped round her, his passionate whispers came in short gasps to her ear. gently now she disengaged herself. "but i am tokened to béla, andor," she said gently. "to-morrow is my wedding day. i have made my confession. pater bonifácius has prepared me for holy communion. my word is pledged to béla." "he doesn't love you, elsa, and he is not your husband yet. your pledged word does not bind you before god. to-day you are still free. you are free until you have sworn before the altar of god. elsa! béla doesn't want you, he doesn't love you. and i love you and want you with my whole heart and soul." "don't speak like that, andor, don't," she almost pleaded. "you must know how wrong it is for you to speak and for me to listen." "but i must speak, elsa," he urged, "and you have got to listen. we could get away now, elsa, to-night, by the nine-twenty train. over at the barn no one would know that you had gone until it got too late to run after you. never mind about your clothes. i have plenty of money in my pocket, and to-morrow when we get to budapesth we can get what you want. by the next day we should be in fiume, and then we would embark on the first ship that is outward bound. i know just how to manage, elsa. you would have nothing to do, nothing to think of, but just give yourself over into my keeping. you are a free woman, elsa, bound to no one, and the first opportunity we had we would get married. out there in australia i can get plenty of work and good pay: we shouldn't be rich, elsa--not as rich as you would be if you married erös béla, but by god i swear that we would be happy, for every minute of my life would be devoted to your happiness." all the while that he spoke she had made persistent efforts to disengage herself from his grasp. she felt that she must get away from him, away from his insinuating voice, from the ardour of those whispered words which seemed to burn into her very soul. the very night seemed to be in league with him, the darkness and the silence and all those soft sounds of gently-murmuring river and calls of birds and beasts, and the fragrance of dying flowers which numbed the senses and obliterated the thought of god, of duty and of parents. "no, no, andor," she murmured feebly, "you have no right to speak like that. i am tokened to béla. i have sworn that i would be his wife. my hand was in his and the pater blessed us; and it was after holy communion and when christ himself was in my heart! and there is mother too and father, the house which béla promised them, the oxen and the pigs, a maid to look after father. mother would curse me if i cheated her of all that now." "when we are settled in australia," he pleaded earnestly, "we will write to your parents and send them money to come out and join us." "father is paralysed. how could he come? and mother would curse me. and a mother's curse, andor, is registered by god." "elsa, if you loved me you would leave father and mother and come with me." "then perhaps i do not love you, andor," she said slowly, "for i could not bear my mother's curse, i could not break the pledge which i swore after holy communion! i could not commit so great a sin, andor, not even for your sake, for if i did remorse would break my heart, and all your love for me would not compensate me for the sin." and before he could say another word, before his arms could once more close round her or his trembling hands clutch at her fluttering petticoats, she was gone--vanished out of his grasp and into the darkness, and only the patter of her little feet broke the silence of the night. chapter xxv "in any case elsa is not for you." andor with a sigh of heartbroken disappointment now turned to go into the inn. he had the key in his hand which my lord the young count had given him with a careless laugh and a condescending nod of acknowledgment for the service thus rendered to him and to klara. the door of the tap-room was still wide open, a narrow wedge-shaped light filtrated through on to the beams and floor of the verandah, making the surrounding blackness seem yet more impenetrable. andor entered the tap-room and walked straight up to the centre table, and he placed the key upon the small tray which klara had pointed out to him. then he turned and looked around him: klara was not there, and the room was quite deserted. apparently the sleepers of awhile ago had been roused from their slumbers and had departed one by one. for a moment andor paused, wondering if he should tell klara that he had been successful in his errand. he could hear the murmur of the girl's voice in the next room talking to her father. no! on the whole he preferred not to meet her again: he didn't like the woman, and still felt very wrathful against her for the impudent part she had played at the feast this afternoon. he had just made up his mind to go back to the presbytery where the kind pater had willingly given him a bed, when erös béla's broad, squat figure appeared in the open doorway. he had a lighted cigar between his teeth and his hands were buried in the pockets of his trousers; he held his head on one side and his single eye leered across the room at the other man. when he encountered andor's quick, savage glance he gave a loud, harsh laugh. "she gave it you straight enough, didn't she?" he said as he swaggered into the room. "you were listening?" asked andor curtly. "yes. i was," replied béla. "i was in here and i heard your voice, so i stole out on to the verandah. you were not ten paces away; i could hear every word you said." "well?" "well what?" sneered the other. "what conclusion did you arrive at?" "what conclusion?" retorted béla, with a laugh. "why, my good man, i came to the conclusion that in spite of all your fine talk about god and so on, and all your fine airs of a gentleman from australia, you are nothing but a low-down cur who comes sneaking round trying to steal a fellow's sweetheart from him." "i suppose you are right there, béla," said andor, with a quick, impatient sigh and with quite unwonted meekness. "i suppose i am, as you say, nothing but a low-down cur." "yes, my friend, that's just it," assented the other dryly; "but she's let you know pretty straight, hasn't she? that she wouldn't listen to your talk. elsa will stick by me, and by her promise to me, you may bet your shirt on that. she is too shrewd to think of exchanging the security of to-day for any of your vague promises. she is afraid of her mother and of me and of god's curses and so on, and she does not care enough about you to offend the lot of us, and that's about how it stands." "you are right there, béla, that is about how it stands." "and so, my fine gentleman," concluded béla, with a sneer, "you cannot get rid of me unless you are ready to cut my throat and to hang for it afterwards. in any case, you see, elsa is not for you." andor said nothing for the moment. it seemed as if vaguely in his mind some strong purpose had already taken birth and was struggling to subjugate his will. his bronzed face marked clearly the workings of his thoughts: at first there had been a dulled, sombre look in his dark, deep-set eyes; then gradually a flame seemed to flicker in them, feebly at first, then dying down for awhile, then rising again more triumphant, more glowing than before, even as the firm lines around the tightly-closed lips became more set and more expressive of a strong resolve. ignácz goldstein's querulous voice was heard in the other room, giving fussy directions to his daughter about the collecting and packing up of his things. anon, he opened the door and peered out into the tap-room: he had heard the confused murmur of footsteps and of voices, and possible customers must not be neglected even at an anxious moment of departure. seeing béla and andor there, he asked if anything was wanted. "no, no," said béla impatiently, "nothing more to-night. andor and i are going directly." the narrow hatchet-face once more disappeared behind the door. klara's voice was heard to ask: "who is in the tap-room, father?" "andor and béla," replied the old man, "but never you mind about the tap-room. just see that you don't forget my red handkerchief, and my fur cap for the journey, and my bottle of . . ." his mumblings became inaudible, and after awhile béla reiterated, with an airy laugh: "no, my friend! elsa is not for you." then it was that andor's confused thoughts shaped themselves into a resolve. "not unless you will give her up, béla," he said slowly: "you yourself, i mean--now--at this eleventh hour." "i?" queried the other harshly--not understanding. "give her up?" "yes. tell her that you have thought the whole matter over; that you have realized that nothing but unhappiness can come from your union together. she would feel a little humiliated at first, perhaps, but she would come to me, if you would let her go. i can deal with irma néni after that. if you will release elsa yourself of her promise she would come to me, i know." béla looked for awhile in silence at the earnest face of the other man, then he burst into a loud, mocking laugh. "you are mad," he said, "or else drunk." "i am neither," rejoined the other calmly. "it is all perfectly feasible if only you will release elsa. you have so often asserted that you don't care one brass fillér for the opinion of village folk." "and i don't." "then it cannot matter to you if some blame is cast on you for breaking off with elsa on the eve of your wedding. people must see how unsuited you are to each other and how unhappy your marriage must eventually turn out. you have no feeling about promises, you have no parents who might curse you if you break them. break your promise to elsa now, béla, and you will be doing the finest action of your life. break your promise to her, man, and let her come to me." béla was still staring at andor as if indeed he thought the other mad, but now an evil leer gradually spread over his face and his one eye closed until it looked like a mere slit through which he now darted on andor a look of triumph and of hate. "break my promise to elsa?" he said slowly and deliberately. "i wouldn't do it, my good man, if you offered me all the gold in your precious america." "but you don't love her, béla," urged andor, with ardent earnestness. "you don't really want her." "no, i don't," said the other roughly, "but i don't want you to have her either." "what can it matter to you? there are plenty of pretty girls this side of the maros who would be only too glad to step into elsa's shoes." "i don't care about any pretty girls on this side of the maros, nor on the other either for that matter. i won't give elsa up to you, my friend, and she won't break her promise to me because she fears god and her mother's curse. see?" "she's far too good for you," cried andor, with sudden vehemence, for he had already realized that he must give up all hope now, and the other man's manner, his coarseness and callousness had irritated him beyond the bounds of endurance. he hated this cruel, selfish brute who held power over elsa with all the hatred of which his hot magyar blood was capable. a red mist seemed at times now to rise before his eyes, the kind of mist that obscures a man's brain and makes him do deeds which are recorded in hell. "she's far too good for you," he reiterated hoarsely, even as his powerful fists clenched themselves in a violent effort to keep up some semblance of self-control. the thought of elsa still floated across his mental vision, of elsa whose pure white hand seemed to dissipate that ugly red mist with all the hideous thoughts which it brought in its trail. "you ought to treat her well, man," he cried in the agony of his soul, "you've got to treat her well." the other looked him up and down like a man does an enemy whom he believes to be powerless to do him any harm. then he said with a sneer through which, however, now there was apparent an undercurrent of boiling wrath: "i'll treat her just as i choose, and you, my friend, had best in the future try to attend to your own business." but andor, obsessed by the one idea, feeling his own helplessness in the matter, would not let the matter drop. "how you can look at another woman," he said sombrely, "while elsa is near you i cannot imagine." he looked round him vaguely, as if he wanted all the dumb, inanimate things around him to bear witness to this monstrous idea: elsa flouted for another woman! elsa! the most beautiful woman on god's earth, the purest, the best--flouted! and for whom? for what?--other girls--women--who were not worthy to walk in the same street as elsa! the thought made andor giddy, his glance became more wandering, less comprehending . . . that awful red mist was once more blurring his vision. and as he looked round him--ununderstanding and wretched--his glance fell upon the key which he himself had placed upon the brass tray a few moments ago; and the key brought back to his mind the recollection of klara the jewess, her domination over béla, her triumph over elsa, and also the terrible plight in which she had found herself when she had begged andor for friendly help, and given him in exchange the solemn promise which he had exacted from her. this recollection eased somewhat the heavy burden of his anxiety, and there was quite a look of triumph in his eyes when he once more turned to béla. "well!" he said, "there's one thing certain, and that is that elsa won't have to suffer again from the insolence of that jewess. i have cut the ground from under your feet in that direction, my friend." "indeed!" retorted béla airily. "how did you manage to do that?" "i rendered her a service this afternoon--she was in serious trouble and asked me to help her." "oh?--and may i ask the nature of the trouble--and of the service?" sneered the other. "never mind about the nature of the service. i did help klara in her trouble, and in return she has given me a solemn promise to have nothing whatever more to do with you." "oh! did she?" cried béla, whose savage temper, held in check for awhile, had at last risen to its habitual stage of unbridled fury. all the hot blood had rushed to his head, making his face crimson and his eye glowing and unsteady, and his hand shook visibly as he leaned against the table so that the mugs and bottles rattled, as did the key upon the metal tray. he, too, felt that hideous red mist enveloping him and blurring his sight. he hated andor with all his might, and would have strangled him if he had felt that he had the physical power to do it as well as the moral strength. his voice came hoarse and hissing through his throat as he murmured through tightly clenched teeth: "she did, did she? and you made her give you that promise which is not going to bind her, let me tell you that. but let me also tell you in the meanwhile, my fine gentleman from america, that your d----d interference will do no good to your former sweetheart, who is already as good as my wife--and will be my wife to-morrow. klara goldstein is my friend, let me tell you that, and . . ." he paused a moment . . . something had arrested the words in his throat. as so often occurs in the mysterious workings of fate, a small, apparently wholly insignificant event suddenly caused the full tide of his destiny to turn--and not only of his own destiny but that of many others! an event--a tiny fact--trivial enough for the moment: the touch of his hand against the key upon the brass tray. mechanically he picked up the key: his mind was not yet working quite clearly, but the shifty glance of his one eye rested upon the key, and contemplated it for awhile. "well!" he murmured vaguely at last, "how strange!" "what is strange?" queried the other--not understanding. "that this key should, so to speak, fall like this into my hand." "that isn't strange at all," said andor, with a shrug of the shoulders, for now he thought that béla was drunk, so curious was the look in his eye, "considering that i put that key there myself half an hour ago--it is the key of the back door of this house." "i know it is," rejoined béla slowly, "i have had it in my possession before now . . . when ignácz goldstein has been away from home, and it was not thought prudent for me to enter this house by the front door . . . late at night--you understand." then, as andor once more shrugged his shoulders in contempt, but vouchsafed no further comment, he continued still more slowly and deliberately: "isn't it strange that just as you were trying to interfere in my affairs, this key should, so to speak, fall into my hand. fate plays some funny little pranks sometimes, eh, mr. guardian angel?" "what has fate got to do with it?" queried andor roughly. "you don't see it?" "no." "then perhaps you were not aware of the fact," said béla blandly, as he toyed with the key, "that papa goldstein is going off to kecskemét to-night." "yes," replied andor slowly, "i did know that, but . . ." "but you didn't know, perhaps, that pretty klara likes a little jollification and a bit of fun sometimes, and that papa goldstein is a very strict parent and mightily particular about the proprieties. it is a way those cursed jews have, you know." "yes!" said andor again, "i did know that too." he was speaking in a curious, dazed kind of way now: he suddenly felt as if the whole world had ceased to be, and as if he was wandering quite alone in a land of dreams. before him, far away, was that red misty veil, and on ahead he could dimly see béla, with a hideous grin on his face, brandishing that key, whilst somehow or other the face of leopold hirsch, distorted with passion and with jealousy, appeared to beckon to him from behind that distant crimson veil. "well, you see," continued béla, in the same suave and unctuous tones which he had suddenly assumed, "since pretty klara is fond of jollification and a bit of fun, and her father is over-particular, why, that's where this nice little key comes in. for presently papa will be gone and the house worthily and properly shut up, and the keys in papa goldstein's pocket, who will be speeding off to kecskemét; but with the help of this little key, which is a duplicate one, i--who am a great friend of pretty klara--can just slip into the house quietly for a comfortable little supper and just a bit of fun; and no one need be any the wiser, for i shall make no noise and the back door of this house is well screened from prying eyes. have you any further suggestion to make, my fine gentleman from america?" "only this, man," said andor sombrely, "that it is you who are mad--or drunk." "oh! not mad. what harm is there in it? you chose to interfere between klara and me, and i only want to show you that i am the master of my own affairs." "but it'll get known. old rézi's cottage is not far and she is a terrible gossip. back door or no back door, someone will see you sneaking in or out." "and if they do--have you any objection, my dear friend?" "it'll be all over the village--elsa will hear of it." "and if she does?" retorted béla, with a sudden return to his savage mood. "she will have to put up with it: that's all. she has already learned to-day that i do as i choose to do, and that she must do as i tell her. but a further confirmation of this excellent lesson will not come amiss--at the eleventh hour, my dear friend." "you wouldn't do such a thing, béla! you wouldn't put such an insult on elsa! you wouldn't . . ." "i wouldn't what, my fine gentleman, who tried to sneak another fellow's sweetheart?" sneered béla as he drew a step or two nearer to andor. "i wouldn't what? come here and have supper with klara while elsa's precious friends are eating the fare i've provided for them and abusing me behind my back? yes, i would! and i'll stay just as long as i like and let anyone see me who likes . . . and elsa may go to the devil with jealousy for aught i care." he was quite close to andor now, but being half a head shorter, he had to look up in order to see the other eye to eye. thus for a moment the two men were silent, measuring one another like two primitive creatures of these plains who have been accustomed for generations past to satisfy all quarrels with the shedding of blood. and in truth, never had man so desperate a longing to kill as andor had at this moment. the red mist enveloped him entirely now, he could see nothing round him but the hideous face of this coarse brute with its one leering eye and cruel, sensuous lips. the vision of elsa had quite faded from before his gaze, her snow-white hands no longer tried to dissipate that hideous blood-red veil. only from behind erös béla's shoulder he saw peering at him through the mist the pale eyes of leopold hirsch. but on them he would not look, for he felt that that way lay madness. what the next moment would have brought the fates who weave the destinies of mankind could alone have told. béla, unconscious or indifferent to the menace which was glowing in lakatos andor's eyes, never departed for a moment from his attitude of swaggering insolence, and even now with an ostentatious gesture he thrust the key into his waistcoat pocket. andor gave a hoarse and quickly-smothered cry like that of a beast about to spring: "you cur!" he muttered through his teeth, "you d----d cur!" his hands were raised, ready to fasten themselves on the other man's throat, when the door of the inner room was suddenly thrown open and ignácz goldstein's querulous voice broke the spell that hung over the two men. "now then, my friends, now then," he said fussily as he shuffled into the room, "it is time that this respectable house should be shut up for the night. i am just off to catch the slow train to kecskemét--after you, my friends, after you, please." he made a gesture toward the open door and then went up to the table and poured himself out a final stirrup-cup. he was wrapped from head to foot in a threadbare cloth coat, lined with shaggy fur, a fur-edged bonnet was on his head, and he carried a stout stick to which was attached a large bundle done up in a red cotton handkerchief. this now he slung over his shoulder. "klara, my girl," he called. "yes, father," came klara's voice from the inner room. "i didn't see the back-door key--the duplicate one i mean--hanging in its usual place." "no, father, i know," she replied. "it's all right. i have it in my pocket. i'll hang it up on the peg in a minute." "right, girl," he said as he smacked his lips after the long draft of wine. "you are quite sure leopold changed his mind about coming with me?" "quite sure, father." "i wonder, then, he didn't wait to say good-bye to me." "perhaps he'll meet you at the station." "perhaps he will. now then, gentlemen," added the old jew as he once more turned to the two men. indeed andor felt that the spell had been lifted from him. he was quite calm now, and that feeling of being in dreamland had descended still more forcibly upon his mind. "you have nothing more to say to me, have you, my good andor?" said béla, with a final look of insolent swagger directed at his rival. "no," replied andor slowly and deliberately. "nothing." "then good-night, my friend!" concluded the other, with a sarcastic laugh. "why not go to the barn, and dance with elsa, and sup at my expense like the others do? you'll be made royally welcome there, i assure you." "thank you. i am going home." "well! as you like! i shall just look in there myself now for half an hour--but i am engaged later on for supper elsewhere, you know." "so i understand!" "gentlemen! my dear friends! i shall miss my train!" pleaded old ignácz goldstein querulously. he manoeuvred the two men toward the door and then prepared to follow them. "klara!" he called again. "coming, father," she replied. she came running out of the room, and as she reached the door she called to andor. "andor, you have not said good-night," she said significantly. "never mind about that now," said ignácz goldstein fretfully, "i shall miss my train." he kissed his daughter perfunctorily, then said: "there's no one in the tap-room now, is there? i didn't notice." "no," she replied, "no one just now." "then i'd keep the door shut, if i were you. i'd rather those fellows back from arad didn't come in to-night. the open door would attract them--a closed one might have the effect of speeding them on their way." "very well, father," she said indifferently, "i'll keep the door closed." "and mind you push all the bolts home to both the doors," he added sternly. "a girl alone in a house cannot be too careful." "all right, father," she rejoined impatiently, "i'll see to everything. haven't i been alone like this before?" the other two men were going down the verandah steps. goldstein went out too now and slammed the door behind him. and klara found herself alone in the house. chapter xxvi "what had andor done?" she waited for a moment with her ear glued to the front door until the last echo of the men's footsteps had completely died away in the distance, then she ran to the table. the tray was there, but no key upon it. with feverish, jerky movements she began to hunt for it, pushing aside bottles and mugs, opening drawers, searching wildly with dilated eyes all round the room. the key was here, somewhere . . . surely, surely andor had not played her false . . . he would not play her false . . . he was not that sort . . . surely, surely he was not that sort. he had come back from his errand--of course she had seen him just now, and . . . and he had said nothing certainly, but . . . well! he can't have gone far; and her father wouldn't hear if she called. she ran back to the door and fumbled at the latch, for her hands trembled so that she bruised them against the iron. there! at last it was done! she opened the door and peered out into the night. everything was still, not a footstep echoed from down the street. she took one step out, on to the verandah . . . then she heard a rustle from behind the pollarded acacia tree and a rustle amongst its leaves. someone was there!--on the watch!--leopold! she smothered a scream of terror and in a moment had fled back into the room and slammed and bolted the door behind her. now she stood with her back against it, arms outstretched, fingers twitching convulsively against the wood. she was shivering as with cold, though the heat in the room was close and heavy with fumes of wine and tobacco: her teeth were chattering, a cold perspiration had damped the roots of her hair. she had wanted to call andor back, just to ask him definitely if he had been successful in his errand and what he had done with the key. perhaps he meant to tell her; perhaps he had merely forgotten to put the key on the tray, and still had it in his waistcoat pocket; she had been a fool not to come out and speak to him when she heard his voice in the tap-room awhile ago. she had wanted to, but her father monopolized her about his things for the journey. he had been exceptionally querulous to-night and was always ready to be suspicious; also béla had been in the tap-room with andor, and she wouldn't have liked to speak of the key before béla. what she had been absolutely sure of, however, until now was that andor would not have come back and then gone away like this, if he had not succeeded in his errand and got her the key from count feri. but the key was not there: there was no getting away from that, and she had wanted to call andor back and to ask him about it--and had found leopold hirsch standing out there in the dark . . . watching. she had not seen him--but she had felt his presence--and she was quite sure that she had heard the hissing sound of his indrawn breath and the movement which he had made to spring on her--and strangle her, as he had threatened to do--if she went out by the front door. mechanically she passed her hand across her throat. terror--appalling, deadly terror of her life--had her in its grasp. she tottered across the room and sank into a chair. she wanted time to think. what had andor done? what a fool she had been not to ask him the straight question while she had the chance. she had been afraid of little things--her father's temper, erös béla's sneers--when now there was death and murder to fear. what had andor done? had he played her false? played this dirty trick on her out of revenge? he certainly--now she came to think of it--had avoided meeting her glance when he went away just now. had he played her false? the more she thought on it, the more the idea got root-hold in her brain. in order to be revenged for the humiliation which she had helped to put upon elsa, andor had chosen this means for bringing her to everlasting shame and sorrow--the young count murdered outside her door, in the act of sneaking into the house by a back way, at dead of night, while ignácz goldstein was from home; leopold hirsch--her tokened fiancé--a murderer, condemned to hang for a brutal crime; she disgraced for ever, cursed if not killed by her father, who did not trifle in the matter of his daughter's good name. . . . all that was andor's projected revenge for what she had done to elsa. the thought of it was too horrible. it beat into her brain until she felt that her head must burst as under the blows of a sledge-hammer or else that she must go mad. she pushed back the matted hair from her temples, and looked round the tiny, dark, lonely room in abject terror. from far away came the shrill whistle of the engine which bore her father away to kecskemét. it must be nearly half-past nine, then, and close on half an hour since she had been left here alone with her terrors. yet another half-hour and . . . no, no! this she felt that she could not endure--not another half-hour of this awful, death-dealing suspense. anything would be better than that--death at leopold's hands--a quick gasp, a final agony--yes! that would be briefer and better--and perhaps leo's heart would misgive him--perhaps . . . but in any case, anything _must_ be better than this suspense. she struggled to her feet; her knees shook under her: for the moment she could not have moved if her very life had depended on it. so she stood still, propped against the table, her hands clutching convulsively at its edge for support, and her eyes dilated and staring, still searching round the room wildly for the key. at last she felt that she could walk; she tottered back across the room, back to the door, and her twitching fingers were once more fumbling with the bolts. the house was so still and the air was so oppressive. when she paused in her fumbling--since her fingers refused her service--she could almost hear that movement again behind the acacia tree outside, and that rustling among the leaves. she gave a wild gasp of terror and ran back to the chair--like a frightened feline creature, swift and silent--and sank into it, still gasping, her whole body shaken now as with fever, her teeth chattering, her limbs numb. death had been so near! she had felt an icy breath across her throat! she was frightened--hideously, abjectly, miserably frightened. death lurked for her, there outside in the dark, from behind the acacia tree! death in the guise of a jealous madman, whose hate had been whetted by an hour's lonely watch in the dark--lonely, but for his thoughts. tears of self-pity as well as of fear rose to the unfortunate girl's eyes; convulsive sobs shook her shoulders and tore at her heart till she felt that she must choke. she threw out her arms across the table and buried her face in them and lay there, sobbing and moaning in her terror and in her misery. how long she remained thus, crying and half inert with mental anguish and pain, she could not afterwards have told. nor did she know what it was that roused her from this torpor, and caused her suddenly to sit up in her chair, upright, wide-awake, her every sense on the alert. surely she could not have heard the fall of footsteps at the back of the house! there was the whole width of the inner room and two closed doors between her and the yard at the back, and the ground there was soft and muddy; no footstep, however firm, could raise echoes there. and yet she had heard! of that she felt quite sure, heard with that sixth sense of which she, in her ignorance, knew nothing, but which, nevertheless, now had roused her from that coma-like state into which terror had thrown her, and set every one of her nerves tingling once more and pulsating with life and the power to feel. for the moment all her faculties seemed merged into that of hearing. with that same sixth sense she heard the stealthy footsteps coming nearer and nearer. they had not approached from the village, but from the fields at the back, and along the little path which led through the unfenced yard straight to the back door. these footsteps--which seemed like the footsteps of ghosts, so intangible were they--were now so near that to klara's supersensitive mind they appeared to be less than ten paces from the back door. then she heard another footstep--she heard it quite distinctly, even though walls and doors were between her and them--she heard the movement from behind the acacia tree--the one that stands at the corner of the house, in full view of both the doors--she heard the rustle among its low-hanging branches and that hissing sound as of an indrawn breath. she shot up from her chair like an automaton--rigid and upright, her mouth opened as for a wild shriek, but all power of sound was choked in her throat. she ran into the inner room like one possessed, her mouth still wide open for the frantic shriek which would not come, for that agonizing call for help. she fell up against the back door. her hands tore at the lock, at the woodwork, at the plaster around; she bruised her hands and cut her fingers to the bone, but still that call would not come to her throat--not even now, when she heard on the other side of the door, less than five paces from where she lay, frantic with horror, a groan, a smothered cry, a thud--then swiftly hurrying footsteps flying away in the night. then nothing more, for she was lying now in a huddled mass, half unconscious on the floor. chapter xxvii "the shadow that fell from the tall sunflowers." how klara goldstein spent that terrible night she never fully realized. after half an hour or so she dragged herself up from the floor. full consciousness had returned to her, and with it the power to feel, to understand and to fear. a hideous, awful terror was upon her which seemed to freeze her through and through; a cold sweat broke out all over her body, and she was trembling from head to foot. she crawled as far as the narrow little bed which was in a corner of the room, and just managed to throw herself upon it, on her back, and there to remain inert, perished with cold, racked with shivers, her eyes staring upwards into the darkness, her ears strained to listen to every sound that came from the other side of the door. but gradually, as she lay, her senses became more alive; the power to think coherently, to reason with her fears, asserted itself more and more over those insane terrors which had paralysed her will and her heart. she did begin to think--not only of herself and of her miserable position, but of the man who lay outside--dying or dead. yes! that soon became the most insistent thought. leopold hirsch, having done the awful deed, had fled, of course, but his victim might not be dead, he might be only wounded and dying for want of succour. klara--closing her eyes--could almost picture him, groaning and perhaps trying to drag himself up in a vain endeavour to get help. then she rose--wretched, broken, terrified--but nevertheless resolved to put all selfish fears aside and to ascertain the full extent of the tragedy which had been enacted outside her door. she lit the storm-lantern, then, with it in her hand, she went through the tap-room and opened the front door. she knew well the risks which she was running, going out like this into the night, and alone. any passer-by might see her--ask questions, suspect her of connivance when she told what it was that she had come out to seek in the darkness behind her own back door. but to this knowledge and this small additional fear she resolutely closed her mind. drawing the door to behind her, she stepped out on to the verandah and thence down the few steps into the road below. a slight breeze had sprung up within the last half-hour, and had succeeded in chasing away the heavy banks of cloud which had hung over the sky earlier in the evening. even as klara paused at the foot of the verandah steps in order to steady herself on her feet, the last filmy veil that hid the face of the moon glided ethereally by. the moon was on the wane, golden and mysterious, and now, as she appeared high in the heaven, surrounded by a halo of prismatic light, she threw a cold radiance on everything around, picking out every tree and cottage with unfailing sharpness and casting black, impenetrable shadows which made the light, by contrast, appear yet more vivid and more clear. all around leaves and branches rustled with a soft, swishing sound, like the whisperings of ghosts, and from the plains beyond came that long-drawn-out murmur of myriads of plume-crowned maize as they bent in recurring unison to the caress of the wind. klara's eyes peered anxiously round. quickly she extinguished her lantern, and then remained for a while clinging to the wooden balusters of the verandah, eyes and ears on the alert like a hunted beast. two belated csikós[7] from a neighbouring village were passing down the main road, singing at the top of their voices, their spurred boots clinking as they walked. klara did not move till the murmur of the voices and the clinking of metal had died away and no other sound of human creature moving or breathing close by broke the slumbering echoes of the village. [footnote 7: herdsmen in charge of foals.] only in the barn, far away, people were singing and laughing and making merry. klara could hear the gipsy band, the scraping of the fiddles and banging of the czimbalom, followed now and then by one of those outbursts of jollity, of clapping of mugs on wooden tables, of banging of feet and shouts of laughter which characterize all festive gatherings in hungary. cautiously now klara began to creep along the low wall which supported the balustrade. her feet made no noise in the soft, sandy earth, her skirts clung closely to her limbs; at every minute sound she started and paused, clinging yet closer to the shadow which enveloped her. now she came to the corner. there, just in front of her was the pollarded acacia, behind which the murderer had cowered for an hour--on the watch. the slowly withering leaves trembled in the breeze and their soughing sounded eerie in the night, like the sighs of a departing soul. further on, some twenty paces away, was old rézi's cottage. all was dark and still in and around it. klara had just a sufficient power of consciousness left to note this fact with an involuntary little sigh of relief. the murderer had done his work quickly and silently; his victim had uttered no cry that would rouse the old gossip from her sleep. when klara at last rounded the second corner of the house and came in full view of the unfenced yard in the rear, she saw that it was flooded with moonlight. for a moment she closed her eyes, for already she had perceived that a dark and compact mass lay on the ground within a few feet of the back door. she wanted strength of purpose and a mighty appeal to her will before she would dare to look again. when she reopened her eyes, she saw that the mass lay absolutely still. she crept forward with trembling limbs and knees that threatened to give way under her at every moment. now she no longer thought of herself; there was but little fear of anyone passing by this way and seeing her as she gradually crawled nearer and nearer to that inert mass which lay there on the ground so rigid and silent. beyond the yard there were only maize-fields, and a tall row of sunflowers closed the place in as with a wall. and not a sound came from old rézi's cottage. klara was quite close to that dark and inert thing at last; she put out her hand and touched it. the man was lying on his face; just as he had fallen, no doubt; with a superhuman effort she gathered up all her strength and lifted those hunched-up shoulders from the ground. then she gave a smothered cry; the pallid face of erös béla was staring sightlessly up at the moon. indeed, for the moment the poor girl felt as if she must go mad, as if for ever and ever after this--waking or sleeping--she would see those glassy eyes, the drooping jaw, that horrible stain which darkened the throat and breast. for a few seconds, which to her seemed an eternity, she remained here, crouching beside the dead body of this unfortunate man, trying in vain in her confused mind to conjecture what had brought béla here, instead of the young count, within the reach of leopold's maniacal jealousy and revenge. but her brain was too numbed for reasoning and for coherent thought. she had but to accept the facts as they were: that erös béla lay here--dead, that leopold had murdered him, and that she must save herself at all costs from being implicated in this awful, awful crime! at last she contrived to gather up a sufficiency of strength--both mental and physical--to turn her back upon this terrible scene. she had struggled up to her feet and was turning to go when her foot knocked against something hard, and as--quite mechanically--her eyes searched the ground to see what this something was, she saw that it was the key of the back door, which had evidently escaped from the dead man's hand as he fell. to stoop for it and pick it up--to run for the back door, which was so close by--to unlock and open it and then to slip through it into the house was but the work of a few seconds--and now here she was once again in her room, like the hunted beast back in its lair--panting, quivering, ready to fall--but safe, at all events. no one had seen her, of that she felt sure. and now she knew--or thought she knew--exactly what had happened. lakatos andor had been to the castle; he had seen my lord and got the key away from him. he wanted to ingratiate himself with my lord and to be able to boast in the future that he had saved my lord's life, but evidently he did mean to have his revenge not only on herself--klara--but also on erös béla for the humiliation which they had put upon elsa. it was a cruel and a dastardly trick of revenge, and in her heart klara had vague hopes already of getting even with andor one day. but that would come by and by--at some future time--when all this terrible tragedy would have been forgotten. for the present she must once more think of herself. the key was now a precious possession. she went to hang it up on its accustomed peg. even leopold--if he stayed in the village to brazen the whole thing out--could not prove anything with regard to that key. erös béla might have been a casual passer-by, strolling about among the maize-fields, not necessarily intent on visiting klara at dead of night. the key was now safely on its peg; who would dare swear that erös béla or anyone else ever had it in his possession? in fact, the secret rested between five people, of which she--klara--was one and the dead man another. well, the latter could tell no tales, and she, of course, would say nothing. already she had determined--even though her mind was still confused and her faculties still numb--that ignorance would be the safest stronghold behind which she could entrench herself. there remained leo himself, the young count, and, of course, andor. which of these three would she have the greatest cause to fear? there was leo mad with jealousy, the young count indifferent, and andor with curious and tortuous motives in his heart which surely he would not wish to disclose. she had a sufficiency of presence of mind to go out and fetch the storm-lantern from where she had left it at the foot of the verandah steps. a passer-by who saw her in the act wished her a merry good-night, to which she responded in a steady voice. then she carefully locked the front door, and finally undressed and went to bed. there was no knowing whether some belated wayfarer might not presently come on the dead man lying there in the yard: and having roused the neighbours, the latter might think of calling on ignácz goldstein for spirit or what not. it was not generally known that ignácz goldstein was from home, and if people thumped loudly and long at her door, she must appear as if she had just been roused from peaceful sleep. she felt much more calm and fully alive, above all, to her own danger. that kind of superstitious, unreasoning terror which had assailed her awhile ago had almost entirely left her. she seemed more composed, more sure of herself, now that she had been out in the yard and seen the whole _mise en scène_ of the tragedy, which before that she had only vaguely imagined. but what she felt that she could not do was to lie here alone in the dark, with only the silvery light of the moon creeping in weirdly through the dulled panes of the tiny window. so she picked up her black skirt, and stuffed it into the narrow window embrasure, until not a ray of light from within could be seen to peep through on the other side. she had placed the storm-lantern in the corner, and this she left alight. it threw a feeble, yellowish glimmer round the room; after a few moments, when her eyes were accustomed to this semi-gloom, she found that she could see every familiar object quite distinctly; even the shadows did not seem impenetrable, nor could ghosts lurk in the unseen portions of the tiny room. of course there was no hope of sleep--klara knew well the moment that she looked on the dead man's face, that she would always see it before her--to the end of her days. she saw it now, quite distinctly--especially when she closed her eyes; the moonlit yard, the shadow that fell from the tall sunflowers, and the huddled, dark mass on the ground, with the turned-up face and the sightless eyes. but she was not afraid; she only felt bitterly resentful against andor, who, she firmly believed, had played her an odious trick. she almost felt sorry for leopold, who had only sinned because of his great love for her. chapter xxviii "we shall hear of another tragedy by and by." and so in marosfalva there was no wedding on the festival day of s. michael and all angels; instead of that, on the day following, there was a solemn mass for the dead in the small village church, which was full to overflowing on that great occasion. erös béla had been found--out in the open--murdered by an unknown hand. fehér károly and his brother, who lived down the fekete road, had taken a cut across the last maize-field--the one situated immediately behind the inn kept by ignácz goldstein, and they had come across béla's body, lying in the yard, with face upturned and eyes staring up sightlessly at the brilliant blue sky overhead. it was then close on eight o'clock in the morning. the dancing in the barn had been kept up till then, even though the two most important personages of the festive gathering were not there to join in the fun. the bridegroom had not been seen since his brief appearance an hour or two before supper, and elsa had only just sat through the meal, trying to seem cheerful, but obviously hardly able to restrain her tears. after supper, when her partner sought her for the csárdás, she was nowhere to be found. kapus irma--appealed to--said that the girl was fussy and full of nerves--for all the world like a born lady. she certainly wasn't very well, had complained of headache, and been allowed by her mother to go home quietly and turn into bed. "she has another two jolly days to look forward to," irma néni had added complacently. "perhaps it is as well that she should get some rest to-night." ah, well! it was a queer wedding, and no mistake! the queerest that had ever been in marosfalva within memory of man. a bride more prone to tears than to laughter! a bridegroom surly, discontented, and paying marked attentions to the low-down jewess over at the inn under his future wife's very nose! it was quite one thing for a man to assert his own independence, and to show his bride at the outset on whose feet the highest-heeled boots would be, but quite another to flout the customs of the countryside and all its proprieties. when, after supper, good and abundant wine had loosened all tongues, adverse comments on the absent bridegroom flowed pretty freely. this should have been the merriest time of the evening--the merriest time, in fact, of all the three festive days--the time when one was allowed to chaff the bride and to make her blush, to slap the lucky bridegroom on the back and generally to allow full play to that exuberance of spirits which is always bubbling up to the surface out of a magyar peasant's heart. no doubt that béla's conduct had upset elsa and generally cast a gloom over the festive evening. but the young people were not on that account going to be done out of their dancing; the older ones might sit round and gossip and throw up their hands and sigh, but that was no reason why the gipsies should play a melancholy dirge. a csárdás it must be, and of the liveliest! and after that another and yet another. would it not be an awful pity to waste erös béla's money, even though he was not here to enjoy its fruits? so dancing was kept up till close on eight o'clock in the morning--till the sun was high up in the heavens and the bell of the village church tolled for early mass. until then the gipsies scraped their fiddles and banged their czimbalom almost uninterruptedly; hundreds of sad and gay folk-songs were sung in chorus in the intervals of dancing the national dance. cotton petticoats of many hues fluttered, leather boots--both red and black--clinked and stamped until the morning. then it was that the merry company at last broke up, and that fehér károly and his brother took the short cut behind the inn, and found the bridegroom--at whose expense they had just danced and feasted--lying stark and stiff under the clear september sun. they informed the mayor, who at once put himself in communication with the gendarmerie of arad: but long before the police came, the news of the terrible discovery was all over the village, and there was no thought of sleep or rest after that. worried to death, perspiring and puzzled, the police officers hastily sent down from arad had vainly tried to make head or tail of the mass of conflicting accounts which were poured into their ears in a continuous stream of loud-voiced chatter for hours at a stretch: and god only knows what judicial blunders might have been committed before the culprit was finally brought to punishment if the latter had not, once for all, himself delivered over the key of the mystery. leopold hirsch had hanged himself to one of the beams in his own back shop. his assistant found him there--dead--later in the day. as--by previous arrangement--the whole village was likely to be at elsa kapus' wedding, there would not have been much use in keeping the shop open. so the assistant had been given a holiday, but he came to the shop toward midday, when the whole village was full of the terrible news and half the population out in the street gossiping and commenting on it--marvelling why his employer had not yet been seen outside his doors. the discovery--which the assistant at once communicated to the police--solved the riddle of erös béla's death. with a sigh of relief the police officers adjourned from the mayor's parlour, where they had been holding their preliminary inquiries, to the castle, where it was their duty to report the occurrence to my lord the count. at the castle of course everyone was greatly surprised: the noble countess raised her aristocratic eyebrows and declared her abhorrence of hearing of these horrors. the count took the opportunity of cursing the peasantry for a quarrelsome, worrying lot, and offered the police officers a snack and a glass of wine. he was hardly sorry for the loss of his bailiff, as erös béla had been rather tiresome of late--bumptious and none too sober--and his lordship anyhow had resolved to dispense with his services after he was married. so the death really caused him very little inconvenience. young count feri knew nothing, of course. he was not likely to allow himself or his name to be mixed up with a village scandal: he shuddered once or twice when the thought flashed through his mind how narrowly he had escaped erös béla's fate, and to his credit be it said he had every intention of showing lakatos andor--who undoubtedly had saved his life by giving him timely warning--a substantial meed of gratitude. of klara goldstein little or nothing was seen or heard. the police officers had certainly gone to the inn in the course of the morning and had stayed there close on half an hour: but as no one had been allowed to go into the tap-room during that time, the occurrences there remained a matter of conjecture. after the officers went away klara locked the front door after them and remained practically shut up in the house, only going in the evening as far as the post, but refusing to speak to anyone and going past with head erect and a proud, careless air which deceived no one. "she'll sing her tune in a minor key by and by, when ignácz goldstein comes home," said the gossips complacently. "those jews are mighty hard on their daughters," commented the older folk, "if any scandal falls upon them. ignácz is a hard man and over-ready with his stick." "i shouldn't be surprised," was the universal conclusion, "if we should hear of another tragedy by and by." "in any case, klara can't stay in the village," decided the bevy of young girls who talked the matter over among themselves, and were none too sorry that the smart, handsome jewess--who had such a way with the men--should be comfortably out of the way. but everyone went to the mass for the dead on the day following that which should have been such a merry wedding feast; and everyone joined in the requiem and prayed fervently for the repose of the soul of the murdered man. he lay in state in the centre of the aisle, with four tall candles at each corner of the draped catafalque; a few bunches of white and purple asters clumsily tied together by inexperienced hands were laid upon the coffin. pater bonifácius preached a beautiful sermon about the swift and unexpected approach of death when he is least expected. he also said some very nice things about the dead man, and there was hardly a dry eye in the church while he spoke. in the remote corner of a pew, squeezed between a pillar and her mother, elsa knelt and prayed. those who watched her--and there were many--declared that not only did she never stop crying for a moment during mass, but that her eyes were swollen and her cheeks puffy from having cried all the night and all the day before. after mass she must have slipped out by the little door which gave on the presbytery garden. it was quite close to the pillar against which she had been leaning, and no doubt the pater had given her permission to go out that way. from the presbytery garden she could skirt the fields and round the top of the village, and thus get home and give all her friends the slip. this, no doubt, she had done, for no one saw her the whole of that day, nor the next, which was the day of the funeral, and an occasion of wonderful pomp and ceremony. béla's brother had arrived in the meanwhile from arad, where he was the manager of an important grain store, and he it was who gave all directions and all the money necessary that his brother should have obsequies befitting his rank and wealth. the church was beautifully decorated: there were huge bunches of white flowers upon the altar, and eight village lads carried the dead man to his last resting-place; and no less than thirty masses were ordered to be said within the next year for the repose of the soul of one who in life had enjoyed so much prosperity and consideration. and in the tiny graveyard situated among the maize-fields to the north of marosfalva, and which is the local jewish burial ground, the suicide was quietly laid to rest. there was no religious service, for there was no minister of his religion present; an undertaker came down from arad and saw to it all; there was no concourse of people, no singing, no flowers. ignácz goldstein--home the day before from kecskemét--alone followed the plain deal coffin on its lonely journey from the village to the field. it was the shop assistant who had seen to it all. he had gone up to arad and seen a married sister of his late master's--sara rosen, whose husband kept a second-hand clothes shop there, and who gave full instructions to an undertaker whilst declaring herself unable--owing to delicate health--to attend the funeral herself. the undertaker had provided a cart and a couple of oxen and two men to lift the coffin in and out. they came late on the thursday evening, at about eight o'clock, and drew up at the back of the late leopold hirsch's shop. no one was about and the night was dark. slowly the cart, creaking on its wheels and axles, wound its way through some maize stubble, up a soft, sandy road to the enclosed little bit of ground which the local jews have reserved for themselves. and the mysterious veil which divides the present from the past fell quickly over this act of the village tragedy, as it had done with pomp and circumstance after the banquet which followed the laying to rest of the murdered man. chapter xxix "some day." a week went by after the funeral before elsa saw andor again. she had not purposely avoided him, any more than she had avoided everyone else: but unlike most girls of her class and of her nationality she had felt a great desire to be alone during the most acute period of this life's crisis through which she was passing just now. at first on that never-to-be-forgotten morning when she woke to her wedding-day--her white veil and wreath of artificial white roses lying conspicuously on the top of the chest of drawers, so that her eyes were bound to alight on them the moment they opened--and saw her mother standing beside her bed, dishevelled, pale, and obviously labouring under some terrible excitement, she had been conscious as of an awful blow on the head, a physical sensation of numbness and of pain. even before she had had time to formulate a question she knew that some terrible calamity had occurred. in jerky phrases, broken by moans and interjections, the mother had blurted out the news: erös béla was dead--he had been found just now--murdered outside klara goldstein's door--there would be no wedding--elsa was a widow before she had been a bride. half the village was inclined to believe that ignácz goldstein had done the deed in a moment of angry passion, finding béla sneaking round his daughter's door when he himself was going away from home--others boldly accused andor. elsa had said nothing at the time. that same imagined blow on the head had also deprived her of the power of speech. fortunately irma talked so loudly and so long that she paid no attention to her daughter's silence, and presently ran out into the village to gather more news. and elsa remained alone in the house, save for the helpless invalid in the next room. she washed and dressed herself quickly and mechanically, then sat down on her favourite low chair, close beside her crippled father's knee, cowering there like some little field mouse, attentive, alert, rigidly still, for very fear of what was to come. irma did not come back for two or three hours: when she did it was to bring the exciting news that leopold hirsch had been found hanging to a beam in his back shop, with the knife wherewith he had killed erös béla lying conspicuously on a table close by. elsa felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from off her brain. all through these hours the thought of andor having committed such an abominable crime never once entered her mind, but nevertheless when her mother told the news about leopold hirsch, and that the police officers had already left the village, she was conscious of an overwhelming sense of relief. fortunately her mother was busy all day gossiping with her cronies and elsa was allowed the luxury of sitting alone most of the day, silent and absorbed, doing the usual work of the house in the morning and in the afternoon busying herself with carefully putting away the wedding dress, the veil, the wreath which would not be wanted now. late in the evening, when there was a chance of finding the street deserted, she ran out as far as the presbytery. fortunately the night was dark: a thin drizzle was falling, and it spread a misty veil all down the village street. elsa had tied one of her mother's dark-coloured handkerchiefs over her head and put her darkest-coloured petticoat on the top of all the others. she had also wrapped her mother's dark shawl round her shoulders, and thus muffled up she was able to flit unperceived down the street, a swift little dark figure undistinguishable from the surrounding darkness of the night. fortunately the pater was at home and ready to see her. she heaved a sigh of relief as she entered the bare narrow little hall which led on the right to the pater's parlour. she had been able to tell pater bonifácius exactly what was troubling her--that sense of peace, almost of relief, which had descended into her soul when she heard that she never, never need be erös béla's wife. since this morning, when first she had heard the terrible news, she had not thought of his death--that awful fate which had so unexpectedly overtaken him--she had only thought of her own freedom, the peace which henceforth would be hers. that was very wrong of course--a grievous sin no doubt the pater would call it. she shed many tears of contrition, listened eagerly to a kind homily from the old priest on the subject of unnecessary and unprofitable searchings of conscience, and went away satisfied. strangely enough, after this confession she felt far more sorry for poor béla than she had done before, and she cried her eyes out both before and after the funeral because, do what she would, she always saw him before her as he was that last day of his life--quarrelsome, dictatorial, tyrannical--and she remembered how she had almost hated him for his bullying ways and compared him in her mind with andor's kindness and chivalry. and now she cried with remorse because she had hated him during the last hours of his life; she cried because he had gone to his death unloved, and lay now in his coffin unregretted; she cried because her heart was full and heavy and because in the past week--before her wedding day--she had swallowed so many unshed tears. and while she felt miserable and not a little forlorn she didn't want to see anybody, least of all andor. whenever she thought of andor, the same remorse about béla gnawed again at her heart, for when she thought of him she not only felt at peace, but it seemed as if a ray of happiness illumined the past darkness of her life. once or twice during the last day or two, when she had sat stitching, she caught herself singing softly to herself, and once she knew for certain that she had smiled. then the day came when andor called at the house. irma fortunately was out, having coffee and gossip with a friend. no doubt he had watched until he was sure that she was well out of the way. then he knocked at the door and entered. elsa was sitting as usual on the low chair close by the sick man. she looked up when he entered and all at once the blood rushed to her pale cheeks. "may i come in?" he asked diffidently. "if you like, andor," she replied. he threw down his hat and then came to sit on the corner of the table in his favorite attitude and as close to elsa as he dared. the eyes of the paralytic had faintly lit up at his approach. "are you quite well, elsa?" he asked after a long pause, during which the girl thought that she could hear the beating of her own heart. "yes. quite well thank you, andor," she replied softly. "no one has seen you in the village this past week," he remarked. "no," she said, "i am not very fond of gossip, and there was a deal too much of it in marosfalva this past week to please me." "you are right there, elsa," he rejoined, "but there were others in the village, you know, those who did not gossip--but whose heart would have been gladdened by a sight of you." "yes, andor," she murmured. we may take it that the young man found these laconic answers distinctly encouraging, for presently he said abruptly: "perhaps, elsa, it isn't right for me to begin talking to you . . . about certain matters . . ." "what matters, andor?" she asked ingenuously. "matters which have lain next to my heart, elsa, for more years now than i would care to count." "perhaps it is a little too soon, andor--yet--" she whispered under her breath. oh! she could have whipped herself for that warm blush which now covered not only her cheeks but her neck and bosom, and for that glow of happiness which had rushed straight at her heart at his words. but he had already seen the blush, and caught that expression of happiness in her blue eyes which suddenly made her look as she did of old--five years ago--before that wan, pathetic expression of resignation had altered her sweet face so completely. "i don't want to worry you, elsa," he said simply. "you couldn't worry me, andor," she said, "you have always been the best friend i had in the world." "that is because i have loved you more dearly than anyone ever loved you on this earth," he said earnestly. "god bless you for that, andor." he leaned forward, nearer to her now: his gaze had become more fixed, more compelling. since he had seen that look on her face and that blush he was sure of his ground; he knew that, given time and peace, the wheel of fate, which had already taken an upward turn for him, would soon carry him to the summit of his desires--the woman whom he loved was no longer unattainable and she had remained faithful throughout all this time. "do you think, elsa," he asked more insistently now, and sinking his voice to that whisper which reaches a woman's ear far more truly than the loudest beating of drum, "do you think that, now that you are free, you could bring yourself to . . . to care . . . to . . . ? you were very fond of me once, elsa," he pleaded. "i am fond of you now, andor," she whispered in response. "no, no," she added hurriedly, for already he had made a movement towards her and the next moment would have been down on his knees with his arms around her, but for the gently-restraining touch of her hand, "it is too soon to talk about that." "yes--too soon," he assented with enforced calm, even though his heart was beating furiously; "it is too soon i know, and i won't worry you, elsa--i said i wouldn't and i won't. . . . i am not a cur to come and force myself on you when you are not ready to listen to me, and we won't talk about it all . . . not just yet." . . . his throat felt very dry, and his tongue felt several sizes too large for his mouth. it was mightily difficult to keep calm and to speak soberly when one's inclination was firstly to dance a war-dance of triumph and of joy and then to take that dear, sweet angel of a woman in one's arms and to kiss her till she was ready to faint. "when do you think i might speak to you again, elsa?" he said, with a certain pathetic hesitancy, "about . . ." "about what, andor?" she asked. "about our getting married--later on." "not just yet," she murmured, "but . . ." "no, no, of course i understand. there are the proprieties and all that . . . you were tokened to that blackguard and . . . oh! all right, i am not going to say anything against him," he added quickly as he saw that words of protest and reproach were already hovering on her lips. "i won't say anything about him at all except that he is dead now and buried, thank the good god! . . . and you . . . you still care for me, elsa," he continued, whilst a wave of tenderness seemed to sweep all other thoughts away. "no, no, don't say anything--not now--it is too soon, of course--and i've just got to wait till the time comes as best i can. but you mustn't mind my talking on at random like this . . . for i tell you i am nearly crazy with joy--and i suppose that you would think it very wrong to rejoice like this over another man's death." his talk was a little wild and rambling--it was obvious that he was half distracted with the prospect of happiness to come. she sat quite still, listening silently, with eyes fixed to the ground. only now and then she would look up--not at andor, but at the paralytic who was gazing on her with the sad eyes of uncomprehension. then she would nod and smile at him and coo in her own motherly way and he would close his eyes--satisfied. and andor, who had paused for that brief moment in his voluble talk, went rambling on. "you know," he said, "that it's perfectly wonderful . . . this room, i mean . . . when i look round me i can hardly credit my eyes. . . . just a week ago . . . you remember? . . . i sat just there . . . at the opposite corner of the table, and you had your low chair against the wall just here . . . and . . . and you told me that you were tokened to erös béla and that your wedding would be on the morrow . . . well! that was little more than a week ago . . . before your farewell feast . . . and i thought then that never, never could i be happy again because you told me that never, never could we be anything to each other except a kind of friendly strangers. . . . i remember then how a sort of veil seemed to come down in front of my eyes . . . a dark red veil . . . things didn't look black to me, you know, elsa . . . but red. . . . so now i am quite content just to bide my time--i am quite content that you should say nothing to me--nothing _good_, i mean. . . . it'll take some time before the thought of so much happiness has got proper root-hold of my brain." "poor andor!" she sighed, and turned a gaze full of love upon the sick man. her heart was brimming over with it, and so the paralytic got the expression of it in its fullest measure, since andor was not entitled to it yet. "but just tell me for certain, elsa . . . so that i shouldn't have to torment myself in the meanwhile . . . just tell me for certain that one day . . . in the far-distant future if you like, but one day . . . say that you will marry me." "some day, andor, i will marry you if god wills," she said simply. "oh! but of course he will!" he rejoined airily, "and we will be married in the spring--or the early summer when the maize is just beginning to ripen . . . and we'll rent the mill from pali bácsi--shall we, elsa?" "if you like, andor." "if i like!" he exclaimed. "if i like! the dear god love me, but i think that if i stay here much longer i shall go off my head. . . . elsa, you don't know how much i love you and what i would not do for your sake. . . . i feel a different man even for the joy of sitting here and talking to you and no one having the right to interfere. . . . and i would make you happy, elsa, that i swear by the living god. i would make you happy and i would work to keep you in comfort all the days of my life. you shall be just as fine as erös béla would have made you--and besides that, there would be a smile on your sweet face at every hour of the day . . . your hands would be as white as those of my lady the countess herself, for i would have a servant to wait on you. and your father would come and live with us and we would make him happy and comfortable too, and your mother . . . well! your mother would be happy too, and therefore not quite so cantankerous as she sometimes is." to andor there was nothing ahead but a life full of sunshine. he never looked back on the past few days and on the burden of sin which they bore. béla had been a brute of the most coarse and abominable type; by his monstrous conduct on the eve of his wedding day he had walked to his death--of his own accord. andor had _not_ sent him. oh! he was quite, quite sure that he had not sent béla to his death. he had merely forborn to warn him--and surely there could be no sin in that. he might have told béla that leopold hirsch--half mad with jealousy--was outside on the watch with a hunting-knife in his pocket and murder in his soul. andor might have told béla this and he had remained silent. was that a sin? considering what a brute the man was, how his action that night was a deadly insult put upon elsa, and how he would in the future have bullied and browbeaten elsa and made her life a misery--a veritable hell upon earth. andor had thought the problem out; he had weighed it in his mind and he was satisfied that he had not really committed a sin. of course he ought before now to have laid the whole case before pater bonifácius, and the pater would have told him just what god's view would be of the whole affair. the fact that andor had not thought of going to confession showed that he was not quite sure what god--as represented by pater bonifácius--would think of it all; but he meant to go by and by and conclude a permanent and fulsome peace treaty with his conscience. in the meanwhile, even though the burden of remorse should at times in the future weigh upon his soul and perhaps spoil a little of his happiness, well! he would have to put up with it, and that was all!--elsa was happy--one sight of her radiant little face was enough for any fool to see that an infinite sense of relief had descended into her soul. elsa was happy--freed from the brute who would have made her wretched for the rest of her life; and surely the good god, who could read the secret motives which lay in a fellow's heart, would not be hard on andor for what he had done--or left undone--for elsa's sake. chapter xxx "kyrie eleison." but the daily routine of everyday life went on at marosfalva just as it had done before the double tragedy of st. michael's e'en had darkened the pages of its simple history. the maize had all been gathered in--ploughing had begun--my lord and his guests were shooting in the stubble. the first torrential rain had fallen and the waters of the maros had begun to swell. gossip about erös béla's terrible end and leopold hirsch's suicide had not by any means been exhausted, but it was supplemented now by talk of lakatos pál's wealth. the old man had been ailing for some time. his nephew andor's return had certainly cheered him up for a while, but soon after that he seemed to collapse very suddenly in health, like old folk do in this part of the world--stricken down by one or other of the several diseases which are engendered by the violent extremes of heat and cold--diseases of the liver for the most part--the beginning of a slowly-oncoming end. he had always been reputed to be a miser, and those who were in the know now averred that andor had found several thousand florins tucked away in old bits of sacking and hidden under his uncle's straw paillasse. pali bácsi was also possessed of considerable property--some land, a farm and the mill; there was no doubt now that andor would be a very rich man one of these days. mothers with marriageable daughters sighed nevertheless in vain. andor was not for any of them. andor had eyes only for elsa. he had become an important man in the village now that his uncle was so ill and he was left to administer the old man's property; and he took his duties very earnestly in the intervals of courting kapus elsa. as to this no one had cause to make any objection. they had loved one another and been true to one another for five years; it was clearly the will of the good god that they should come together at last. and now october was drawing to its close--to-day was the fourth sunday in the month and one of the numerous feasts of our blessed lady, one on which solemn benediction is appointed to be sung in the early afternoon, and benediction is followed by a procession to the shrine of the virgin which stands on the roadside on the way to saborsó some two kilomètres distant from marosfalva. it is a great festival and one to which the peasantry of the countryside look forward with great glee, for they love the procession and have a great faith in the efficacy of prayer said at the shrine. fortunately the day turned out to be one of the most glorious sunshiny days which mid-autumn can yield, and the little church in the afternoon was crowded in every corner. the older women--their heads covered with dark-coloured handkerchiefs, occupied the left side of the aisle, the men crowded in on the right and at the back under the organ loft. round about the chancel rail and steps the bevy of girls in gayest sunday dresses looked like a garden of giant animated flowers. when the sexton went the round with the collecting-bag tied to the end of a long pole, he had the greatest difficulty in making his way through the maze of many-hued petticoats which, as the girls knelt, stood all round them like huge bells, with their slim shoulders and small heads above looking for all the world like the handles. the children were all placed in the chancel to right and left of the altar, solemn and well-behaved, with one eye on the schoolmistress and the other on the pater. after the service the order of procession was formed, inside the church: the children in the forefront with banner carried by the head of the school--a sturdy maiden on the fringe of her teens, very proud to carry the blessed virgin's banner. she squared her shoulders well, for the banner was heavy, and the line of her young hips--well accentuated by the numerous petticoats which a proud mother had tied round her waist--gave a certain dignity to her carriage and natural grace to her movements. behind the children came the young girls--those of a marriageable age whom a pious custom dedicates most specially to the service of our lady. their banner was of blue silk, and most of them were dressed in blue, whilst blue ribbons fluttered round their heads as they walked. then came pater bonifácius under a velvet-covered dais which was carried by four village lads. he wore his vestments and carried a holy relic in his hands; the choir-boys swinging their metal censers were in front of him in well-worn red cassocks and surplices beautifully ironed and starched for the occasion. in the rear the crowd rapidly closed in; the younger men had a banner to themselves, and there were the young matrons, the mothers, the fathers, the old and the lonely. the sexton threw open the doors, and slowly the little procession filed out. outside a brilliant sunshine struck full on the whitewashed walls of the little school-house opposite. it was so dazzling that it made everybody blink as they stepped out from the semi-dark church into this magnificent flood of light. in the street round the church a pathetic group awaited the appearance of the procession, those that were too old to walk two kilomètres to the shrine, those who were lame and those who were sick. simply and with uninquiring minds, they knelt or stood in the roadway, content to watch the banners as they swung gaily to the rhythmic movements of the bearers, content to see the holy relics in the pater's hand, content to feel that subtle wave of religious sentiment pass over them which made them at peace with their little world and brought the existence of god nearer to their comprehension. slowly the procession wound its way down the village street. pater bonifácius had intoned the opening orisons of the litany: "kyrie eleison!" and men and women chanted the response in that quaintly harsh tone which the magyar language assumes when it is sung. the brilliant sunlight played on the smooth hair of the girls, the golds, the browns and the blacks, and threw sharp glints on the fluttering ribbons of many colours which a light autumn breeze was causing to dance gaily and restlessly. the whole village was hushed save for the litany, the clinking of the metal chains as the choir-boys swung the censers and the frou-frou of hundreds of starched petticoats--superposed, brushing one against the other with a ceaseless movement which produced a riot of brilliant colouring. soon the main road was reached, and now the vast immensity of the plain lay in front and all round--all the more vast and immense now it seemed, since not even the nodding plumes of maize or tall, stately sunflowers veiled the mystery of that low-lying horizon far away. nothing around now, save that group of willow trees by the bank of the turbulent maros--nothing except the stubble--stumps of maize and pumpkin and hemp, and rigid lines of broken-down stems of sunflowers, with drooping, dead leaves, and brown life still oozing out of the torn stems. and in the immensity, the sweet, many-toned sounds of summer--the call of birds, the quiver of growing things, the trembling of ripening corn--has yielded to the sad tune of autumn--a tune made up of the hushed sighs of dying nature, as she sinks slowly and peacefully into her coming winter's sleep. the swallows and the storks have gone away long ago. they know that in this land of excessive heat and winter rigours, frost and snow tread hard on the heels of a warm, autumnal day. only a flight of rooks breaks the even line of the sky; their cawing alone makes at times a weird accompaniment to the chanting of the litany. and the maros--no longer sluggish--now sends her swollen waters with a dull, rumbling sound westward to the arms of the mother stream. silence and emptiness! nothing except the sky, with its unending panorama of ever-varying clouds, and its infinite, boundless, mysterious horizon, which enfolds the world of the plains in a limitless embrace. nothing except the stubble and the sky, and far, very far away, a lonely cottage, with its surrounding group of low, mop-head acacias, and the gaunt, straight arm of a well pointing upwards to the sun. and through the silent, vast immensity the little procession of village folk, with banners flying and quaint, harsh voices singing the litany, winds its way along the flat, sandy road, like a brightly-coloured ribbon thrown there by a giant hand, and made to flutter and to move by a giant's breath. presently the shrine came in sight: just a dark speck at first in the midst of the great loneliness, then more and more distinct--there on the roadside--all by itself without a tree near it--lonely in the bosom of the plain. the procession came to a halt in front of it, and two hundred pairs of eyes, brimful with simple faith and simple trust, gazed in reverence on the naïve wax figure behind the grating, within its throne of rough stone and whitewash. it was dressed in blue calico spangled with tinsel, and had a crown on its head made of gilt paper and a veil of coarse tarlatan. two china pots containing artificial flowers were placed on either side of the little image. it was all very crude, very rough, very naïve, but a fervent, unsophisticated imagination had endowed it with a beauty all the more real, perhaps, because it only existed in the hearts of a handful of ignorant children of the soil. it made something seem real to them which otherwise might have been difficult to grasp; and now when pater bonifácius in his gentle, cracked voice intoned the invocations of the litany, the "salus infirmorum" and "refugium peccatorum" and, above all, the "consolatrix afflictorum" the response "ora pro nobis" came from two hundred trusting hearts--praying, if not for themselves, then for those who were dear to them: the infirm, the sinner, the afflicted. and among those two hundred hearts none felt the need for prayer more than andor and elsa. they had left affliction behind them, they stood upon the threshold of a new life--where happiness alone beckoned to them, and sorrow and parting lay vanquished behind the gates of the past. but in spite, or perhaps because, of this happiness which beckoned so near now, there was a tinge of sadness in their hearts, that sadness which always comes with joy once extreme youth has gone by . . . the sadness which hovers over finite things, the sense of future which so quickly becomes the past. from where andor stood, holding the dais above pater bonifácius' head, he could see elsa's smooth, fair head among the crowd of other girls. she had tied her hair in at the nape of the neck with a bit of blue ribbon, leaving it to fall lower down in two thick plaits well below her waist. she looked like a huge blue gentian kissed by the sun, for her top petticoat was of blue cotton, and her golden head seemed like the sweet-scented stamen. andor thought that he could hear her voice above that of everyone else, and when pater bonifácius intoned the "regina angelorum" he thought that indeed the heavenly queen had no fairer subject up there than elsa. when the little procession was once more ready to return to the village, the bearers of the dais were relieved by four other lads, and andor found the means, during the slight hubbub which occurred while the procession was being formed, of working his way close to elsa's side. it was not an unusual thing for young men and girls who had much to say to one another to fall away from the procession on its way home, and to wander back arm in arm through the maize-fields or over the stubble, even as their shadows lengthened out upon the ground. andor's hand had caught hold of elsa's elbow, and with insistent pressure he kept her out of the group of her companions. gradually the procession was formed, and slowly it began to move, the banners fluttered once more in the breeze, once more the monotonous chant broke the silence of the plain. but elsa and andor had remained behind close beside the shrine. she had yielded to his insistence, knowing what it was that he meant to say to her while they walked together toward the sunset. she knew what he wanted to say, and what he expected her to promise, and he knew that at last she was ready to listen, and that she would no longer hold her heart in check, but let it flow over with all the love which it contained, and that she was ready at last to hold up to him that cup of happiness for which he craved. one or two couples had also remained behind, but they had already wandered off toward the bank of the maros. elsa had knelt down before the crude image of the "consoler of the afflicted;" her rosary was wound round her fingers, she prayed in her simple soul, fervently, unquestioningly, for happiness and for peace. then, when the little procession in the distance became wrapped in the golden haze which hung over the plain, and the chanting of the litany came but as a murmur on the wings of the autumn breeze, she took andor's arm, and together they walked slowly back toward home. the peace which rests over the plain enveloped them both; from the sky above the last vestige of cloud had been driven away by the breeze, and far away on that distant horizon where lay the land of the unknown the sun was slowly sinking to rest. like a huge, drooping rose it seemed--its rays like petals falling away from it one by one. mute yet quivering was the plain around, pulsating with life, yet silent in its autumnal agony. from far away came the sweet sound of the evening angelus rung from the village church--distant and soft, like a sound from heaven or like an echo of some beautiful dream. and these two were alone with the sunset and with the stubble--alone in this vastness which is so like the sea--alone--two tiny, moving black specks with a background of radiance and a golden haze to envelop them. in this immensity it seemed so much more easy to speak of love--for love could fill the plain and find room for its own immensity in this vastness which knows no trammels. to andor and elsa it seemed as if at last the plain had revealed its secret to them, had lifted for them that veil of mystery which wraps her up all round where earth and sky meet in the golden distance beyond. they knew suddenly just what lay behind the veil, they knew if it were lifted what it was that they would see--the land of gold was the land of love, where men and women wandered hand in hand, where sorrow was a dwarf and grief a cripple, since love--the almighty king of the unknown land--had wounded them and vanquished them both. and they, too, now wandered toward that land, even though it still seemed very far away. to the accompaniment of the angelus bell they wandered, with the distant echo of the chanted litany still ringing in their ear. the plain encompassed her children with her all-embracing peace, and she gave them this one supreme moment of happiness to-day, while the setting sun clothed the horizon with gold. chapter xxxi "what about me." and time slipped by with murmurings of words that have no meaning save for one pair of ears. andor talked fondly and foolishly, and elsa mostly was silent. she had loved this walk over the stubble, and the plain had been in perfect peace save for the rumbling of the maros, insistent and menacing, which had struck a chill to the girl's heart, like a presage of evil. she tried to swallow her fears, chiding herself for feeling them, doing her best to close her ears to those rumbling, turbulent waters that seemed to threaten as they tumbled along on their way. gradually as they neared the village that curious feeling of impending evil became more strong: she could not help speaking of it to andor, but he only laughed in that delightfully happy--almost defiantly happy--way of his, and for a moment or two she was satisfied. but when at about half a kilomètre from home she caught sight of klara goldstein walking away from the village straight toward her and andor, it seemed as if her fears had suddenly assumed a more tangible shape. klara looked old and thin, she thought, pathetic, too, in her plain black dress--she who used to be so fond of pretty clothes. elsa gave her a hearty greeting as soon as she was near enough to her, and extended a cordial hand. she had no cause to feel well-disposed toward the jewess, but there was something so forlorn-looking about the girl now, and such a look of sullen despair in her dark eyes, that elsa's gentle nature was at once ready to forgive and to cheer. "it is a long time since i have seen you, klara," she said pleasantly. "no wonder," said the other girl, with a shrug of her thin shoulders, "father won't let me out of his sight." she had nodded to andor, but by tacit consent they had not shaken hands. klara now put her hands on her hips, and, like a young animal let free after days of captivity, she drew in deep breaths of sweet-scented air. "ah!" she said with a sigh, "it is good to be out again; being a prisoner doesn't suit me, i can tell you that." "your dear father seems to be very severe with you, klara," said elsa compassionately. "yes! curse him!" retorted the jewess fiercely, as a savage, cruel look flashed through her sunken eyes. "he nearly killed me when he came home from kecskemét that time--beat me like a dog--and now . . ." "poor klara!" "i shouldn't have minded the beating so much. among our people, parents have the right to be severe, and it is better to take a beating from your father than to be punished by the rabbi." "your dear father will forgive you in time," suggested elsa gently. she felt miserably uncomfortable, and would have given worlds to be rid of klara. she couldn't think why the girl had stopped to talk to her and andor: in fact she was more than sure that klara had come out this evening on purpose to talk to her and to andor; for now she stood deliberately in front of them both with arms crossed in front of her and defiant eyes fixed now upon one and now upon the other. andor too was beginning to look cross and sullen; this meeting coming on the top of that lovely walk seemed like a black shadow cast over the radiance of their happiness, and this thin, tall girl, all in black, with black hair fluttering round her pale face, seemed like a big black bird of evil presage: her skirts flapped round her knees like wings and her voice sounded cold and harsh like the croaking of a raven. but elsa's kindly disposition did not allow her to be too obviously unkind to the jewess. perhaps after all the girl meant no harm, and had only run out now like a released colt, glad to feel freedom in the air around her and the vastness lying stretched out before her to infinity beyond. perhaps she had only sought the company of the first-comers in order to get a small measure of sympathy. but now, though elsa's gentle words should have softened her mood, she retorted with renewed fierceness: "curse him! i don't want his forgiveness! and if ever he wants mine--on his deathbed--he won't get it--even if he should die in torment for want of a kind word from me." "klara, you mustn't say that," cried elsa, horrified at what she considered almost blasphemy. "your father is your father, remember--and even if he has been harsh to you . . ." klara interrupted her with a loud and strident laugh. "if he has been harsh to me!" she exclaimed. "didn't i tell you that he thrashed me like a dog, so that i was sick for days. but i wouldn't mind that so much. bruises mend sooner or later, but it's that abominable marriage which will make me curse him to my dying day." "marriage? . . . what marriage? . . ." "with a man i had never seen in my life until it was all settled. just a man who is so ugly and so bad-tempered and so repugnant to every girl whom he knows that nobody would have him--but just a man who wanted a wife. the rabbi at arad knew about him and he spoke about him to father--it seems that he is quite rich--and father has given me to him and i am to be married within a fortnight. curse them! curse them all, i say! oh! i wish i had the pluck to run away, or to kill myself or do something--but i am such an abominable coward--and i shall loathe to live in arad in a tiny secondhand clothes shop, with that hideous monster for a husband--pointed at by everyone as the girl with a disgraceful story to her credit and sold to a creature whom no one else would have--in order to cover up a scandal." elsa was silent; her heart now was full of pity for the girl, who indeed was being punished far more severely than she deserved. it was clear that klara was terribly resentful at her fate, and there was a look of vengeful rebellion in the glance which she threw on elsa and andor now. overhead there was flapping of wings--a flight of rooks cut through the air and there were magpies in their trail. "three for a wedding," said andor with a forced laugh, trying to break the spell which--much against his will--seemed to have been suddenly cast over his happy spirits. "one for sorrow, more like," retorted klara. "no, no, come!" he rejoined; "you must not look at it like that. there is always some happiness to be got out of married life. you are not very happy in your old home--you will like to have one of your own--a wedding is only the prelude to better things." "that depends on the wedding, my friend," she sneered; "this one will be a finish, not a prelude--the naughty child, well whipped, sent out of mischief's way." "i am sorry, klara, that you feel it so strongly," he said more kindly. "yes," she retorted. "i dare say, my good man, you are sorry enough for me now, but you might have thought of all that, you know, before you played me that dirty trick." "what do you mean?" he broke in quickly. "just what i say," she replied, "and no more. a dirty, abominable trick, i call it, and i cannot even show you up before the village--i could not even speak of you to the police officers. oh, yes!" she continued more and more vehemently, as a flood of wrath and of resentment and a burning desire for getting even with fate seemed literally to sweep her off her mental balance and cause her to lose complete control of her tongue, "oh, yes! my fine gentleman! you can go and court elsa now, and whisper sweet love-words in her ears--you two turtle-doves are the edification of the entire village now--and presently you will get married and live happy ever afterwards. but what i want to ask you, my friend," she added, and she took a step or two nearer to him, until her hot and angry breath struck him in the face and he was forced to draw himself back, away from that seething cauldron of resentment and of vengeance which was raging before him now, "what i want to ask you is have you ever thought of me?" "thought of you, klara?" he said quietly, even as he felt, more than saw, that elsa too had drawn back a little--a step or two further away from klara, but a step or two also further away from him. "thought of you?" he reiterated, seeing that klara did not reply immediately, and that just for one brief moment--it was a mere flash--a look of irresolution had crept into her eyes, "why should i be thinking about you?" "why, indeed?" she said with a wrathful sneer. "what hurt had i done to you, andor, that is what i want to know. i was always friendly to you. i had never done you any wrong--nor did i do elsa any wrong--any wrong, i mean, that mattered," she continued, talking more loudly and more volubly because andor was making desperate efforts to stop and interrupt her. "béla would only have run after another woman if i had turned my back on him. and then when you asked me to leave him alone, i promised, didn't i? what you asked me to do i promised. . . . and i meant to keep my promise to you, and you knew it . . . and yet you rounded on me like that. . . ." "silence, klara," he cried at the top of his voice as he shook the girl roughly by the shoulder. but she paid no heed to him--she was determined to be heard, determined to have her say. all the bitterness in her had been bottled up for weeks. she meant to meet andor face to face before she was packed off as the submissive wife of a hated husband--the naughty child, whipped and sent out of the way--she meant to throw all the pent-up bitterness within her, straight into his face--and meant to do it when elsa was nigh. for days and days she had watched for an opportunity; but her father had kept her a prisoner in the house, besides which she had no great desire to affront the sneering looks of village gossips. but this evening was her opportunity. for this she had waited, and now she meant to take it, and no power on earth, force or violence would prevent her from pouring out the full phial of her venomous wrath. "i will not be silent," she shrieked, "i will not! you did round on me like a cur--you sneak--you double-faced devil. . . ." "will you be silent!" he hissed through his teeth, his face deadly pale now with a passion of wrath at least as fierce as hers. but now elsa's quiet voice interposed between these two tempestuous souls. "no!" she said firmly, "klara shall not be silent, andor. let go her arm and let her speak. i want to hear what she has to say." "she is trying to come between you and me, elsa," said andor, who was trying to keep his violent rage in check. "she tried to come between you and béla, and chose an ugly method to get at what she wanted. she hates you . . . why i don't know, but she does hate you, and she always tries to do you harm. don't listen to her, i tell you. why! just look at her now! . . . the girl is half mad." "mad?" broke in klara, as with a jerky movement of her shoulders she disengaged herself from andor's rough grasp. "i dare say i am mad. and so would you be," she added, turning suddenly to elsa, "so would you be, if all in one night you were to lose everything you cared for in the world--your freedom--the consideration of your friends--the man who some day would have made you a good husband--everything, everything--and all because of that sneaking, double-faced coward." "if you don't hold your tongue . . ." cried andor menacingly. "you will kill me, won't you?" she sneered. "one murder more or less on your conscience won't hurt you any more, will it, my friend? you will kill me, eh? then you'll have two of us to your reckoning by and by, me and béla!" "béla!" the cry, which sounded like a protest--hot, indignant, defensive--came from elsa. she was paler than either of the others, and her glowing, inquiring eyes were fixed upon klara with the look of an untamed creature ready to defend and to protect the thing that it holds dear. "don't listen to her, elsa," pleaded andor in a voice rendered hoarse with an overwhelming apprehension. he felt as if his happiness, his life, the whole of this living, breathing world were slipping away from him--as if he had suddenly woke up from a beautiful, peaceful dream and found himself on the edge of a precipice and unable, in this sudden rude awakening, to keep a foothold upon the shifting sands. there was a mist before his eyes--a mist which seemed to envelop elsa more and more, making her slim, exquisite figure appear more dim, blurring the outline of her gold-crowned head, getting more and more dense until even her blue eyes had disappeared away from him--away--snatched from his grasp--wafted away by that mist to the distant land beyond the low-lying horizon. something in the agony of his appeal, something in the pathos of elsa's defiant attitude must have struck a more gentle cord in the jewess' heart. the tears gathered in her eyes--tears of self-pity at the misery which she seemed to be strewing all round her with a free hand. "i don't think that i really meant to tell you, elsa," she said more quietly, "not lately, at any rate. oh, i dare say at first i did mean to hurt you--but a month has gone by and i was beginning to forget. people used to say of me that i was a good sort--it was the hurt that _he_ did me that seems to have made a devil of me. . . . and then--just now when i saw the other folk coming home in the procession and noticed that you and andor weren't among them, i guessed that you would be walking back together arm-in-arm--and that the whole world would be smiling on you both, while i was eating out my heart in misery." she was speaking with apparent calm now, in a dull and monotonous voice, her eyes fixed upon the distant line of the horizon, where the glowing sun had at last sunk to rest. the brilliant orange and blood-red of the sky had yielded to a colder crimson tint--it, too, was now slowly turning to grey. elsa stood silent, listening, and andor no longer tried to force klara to silence. what was the good? fate had spoken through her lips--god's wrath, perhaps, had willed it so. for the first time in all these weeks he realized that perhaps he had committed a deadly sin, and that he had had no right to reckon on happiness coming to him, because of it. he stood there, dazed, letting the jewess have her way. what did it matter how much more she said? perhaps, on the whole, it was best that elsa should learn the whole truth now. and klara continued to speak in listless, apathetic tones, letting her tongue run on as if she had lost control over what she said, and as if a higher fate was forcing her to speak against her will. "i suppose," she said thoughtfully, "that some kind of devil did get into my bones then. i wandered out into the stubble, and i saw you together coming from the distance. the sunlight was full upon you, and long before you saw me i saw your faces quite distinctly. there was so much joy, so much happiness in you both, that i seemed to see it shining out of your eyes. and i was so broken and so wretched that i couldn't bear to see andor so happy with the girl who rightly belonged to béla--the wretched man whom he himself had sent to his death." "whom he himself had sent to his death?" broke in elsa quietly. "what do you mean, klara?" "i mean that it was young count feri who was to have come to see me that night. father being away, he wanted to come and have a little chat and a bit of supper with me. there was no harm in that, was there? he didn't care to be seen walking in at the front door--as there's always such a lot of gossip in this village--so he asked me for the back-door key, and i gave it to him." "well?" "leopold missed the key later on, and guessed i had given it to count feri. he was mad with jealousy and threatened to kill anyone who dared come sneaking in round the back way. he wouldn't let me out of his sight--and threatened to strangle me if i attempted to go and get the key back from count feri. i was nearly crazy with fear. wouldn't you have been," she added defiantly, "if you had a madman to deal with and no one near to protect you?" "perhaps," replied elsa, under her breath. "then andor came into the tap-room. with soft words and insinuating promises he got me to tell him what had happened. i didn't want to at first--i mistrusted him because of what had happened at the banquet--i knew that he hated me because of you." "it is not true," broke in andor involuntarily. "let her tell her story her own way," rejoined elsa, with the same strange quiet which seemed now to envelop her soul. "there's nothing more to tell," retorted klara. "nothing, at any rate, that you haven't guessed already. i told andor all about count feri and the key, and how terrified i was that leopold would do some deadly mischief. he offered to go to the castle and get the key away from the young count." "well?" "well! andor was in love with you, wasn't he?" she continued, speaking once more with vehemence; "he wanted you, didn't he? and he hated béla having you. he hated me, too, of course. so he got the key away from count feri, and later on, after you had followed béla almost to the tap-room and you had some words with him just outside . . . you remember?" "yes." "andor had the key in his pocket then--and he gave it to béla. . . ." there was silence for awhile now--that silence which falls upon the plain during the first hour after sunset--and which falls upon human creatures when destiny has spoken her last word. in the village far away the worshippers had gone back into the church, all sound of chanting and praying had died away behind its walls; there was no flight of birds overhead, nor call of waterfowl from the bank of the stream, the autumn breeze had gone to rest with the sun, the leaves of acacias and willows lay still, and even the turbulent waters of the maros seemed momentarily hushed. "is that true, andor?" it was elsa's voice that spoke, but the voice sounded muffled and dull, as if it came from far away or from out the depths of the earth. then, as andor made no reply, but gazed on elsa in mute and passionate appeal, like a man who is drowning would gaze on the shore which he cannot reach, klara said slowly: "oh! it's true enough. you cannot deny it, can you, andor? you wanted your revenge on me, and you wanted to be rid of béla--you wanted elsa for yourself, but you didn't care one brass fillér what would become of me after that. you left me without a thought, lonely and unprotected, knowing that a madman was prowling outside, ready to kill me or any man who came along. you gave béla that key, didn't you? . . . and told him nothing about leopold--and you didn't care what became of me, so long as you got rid of béla and could have elsa for yourself." "and now you have had your say, klara," said andor, breaking with a mighty effort the spell of silence which had held him all this while; "you have made all the mischief that you wanted to make. suppose you leave us alone now . . . elsa and me . . . alone with the misery which you have created for us." then, as for a moment she didn't move, but looked on him through narrowed lids and with a sneer, half of pity and half of triumph, he continued with a sudden outburst of fierceness: "well! you have had your say! . . . why don't you go?" klara shrugged her shoulders and said more lightly: "oh, very well, my friend, i'll go. . . . good-bye, elsa," she added, with sudden earnestness. "i don't suppose that you want to shake hands with me--and i dare say it's no use asking you to think kindly of me--but i wish you would try and believe that i am sorry i lost myself as i did. i don't think that i ever would have told you if i hadn't seen _him_ looking so happy and so complacent after the horrible, dirty trick which he played me. people used to say that i had a good heart, but, by the almighty, i declare that i seem to have lost my head lately. that's what i say, elsa. it's all very well, but what about me? what had i done?--and now, look at my life! but don't you fret about him or any other man. take my word for it, men are not worth it." and having said that she turned on her heel and slowly walked away, leaving behind her an ocean of desolation. she walked away--with a slow, swinging stride, one hand on her hip, her head thrown back. for a long time her darkly-clad figure was silhouetted against the evening sky, a speck of blackness upon the immensity around. elsa watched her go, watched that tiny black speck which, like the locust which at times devastates the plains, had left behind it an irreparable trail of misery. chapter xxxii "the land beyond the sunset." and now the shadows of evening were slowly invading the plains. the autumn wind, lulled for a time to rest with the setting of the sun, had sprung up in angry gusts, lashing up clouds from the southwest and sending them to tear along and efface the last vestige of the evening crimson glow. elsa and andor had both remained quite still after klara left them; yet elsa--like all simple creatures who feel acutely--was longing to run and let the far horizon, the distant unknown land, wrap and enfold her while she thought things out for herself, for indeed this real world--the world of men and women, of passions and hatred and love--was nothing but a huge and cruel puzzle. she longed for solitude--the solitude which the plains can offer in such absolute completeness--because her heart was heavy and she felt that if she were all alone she might ease the weight on her heart in a comforting flow of tears. but this would not have been kind to andor. she could not leave him now, when he looked so broken down with sorrow and misery and doubt. so, after a little while, when she felt that if she spoke her voice would be quite steady, she said gently: "it is not all true, is it, andor?" she could not--she would not believe it all true--not in the way that klara had put it before her, with all its horrible details of callousness and cowardice. for more years than she could remember she had loved and trusted andor--she had known his simple, loyal nature, his kind and gentle ways--a few spiteful words from a jealous woman were not likely to tear down in a moment the solid edifice of her affection and her confidence. true! his silence had told her something that was a bitter truth; his passionate rage against klara had been like a cruel stab right into her heart--but even then she wanted the confirmation which could only come from his own lips--and for this she waited when she asked him, quite simply, altogether trustingly: "it is not true, is it?" nor did it occur to andor to lie to her about it all; the thought of denial never for one moment entered his head. the fatalism peculiar to this oriental race made the man scorn to shield himself behind a lie. béla was now for ever silent; the young count would scorn to speak! his own protestations in the ear of this loving, simple-minded girl, against the accusations of a woman of the despised race--jealous, bitter, avowedly half-crazy--needed only to be uttered in order to be whole-heartedly believed. but even the temptation to pursue such a course never assailed his soul. with the limitless sky above him, the vast immensity of the plains stretching out unbroken far away, with the land under his feet and the scent of the maize-stubble in his nostrils, he was too proud of himself as a man to stoop to such a lie. so when elsa spoke to him and asked him that one straight and firm question, he raised his head and looked straight into her tear-dimmed eyes. "what, elsa?" he asked quietly. "that you let béla go to his death--just like that--as klara said . . . that is not all true, is it?" and as she returned his look--fearlessly and trustfully--she knew that the question which she had thus put to him was really an affirmation of what she felt must be the truth. but already andor had raised his voice in hot and passionate protest. "he was a brute to you, elsa," he affirmed with all the strength of his manhood, the power of his love, which, in spite of all, would not believe in its own misery; "he would have made you wretchedly unhappy . . . he . . ." "you did do it, then?" she broke in quietly. "i did it because of you, elsa," he cried, and his own firm voice was now half-choked with sobs. "he made you unhappy even though you were not yet bound to him by marriage. once you were his wife he would have made you miserable . . . he would have bullied you . . . beaten you, perhaps. i heard him out under the verandah speaking to you like the sneering brute that he was. . . . and then he kissed you . . . and i . . . but even then i didn't give him the key. . . . klara lied when she said that. i didn't urge him to take it, even--i did not speak about the key. it was lying on the table where i had put it--he took it up--i did not give it him." "but you let him take it. you knew that he meant to visit klara, and that leopold was on the watch outside. yet you let him go. . . ." "i let him go. . . . i was nearly mad then with rage at the way he had treated you all day. . . . his taking that key was a last insult put upon you on the eve of your wedding day. . . . the thought of it got into my blood like fire, when i saw his cruel leer and heard his sneers. . . . later on, i thought better of it . . . calmer thoughts had got into my brain . . . reason, sober sense. . . . i had gone back to the presbytery, and meant to go to bed--i went out, i swear it by god that i went out prepared to warn him, to help him if i could. the whole village was deserted, it was the hour of supper at the barn. i heard the church clock strike the half-hour after ten. i worked my way round to the back of goldstein's house and in the yard i saw béla lying--dead." "and you might have raised a finger to save him at first . . . and you didn't do it." "not at first . . . and after that it was too late. . . ." "you have done a big, big wrong, andor," she said slowly. "wrong?" he cried, whilst once more the old spirit of defiance fired him--the burning love in him, the wrath at seeing her unhappy. "wrong? because i did not prevent one miserable brute being put out of the way of doing further harm? by the living god, elsa, i do not believe that it was wrong. i didn't send him to his death, i did not see or speak to leopold hirsch, i merely let fate or god himself work his way with him. i did not say a word to him that might have induced him to take that key. he picked it up from the table, and every evil thought came into his head then and there. he didn't even care about klara and a silly, swaggering flirtation with her, he only wanted to insult you, to shame you, to show you that he was the master--and meant to have his way in all things. . . . and this he did because--bar his pride in your beauty--he really hated you and meant to treat you ill. he meant to harm you, elsa--my own dear dove . . . my angel from heaven . . . for whom i would have died, and would die to-day, if my death could bring you happiness. . . . i let him go and leopold hirsch killed him . . . if he had lived, he would have made your life one long misery. . . . was it my fault that leopold hirsch killed him?--killed him at the moment when he was trying to do you as great harm as he could? by god, elsa, i swear that i don't believe it was my fault . . . it was the will of god--god would not punish me for not interfering with his will. . . . why, it wouldn't be justice, elsa . . . it wouldn't be justice." his voice broke in one agonized sob. he had put all his heart, all his feelings into that passionate appeal. he did not believe that he had done wrong, he had not on his soul the sense of the brand of cain. rough, untutored, a son of the soil, he saw no harm in sweeping out of the way a noisome creature who spreads evil and misery. and elsa's was also a simple and untutored soul, even though in her calmer temperament the wilder passions of men had found no echo. true and steadfast in love, her mind was too simple to grasp at sophistry, to argue about right or wrong; her feelings were her guide, and even while andor--burning with love and impatience--argued and clung desperately to his own point of view, she felt only the desire to comfort and to succour--above all, to love--she was just a girl--andor's sweetheart and not his judge. god alone was that! god would punish if he so desired--indeed, he had punished already, for never had such sorrow descended in andor's heart before, of that she felt quite sure. he became quite calm after awhile. even his passion seemed to have died down under the weight of this immense sorrow. and the peace which comes from the plains when they are wrapped in the darkness of the night descended on the humble peasant-girl's soul; she saw things as they really were, not as men's turbulent desires would have them be--above all, not as a woman's idealism would picture them. she no longer had the desire to run away--and if the distant, unknown land was to wrap and enfold her out of the ken of this real, cruel world, then it should enfold her and andor together, and her love would wrap him and comfort him too. so now--when he had finished speaking, when his fervent appeal to god and to her had died down on his quivering lips--she came close up to him and placed her small, cool hand upon his arm. "andor," she said gently; and her voice shook and was almost undistinguishable from the sweet, soft sounds that filled the limitless plain. "i am only an ignorant peasant-girl--you and i are only like children, of course, beside the clever people who can argue about such things. but this i do know, that there is no sin in the world so great but it can be blotted out and forgiven. you may have done a big, big, wrong, andor--or perhaps you are not much to blame . . . i don't know how that is . . . pater bonifácius will tell you, no doubt, when next you make your confession to him. . . . but i am too ignorant to understand . . . the plains have taught me all i know . . . and . . . and . . . i shall always love you, andor . . . and not judge what you have done. . . . god will do that. . . . i can only love you. . . . that is all!" her voice died away in the soughing of the wind. for a moment or two he stood beside her--not daring to speak--or to move--or to take that cool, little white hand in his and kiss it--for now she seemed to him more pure than she had ever been--almost holy--like a saint--hallowed by the perfect selflessness of her love. and as he stood beside her--with head bent and throat choked with sobs of infinite happiness--the darkness of the night fell wholly upon the plain. nothing around but just this darkness, filled with all the sounds of hidden, pulsating life; overhead the clouds chased one another ceaselessly and restlessly, and from far away the dull murmur of the water came as a faint and rumbling echo. andor could no longer see elsa now, not even her silhouette; but her hand was still on his arm, and he felt the nearness of her presence, and knew that henceforth, throughout the years that were to come, a happiness such as he had never even dared to dream of would be his and hers too, until the day when they would leave the beautiful, mysterious plains for that hidden land beyond the glowing horizon, beyond the rosy dawn and the crimson sunset. andor slowly fell on his knees and pressed his burning lips on the small, white hand. just then in the east there was a rent in the clouds, a lining of silver appeared behind the darkness; the rent became wider and ever wider; the silver turned to lemon-gold, and slowly, majestically, the waning moon--honey-coloured and brilliant--emerged triumphantly, queening it over the plain. the silvery radiance lit up the vast, silent expanse of nothingness, the huge dome of the sky, the limitless area of stubble and stumps of hemp and dead sunflowers, and where the mysteries of the earth merged in those of the sky--it touched with its subtle radiance that unknown land on the horizon, far away, which no child of the plain has ever reached as yet. and from the distant village came softly sounding the tinkle of the church bell, tolling for evening prayer. hand in hand, andor and elsa wandered back to the village--together--hand in hand with memory--hand in hand in never-fading love and understanding and simple trust--hand in hand upon the bosom of the illimitable plain. * * * * * transcriber's note: some names were spelled inconsistently in the original text. all occurrences of "benko" have been corrected to "benkó", "bonifacius" has been corrected to "bonifácius", and "hohér" has been corrected to "hóhér". in addition, the following typographical errors have been corrected. in chapter xx, "violent and suddent" was changed to "violent and sudden". in chapter xxi, "wont . . . won't you sit down?" was changed to "won't . . . won't you sit down?" in chapter xxv, "make andor giddy" was changed to "made andor giddy". in chapter xxviii, a missing period was added after "quietly laid to rest". [illustration: dr maurus jókai] works of maurus jókai hungarian edition the nameless castle translated from the hungarian under the author's supervision by s. e. boggs new york doubleday, page & company 1898 introduction to the english translation of my works this is not the first occasion upon which it has been my good fortune to win appreciation and approval for my works from the reading public of the united states. up to the present, however, it has often been under difficulties; for many of my works which have been published in the english tongue were not translated from the original hungarian text, while others, through want of a final perusal, were introduced to the public marred by numerous faults. in the present edition we have striven to give the english reading public a correct translation, for which an authorized text has been utilized by the doubleday & mcclure co., who have sole right for publishing future english translations of my books. between the united states and hungary we discover many common traits: the same state-creative energy in the predominant people, which finds expression in constitutional forms, relying upon the love of freedom, which unites so many different races in one uniform whole; the same independent institutions; the same ideas in religion, in ethics; the same respect for women, the same esteem of labor, the same mental culture; a striving after progress, yet side by side with this a high respect for traditions; the same poetry of agriculture, the same prose of industry; rapid progress of both, and in consequence thereof an impetuous growth of towns. yet, while we find so many common traits between america and hungary in the great field of theory, those typical figures which here in hungary represent such theories must make a novel and extraordinary _entrée_ in the new world, that they may deserve to win the interest of the foreign reader. hungary still represents a piece and parcel of the old world; she is not so much europe as a modern asia. my novels centre round those peculiar figures of hungarian common life; and in every work of mine a bit of history of true common life will be found described. i have had a particular delight, however, in occupying myself with foreign countries, especially with the east. there have been years when i was compelled to choose subjects for novel-writing in foreign parts. in english and in hungarian literature we find a common trait in that humor which is discovered also in the tragic; a characteristic of the nation itself. it is with perfect confidence and in good hope that i present my present work (translated so faithfully) before the much-esteemed english reading public. may god bless that home of freedom, by whose example we have learnt how to unite the greatness of the state with the welfare of the people. dr. maurus jokai. budapest, may 11th, 1898. dr. maurus jokai a sketch to a man who has earned such titles as "the shakespeare of hungary" and "the glory of hungarian literature"; who published in fifty years three hundred and fifty novels, dramas, and miscellaneous works, not to mention innumerable articles for the press that owes its freedom chiefly to him, it seems incredible that there was ever a time of indecision as to what career he was best fitted to follow. the idle life of the nobility into which maurus jókay was born in 1825 had no attractions for a strongly intellectual boy, fired with zeal and energy that carried him easily to the head of each class in school and college; nor did he feel any attraction for the prosaic practice of law, his father's profession, to which austria's despotism drove many a nobleman in those wretched days for hungary. it was pétofi, the poet, who was his dearest friend during the student-life at pápa; idealism ever attracted him, and, by natural gravitation toward the finest minds, he chose the friendship of young men who quickly rose into eminence during the days of revolution and invasion that tried men's souls. for a time jókay, as he then wrote his name, was undecided whether to choose literature or art as an outlet for the idealism, imagination, and devotion that overflowed in two directions from this boy of seventeen. with some of the inherited artistic talent, which in his relative munkacsy amounted to genius, he felt most inclined toward painting and sculpture, and finally consecrated himself to them. in his library at budapest there now stands a small, well-executed bust of his wife in ivory; and on the walls hang several landscapes and still-life paintings, which he showed with a smile to an american visitor, who stood silent before them last winter, hoping for some inspiration of speech that would reconcile politeness with veracity and her own ideals of good art. if a "deep love for art and an ardent desire to excel" will "more than compensate for the want of method," to quote sir joshua reynolds, then jókay would have been a great painter indeed. while he never was that, his chisel and brushes have remained a recreation and delight to him always. apparently he was diverted from art to literature by a trifle; but in the light of later developments it is simple enough to see which was really the greater force working within. the academy of arts and sciences, founded by szécheni, offered a prize for the best drama, and jókay won it. he was then seventeen, for careers began early in olden times. when twenty-one his first novel, "work days," met with great applause; other romances quickly followed, and, as they dealt with the social and political tendencies that fanned the revolution into flame two years later, their success was instantaneous. his true representations of hungarian life and character, his passionate love of liberty, his lofty idealism for his crushed and lethargic country, aroused a great wave of patriotism like a call to arms, and consecrated him to work with his pen for the freedom of the common people. henceforth paint-brushes were cast aside. pétofi and jókay, teeming with great ideas, quickly attracted other writers and young men of the university about them, and, each helping the other, brought about a bloodless revolution that secured, among other inestimable boons, the freedom of a censored, degraded press. and yet the only act of violence these young revolutionists committed was in entering a printing establishment and setting up with their own hands the type for pétofi's poem, that afterward became the war-song of the national movement. at that very establishment was soon to be printed a proclamation granting twelve of their dearest wishes to the people. from this time jókay changed the spelling of his name to jókai, _y_ being a badge of nobility hateful to disciples of the doctrine of liberty, fraternity, equality. about this time jókai married the rachel of the hungarian stage, rosa laborfalvy. the portrait of her that hangs in her husband's famous library shows a beautiful woman of intense sensitiveness, into whose face some of the sadness of her rôles seems to have crept. it was to her powers of impersonation and disguise that jókai owed his life many years later, when, imprisoned and suffering in a dungeon, he was enabled to escape in her clothes to join kossuth in the desperate fight against the allied armies of austria and russia. since her death he has lived in retirement. the bloodless revolution of 1848, which suddenly transformed hungary into a modern state, possessing civil and religious liberty for which the young idealists led by kossuth had labored with such passionate zeal, was not effected without antagonizing the old aristocracy, all of whose cherished institutions were suddenly swept away; or the semi-barbaric people of the peasant class, who could little appreciate the beneficent reforms. into the awful civil war that followed, when the horrors of an austrian-russian invasion were added to the already desperate situation, jókai plunged with magnificent heroism. side by side with kossuth, he fought with sword and pen. those who heard him deliver an address at the peace congress at brussels two years ago felt through his impassioned eloquence that the man had himself drained the bitterest dregs of war. while kossuth lived in exile in england and the united states, and many other compatriots escaped to turkey and beyond, jókai, in concealment at home, writing under an assumed name and with a price on his head, continued his work for social reform, until a universal pardon was granted by austria and the saddened idealists once more dared show their faces in devastated hungary. ripe with experience and full of splendid intellectual power, jókai now turned his whole attention to literature. the pages of his novels glow with the warmth of the man's intensity of feeling: his pen had been touched by a living coal. he knew his country as no other man has known it; and transferred its types, its manners, its life in high degree and low, to the pages of his romances and dramas with a brilliancy and mastery of style that captivated the people, whose idol he still remains. scenes from turkish life--in which, next to hungarian, he is particularly interested; historical novels, romances of pure imagination, short tales, dramatic works, essays on literature and social questions, came pouring from his surcharged brain and heart. the very virtues of his work, its intensity, and the boundless scope of its imagination, sometimes produce a lack of unity and an improbability to which the hypercritical in the west draw attention with a sense of superior wisdom; but the hungarians themselves, who know whereof he writes, can see no faults whatever in his work. it is essentially idealistic; the true and the beautiful shine through it with radiant lustre, in sharp distinction from the scenes of famine and carnage that abound. his turkish stories have been described as "full of blood and roses." of his more mature productions, the best known are: "a magyar nabob"; "the fools of love"; "the new landlord"; "black diamonds"; "a romance of the coming century"; "handsome michael"; "god is one," in which the unitarians play an important part; "the nameless castle," that gives an account of the hungarian army employed against napoleon in 1809; "captive ráby," a romance of the times of joseph ii.; and "as we grow old," the latter being the author's own favorite and, strangely enough, the people's also. dr. jókai greatly deplores that what the critics call his best work should not have been given to the english-speaking people. in 1896 hungary celebrated the completion of his fifty years of literary labor by issuing a beautiful jubilee edition of his works, for which the people of all grades of society subscribed $100,000. every county in the country sent him memorials in the form of albums wrought in gold and precious stones, two hundred of these souvenirs filling one side of the author's large library and reception-room. low bookcases running around the walls are filled only with his own publications, the various editions of his three hundred and fifty books making a large library in themselves. the cabinets hold sketches and paintings sent by the artists of hungary as a jubilee gift; there are cases containing carvings, embroidery, lace, and natural-history specimens sent him by the peasants, and orders in gold and silver, studded with jewels, with autograph letters from the kings and queens of europe. in the midst of all this inspiring display of loving appreciation, dr. jókai has his desk; a pile of neatly written, even manuscript ever before him, for in his seventy-fourth year he still feels the old-time passion for work calling him to it early in the morning and holding him in its spell all the day long. a small room adjoining his library contains the books of reference he consults, a narrow bed like a soldier's, and a few window plants. it might be the room of a monk, so bare is it of what the world calls comforts. one devoted man-servant attends to dr. jókai's simple wants with abundant leisure to spare. while in budapest dr. jókai is seldom seen away from home, except in parliament, where he has a seat in the upper house, or at the theatre where his plays are regularly performed, or at the table of a few dear relatives and old-time friends. his life is exceedingly simple and well ordered. just a little way back on the hills that rise beyond buda, across the danube and overlooking wide stretches of beautiful, fertile country, stands dr. jókai's summer-home. his garden is a paradise. quantities of roses climb over the unpretentious house, the paths are lined with them; gay beds of poppies and other familiar favorites in our western gardens, but many new to american eyes, crowd the fruit that grows in delightful abundance everywhere, for dr. jókai tends his garden with his own hands, and his horticultural wisdom is only second to his knowledge of the turkish wars. his apples, pears, and roses win prizes at all the shows, and his little book, "hints on gardening," propagates a large crop of like-minded enthusiasts year after year. now, as ever, any knowledge he has he shares with the people. after a long life of bitter stress and labor, abundant peace has come in the latter days. hungary boasts four great men: liszt, munkacsy, kossuth, and jókai, who was the intimate friend of the other three. neltje blanchan. new york, june, 1898. contents i cythera's brigade ii the home of anecdote iii the mistress of the cats iv satan laczi v ange barthelmy vi death and new life in the nameless castle vii the hungarian militia viii katharina or themire? ix satan and demon x conclusion part i cythera's brigade chapter i a snow-storm was raging with such vigor that any one who chanced to be passing along the silent thoroughfare might well have believed himself in st. petersburg instead of in paris, in the rue des ours, a side street leading into the avenue st. martin. the street, never a very busy one, was now almost deserted, as was also the avenue, as it was yet too early for vehicles of various sorts to be returning from the theatre. the street-lamps on the corners had not yet been lighted. in front of one of those old-fashioned houses which belong to a former paris a heavy iron lantern swung, creaking in the wind, and, battling with the darkness, shed flickering rays of light on the child who, with a faded red cotton shawl wrapped about her, was cowering in the deep doorway of the house. from time to time there would emerge from the whirling snowflakes the dark form of a man clad as a laborer. he would walk leisurely toward the doorway in which the shivering child was concealed, but would turn when he came to the circle of light cast on the snowy pavement by the swinging lantern, and retrace his steps, thus appearing and disappearing at regular intervals. surely a singular time and place for a promenade! the clocks struck ten--the hour which found every honest dweller within the quartier st. martin at home. on this evening, however, two belated citizens came from somewhere, their hurrying footsteps noiseless in the deep snow, their approach announced only by the lantern carried by one of them--an article without which no respectable citizen at the beginning of the century would have ventured on the street after nightfall. one of the pedestrians was tall and broad-shouldered, with a handsome countenance, which bore the impress of an inflexible determination; a dimple indented his smoothly shaven chin. his companion, and his senior by several years, was a slender, undersized man. when the two men came abreast of the doorway illumined by the swinging lamp, it was evident that they had arrived at their destination. they halted and prepared to enter the house. at this moment the child crouching in the snow began to sob. "see here!" exclaimed the taller of the two gentlemen. "here is a little girl." "why, so there is!" in turn exclaimed the elder, stooping and letting the light of his lantern fall on the child's face. "what are you doing here, little one?" he asked in a kindly tone. "i want my mama! i want my mama!" wailed the child, with a fresh burst of sobs. "who is your mama?" queried the younger man. "my mama is the countess." "and where does she live?" "in the palace." "naturally! in which avenue is the palace?" "i--don't--know." "a true child of paris!" in an undertone exclaimed the elder gentleman. "she knows that her mother is a countess, and that she lives in a palace; but she has never been told the name of the street in which is her home." "how come you to be here, little countess?" inquired the younger man. "diana can tell you," was the reply. "and who may diana be?" "why, who else but mama's diana?" "allow me to question her," here interposed the elder man. then, to the child: "diana is the person who helps you put on your clothes, is she not?" "it is just the other way: she took off my clothes--just see; i have nothing on but this petticoat and this hideous shawl." as she spoke she flung back the faded shawl and revealed how scantily she was clad. "you poor child!" compassionately ejaculated the young man; and when he saw that her thin morocco slippers were buried in the snow, he lifted her hastily in his arms. "you are half frozen." "but why did diana leave you half clothed in this manner?" pursued the elder man. "why did she undress you? can't you tell us that much?" "mama slapped her this morning." "ah! then diana is a servant?" "why, of course; what else could she be?" "well, she might be a goddess or a hound, you know," smilingly returned the old gentleman. "when mama went to the opera, this evening," explained the little one, "she ordered diana to take me to the children's ball at the marquis's. instead, she brought me to this street, made me get out of the carriage, took off my silk ball-gown and all my pretty ornaments, and left me here in this doorway--i am sure i don't know why, for there is n't any music here." "it is well she left this old shawl with you, else your mama would not have a little countess to tell the tale to-morrow," observed the elder man. then, turning to his companion, he added in a lower tone: "what are we to do with her?" "we can't leave her here; that would be inhuman," was the reply, in the same cautious tone. "but we can't take her in; it would be a great risk." "what is there to fear from an innocent prattler who cannot even remember her mother's name?" "we might take her to the conciergerie," suggested the elder gentleman. "_i_ think we had better not disturb the police when they are asleep," in a significant tone responded his companion. "that is true; but we can't take the child to our apartments. you know that we--" "i have an idea!" suddenly interposed the young man. "this innocent child has been placed in our way by providence; by aiding her we may accomplish more easily the task we have undertaken." "i understand," assented the elder; "we can accomplish two good deeds at one and the same time. allow me to go up-stairs first; while you are locking the door i will arrange matters up there so that you may bring this poor little half-frozen creature directly with you." then, to the child: "don't be afraid, little countess; nothing shall harm you. to-morrow morning perhaps you will remember your mama's name, or else she will send some one in search of you." he opened the door, and ran hastily up the worn staircase. when the young man, with the little girl in his arms, reached the door at the head of the stairs, his companion met him, and, with a meaning glance, announced that everything was ready for the reception of their small guest. they entered a dingy anteroom, which led, through heavily curved antique sliding-doors, into a vaulted saloon hung with faded tapestry. here the child exhibited the first signs of alarm. "are you going to kill me?" she cried out in terror. the old gentleman laughed merrily, and said: "why, surely you don't take us to be _croquemitaines_ who devour little children; do you?" "have you got a little girl of your own?" queried the little one, suddenly. "no, my dear," replied the old gentleman, visibly affected by the question. "i have no wife; therefore i cannot have a little girl." "but my mama has no husband, and she 's got me," prattled the child. "that is different, my dear. but if i have not got a little girl, i know very well what to do for one." as he spoke he drew off the child's wet slippers and stockings, rubbed her feet with a flannel cloth, then laid her on the bed which stood in the alcove. "why, how warm this bed is!" cried the child; "just as if some one had been sleeping here." the old man's face betrayed some confusion as he responded: "might i not have warmed it with a warming-pan?" "but where did you get hot coals?" "well, well, what an inquisitive little creature it is!" muttered the old man. then, aloud: "my dear, don't you say your prayers before going to sleep?" "no, indeed! mama says we shall have plenty of time for that when we grow old." "an enlightened woman, truly! well, i dare say, my little maid, your convictions will not prevent you from drinking a cup of egg-punch, and partaking of a bit of pasty or a small biscuit?" at mention of these dainties the child's countenance brightened; and while she was eating the repast with evident relish, the younger man rummaged from somewhere a large, beautifully dressed doll. all thought of fear now vanished from the small guest's mind. she clasped the toy in her arms, and, having finished her light meal, began to sing a lullaby, to which she very soon fell asleep herself. "she is sleeping soundly," whispered the elder man, softly drawing together the faded damask bed-curtains, and walking on tiptoe back to the fireplace, where his companion had fanned the fire into a fresh blaze. "it is high time," was the low and rather impatient response. "we can't stop here much longer. do you know what has happened to the duke?" "yes, i know. he has been sentenced to death. to-morrow he will be executed. what have you discovered?" "a fox on the trail of a lion!" harshly replied the young man. "he who aroused so many hopes is, after all, nothing more than an impostor--leon maria hervagault, the son of a tailor at st. leu. the true dauphin, the son of louis xvi., really died a natural death, after he had served a three years' apprenticeship as shoemaker under master simho; and in order that a later generation might not be able to secure his ashes, he was buried in quick-lime in the chapel of st. margarethe." "they were not so scrupulous concerning monsieur,"[1] observed the old man, restlessly pacing the floor. "i received a letter from my agent to-day; he writes that monsieur was secretly shot at dillingen." [footnote 1: count de provence, afterward louis xviii.] "what! he, too? then--" "hush!" cautiously interposed the elder man. "that child might not be asleep." "and if she were awake, what could she understand?" "true; but we must be cautious." he ceased his restless promenade, and came close to the young man's side. "everything is at an end here," he added in a lower tone. "we must remove our treasure to a more secure hiding-place--this very night, indeed, if it be possible." "it is possible," assented his companion. "the plan of flight was arranged two days ago. the most difficult part was to get away from this house. it is watched day and night. chance, however, has come to our aid." "i understand," nodded the old gentleman, glancing significantly toward the bed. "the most serious question now is, where shall we find a secure hiding-place? even england is not safe. the bullets of dillingen can reach to that country! indeed, wherever there are police no secret is safe." "i 'll tell you something," after a moment's deliberation observed the elder man. "i know of a country in europe where order prevails, and where there are no police spies; and, what is more, the place of which i speak is beyond the range of a gunshot!" "i confess i am curious to learn where such a place may be found," with an incredulous smile returned the young man. "fetch the map, and i will point it out to you. afterward we will arrange your route toward it." the two men spread a large map of europe on the table, and, bending over it, were soon deeply absorbed in examining it, the while exchanging whispered remarks. at last they seemed to have agreed on something. the map was folded up and thrust into the younger man's pocket. "i shall start at once," he said, with an air of decision. "that is well," with evident satisfaction assented his companion. "and take with you also the steel casket. in it are all the necessary documents, some articles of clothing on which the mother with her own hands embroidered the well-known symbol, and a million of francs in english bank-notes. these, however, you will not use unless compelled to do so by extreme necessity. you will receive annually a sufficient sum from a certain banking-house which will supply all your wants. have our two trusty friends been apprised?" "yes; they await me hourly." "so soon as you are beyond the french boundary you may communicate with me in the way we have agreed upon. until i hear from you i shall be in a terror of anxiety. i am sorry i cannot accompany you, but i am already suspected. you are, as yet, free from suspicion--are not yet registered in the black book!" "you may trust my skill to evade pursuit," said the young man, producing from a secret cupboard a casket richly ornamented with gold. "i do not doubt your skill, or your ability to accomplish the undertaking; but the task is not a suitable one for so young a man. have you considered the fate which awaits you?" "i have considered everything." "you will be buried; and, what is worse, you will be the keeper of your own prison." "i shall be a severe jailer, i promise you," with a grim smile responded the young man. "jester! you forget your twenty-six years! and who can tell how long you may be buried alive?" "have no fear for me. i do not dread the task. those in power now will one day be overthrown." "but when the child, who is only twelve years old now, becomes in three or four years a blooming maiden--what then? already she is fond of you; then she will love you. you cannot hinder it; and yet, you will not even dare to dream of returning her love. have you thought of this also?" "i shall look upon myself as the inhabitant of a different planet," answered the young man. "your hand, my friend! you have undertaken a noble task--one that is greater than that of the captive knight who cut off his own foot, that his sovereign, who was chained to him, might escape--" "pray say no more about me," interposed his companion. "is the child asleep?" "this one is; the one in the other room is awake." "then let us go to her and tell her what we have decided." he lifted the two-branched candlestick from the table; his companion carefully closed the iron doors of the fireplace; then the two went into the adjoining chamber, leaving the room they had quitted in darkness. the elder gentleman had made a mistake: "this" child was _not_ asleep. she had listened attentively, half sitting up in bed, to as much of the conversation as she could hear. a ray of light penetrated through the keyhole. the little girl sprang nimbly from the bed, ran to the door, and peered through the tiny aperture. suddenly footsteps came toward the door. when it opened, however, the little eavesdropper was back underneath the covers of the bed. the old gentleman entered the room. he had no candle. he left the door open, walked noiselessly to the bed, and drew aside the curtains to see if "this" child was still asleep. the long-drawn, regular breathing convinced him. then he took something from the chair beside the bed, and went back into the other room. the object he had taken from the chair was the faded red shawl in which the stray child had been wrapped. he did not close the door of the adjoining chamber, for the candles had been extinguished and both rooms were now dark. to the listening child in the bed, however, it seemed as if voices were whispering near her--as if she heard a stifled sob. then cautious footsteps crossed the floor, and after an interval of silence the street door opened and closed. very soon afterward a light was struck in the adjoining room, and the elder man came through the doorway--alone. he flung back the doors of the fireplace, and stirred the embers; then he proceeded to perform a singular task. first he tossed a number of letters and papers into the flames, then several dainty articles of girls' clothing. he watched them until they had burned to ashes; then he flung himself into an arm-chair; his head sank forward on his breast, in which position he sat motionless for several hours. chapter ii when the younger of the two men stepped into the street he carried in his arms a little girl wrapped in a faded red shawl, to whom he was speaking encouragingly, in tones loud enough for any passer-by to hear: "i know the little countess will be able to find her mama's palace; for there is a fountain in front of it in which there is a stone man with a three-pronged fork, and a stone lady with a fish-tail! oh, yes; we shall be sure to find it; and very soon we shall be with mama." here the child in his arms began to sob bitterly. "for heaven's sake, do not weep; do not let your voice be heard," whispered the young man in her ear. at this moment a man wearing a coarse blouse, with his cap drawn over his eyes and a short pipe between his lips, came staggering toward them. the young man, in order to make room for him, pressed close to the wall, whereupon the new-comer, who seemed intoxicated, began in drunken tones: "hello, citizen! what do you mean? do you want me to walk in the gutter?--because you have got on fine boots, and i have only wooden sabots! i am a citizen like yourself, and as good as you. we are alike, are n't we?" the young man now knew with whom he had to deal--a police spy whose duty it was to watch him. he therefore replied quietly: "no, we are not alike, citizen; for i have in my arms an unfortunate child who has strayed from its mother. every frenchman respects a child and misfortune. is not that so, citizen?" "yes, that is so, citizen. let 's have a little conversation about it"; and the pretended drunkard seized hold of the young man's mantle to detain him. "it is very cold," returned the young man. "instead of talking here, suppose you help me get this child to its home. go to the nearest corner and fetch a coach. i will wait here for you." the blouse-wearer hesitated a moment, then walked toward the street-corner, managing, however, to keep an eye on the young man and his charge. at the corner he whistled in a peculiar manner, whereupon the rumbling of wheels was heard. in a few moments the leather-covered vehicle drew up beside the curb where the young man was waiting. "i am very much obliged to you for your kindness, citizen," he said to the blouse-wearer, who had returned with the coach. "here," pressing a twenty-sou piece into the man's palm, "is something for your trouble. i wish you would come with me to help hunt for this little girl's home. if you have time, and will come with me, you shall be paid for your trouble." "can't do it, citizen; my wife is expecting me at home. just you trust this coachman; he will help you find the place. he 's a clever youth--are n't you, peroquin? you have made many a night journey about paris, have n't you? see that you earn your twenty francs to-night, too!" that the coachman was also in the service of the secret police the young man knew very well; but he did not betray his knowledge by word or mien. the blouse-wearer now shook hands cordially with the young man, and said: "adieu, citizen. i beg your pardon if i offended you. i 'll leave you now. i am going to my wife, or to the tavern; who can tell the future?" he waited until the young man had entered the coach with his charge; then, instead of betaking himself to his wife or to the tavern, he crossed the street, and took up his station in the recess of a doorway opposite the house with the swinging lantern. . . . "where to?" asked the coachman of the young man. "well, citizen," was the smiling response, "if i knew that, all would be well. but that is just what i don't know; and the little countess, here, who has strayed from her home, can't remember the street, nor the number of the house, in which she lives. she can only remember that her mama's palace is on a square in which there is a fountain. we must therefore visit all the fountains in turn until we find the right one." the coachman made no further inquiries, but climbed to the box, and drove off in quest of the fountains of paris. two fountains were visited, but neither of them proved to be the right one. the young man now bade the coachman drive through a certain street to a third fountain. it was a narrow, winding street--the rue des blancs manteaux. when the coach was opposite a low, one-storied house, the young man drew the strap, and told the driver he wished to stop for a few moments. as the vehicle drew up in front of the house, the door opened, and a tall, stalwart man in top-boots came forth, accompanied by a sturdy dame who held a candle, which she protected from the wind with the palm of her hand. "is that you, raoul?" called the young man from the coach window. there was no response from the giant, who, instead, sprang nimbly to the box, and, flinging one arm around the astonished coachman, thrust a gag into his mouth. before the captive could make a move to defend himself, his fare was out of the coach, and had pinioned his arms behind his back. the giant and the young man now lifted the coachman from the box and carried him into the house, the woman followed with the trembling child, whom she had carefully lifted from the coach. in the house, the two men bound their captive securely, first removing his coat. then they seated him on the couch, and placed a mirror in front of him. "you need not be alarmed, citizen," said the man in the top-boots. "no harm shall come to you. we are only going to copy your face--because of its beauty, you know!" the young man also seated himself in front of the mirror, and proceeded, with various brushes and colors, to paint his cheeks and nose a copper hue, exactly like that of the coachman's reflection in the glass. then he exchanged his own peruke and hat for the shabby ones of the coachman. lastly, he flung around his shoulders the mantle with its seven collars, and the resemblance was complete. "and now," observed the giant, addressing the captive, "you can rest without the least fear. at the latest, to-morrow about this time your coach, your horses, your mantle, and whatever else belongs to you will be returned. for the use of the things we have borrowed from you we shall leave in the pocket of your coat twenty francs for every hour, and an extra twenty francs as a _pourboire_; don't forget to look for it! to-morrow at eleven o'clock a girl will fetch milk; she will release you, and you can tell her what a singular dream you had! if you can't go to sleep, just repeat the multiplication table. i always do when i can't sleep, and i never have to go beyond seven times seven. good night, citizen!" the door of the adjoining room opened, and the woman appeared, leading by the hand a pretty little boy. "we are ready," she announced. the two men thrust pistols into their pockets. then the woman and the little boy entered the coach, the two men took seats on the box, and the coach rolled away. chapter iii at ten o'clock the next morning the old gentleman paid a visit to his little guest. this time the child was really asleep, and opened her eyes only when the curtains were drawn back and the light from the window fell on her face. "how kind of you to waken me, monsieur!" she said, smiling; she was in a good humor, as children are who have slept well. "i have slept splendidly. this bed is as good as my own at home. and how delightful not to hear my governess scolding! you never scold, do you, monsieur? i deserve to be scolded, though, for i was very naughty last night, and you were so kind to me--gave me such nice egg-punch; see, there is a glass of it left over; it will do for my breakfast. i love cold punch, so you need not trouble to bring me any chocolate." with these words, the little maid sprang nimbly from the bed, ran with the naïveté of an eight-year-old child to the table, where she settled herself in the corner of the sofa, drew her bare feet up under her, and proceeded to breakfast on the left-over punch and biscuits. "there! that was a good breakfast," she said, after she had finished her meal. "oh, i almost forgot. has mama sent for me?" "certainly not, my dear! we are going, by and by, to look for her. the countess very likely has not yet learned of your disappearance; and if she does know that you did not return home last night, she believes you safe with the marquis. she will think you were not allowed to return home in the storm, and will not expect to see you before noon." "you are very clever, monsieur. i should never have thought of that! i imagined that mama would be vexed, and when mama is cross she is _so_ disagreeable. at other times, though, she is perfectly lovely! you will see how very beautiful she is, monsieur, for you are coming home with me to tell her how you found me--you are so very kind! how i wish you were my papa!" the old gentleman was touched by the little one's artless prattle. "well, my dear little maid," he said tenderly, "we can't think of showing ourselves on the street in such a costume. besides, it would frighten your mama to see you so. i am going out to one of the shops to buy you a frock. tell me, what sort was it diana took from you?" "a lovely pink silk, trimmed with lace, with short sleeves," promptly replied the little maid. "i shall not forget--a pink silk, trimmed with lace. you need not be afraid to stay alone here. no one will come while i am away." "oh, i am not the least bit afraid. i like to be alone sometimes." "there is the doll to keep you company," suggested the old gentleman, more and more pleased with his affable little visitor. "is n't she lovely!" enthusiastically exclaimed the child. "she slept with me last night, and every time i woke up i kissed her." "you shall have her for your own, if you like her so much, my dear." "oh, thank you! did the doll belong to your dear little daughter who is dead?" "yes--yes," sorrowfully murmured the old gentleman. "then i will not play with her, but keep her locked in my little cupboard, and call her philine. that was the name of my little sister who is dead. come here, philine, and sit by me." "perhaps you might like to look at a book while i am away--" "a book!" interrupted the child, with a merry laugh, clapping her hands. "why, i am just learning the alphabet, and can't bring myself to call a two-pronged fork 'y.'" "you dear little innocent rogue!" tenderly ejaculated the old gentleman. "are you fond of flowers?" he brought from the adjoining room a porcelain flowerpot containing a narcissus in bloom. "oh, what a charming flower!" cried the child, admiringly. "how i wish i might pluck just one!" "help yourself, my dear," returned her host, pushing the plant toward her. the child daintily broke off one of the snowy blossoms, and, with childlike coquetry, fastened it in the trimming of her chemise. "what is this beautiful flower called, monsieur?" "the narcissus." at mention of the name the little maid suddenly clapped her hands and cried joyfully: "why, that is the name of our palace! now don't you know where it is?" "the 'palace of narcissus'? i have heard of it." "then you will have no trouble finding my home. oh, you dear good little flower!" and she kissed the snowy blossom rapturously. the old gentleman surveyed her smilingly for a few moments, then said: "i will go now, and buy the frock." "and while you are away i shall tell philine the story of gargantua," responded the child. "lock the door after me, my dear, and do not open it until i mention my name: alfred cambray--" "oh, i should forget the second one! just say, 'papa alfred'; i can remember that." when the child was certain that the old gentleman had left the house, she began hastily to search the room. she peered into every corner and crevice. then she went into the adjoining chamber, and opened every drawer and cupboard. in returning to the first room she saw some scraps of paper scattered about the floor. she collected them carefully, placed them on the table, and dexterously fitted the pieces together until the entire note-sheet lay before her. it was covered with writing which had evidently been traced by a hurried hand, yet the child seemed to have no difficulty in reading it. when she heard the old gentleman's footstep on the staircase, she brushed the scraps of paper from the table, and hastened to open the door before the signal was given; and when he exhibited his purchase she danced for joy. "it is just like my ball-gown--exactly like it!" she exclaimed, kissing the hands of her benefactor. then the old gentleman clothed the child as skilfully as if he were accustomed to such work. when the task was finished he looked about him, and saw the scraps of paper on the floor; he swept them together, and threw them into the fire. then, with the hand of his little companion clasped in his own, he descended to the street in quest of a cab to take them to the palace of narcissus. the palace of narcissus had originally been the property of the celebrated danseuse, mlle. guimard, for whom it had been built by the duke de soubise. like so many other fine houses, it had been confiscated by the revolution and sold at auction--or, rather, had been disposed of by lottery, a lady who had paid one hundred and twenty francs for her ticket winning it. the winner of the palace sold it to m. périgaud, a banker and shrewd speculator, who divided the large dwelling into suites of apartments, which became the favorite lodgings of the young men of fashion. these young men were called the "narcissi," and later, the "incroyables" and "_petits crevés_." the building, however, retained the name of the palace of narcissus. when the fiacre stopped at the door of the palace which led to her mama's apartment, the little countess alighted with her escort, and said to the coachman: "you need not wait; the marquis will return home in my mama's carriage." m. cambray was obliged to submit to be called the "marquis." the harmless fib was due to the rank of the little countess; she could not have driven through the streets of paris in the same fiacre with a _pékin_! "we will not go up the main staircase," said the child, taking her companion's arm and leading him into the palace. "i don't want to meet any of the servants. we will go directly to mama's boudoir, and take her by surprise." the countess mother, however, was not in her boudoir; only a screaming cockatoo, and a capuchin monkey that grimaced a welcome. through the folding-doors which opened into an adjoining room came the melancholy tones of a harmonium; and m. cambray recognized a favorite air--beethoven's symphony, "_les adieux, l'absence, et le retour_." he paused a moment to listen to it. "that is mama playing," whispered the child. "you go in first, and tell her you have brought me home. be very careful; mama is very nervous." m. cambray softly opened the door, and halted, amazed, on the threshold. the room into which he had ventured unannounced was a magnificent salon, filled with a brilliant company. evidently the countess was holding a matinée. the assembled company were in full toilet. the women, who were chiefly young and handsome, were clad in the modest fashion of that day, which draped the shoulders and bust with embroidered kerchiefs, with priceless lace adorning their gowns and genuine pearls twined among their tresses. the men also wore full dress: hungarian trousers, short-waisted coat, with large, bright metal buttons, opening over an embroidered waistcoat. surrounded by her guests, the mistress of the house, an ideal of beauty, cythera herself, was seated at the harpsichord, her neck and shoulders hidden by her wonderfully beautiful golden hair. when m. cambray, in his plain brown coat buttoned to the chin, with black gloves and dull buckle-shoes, appeared in the doorway of the boudoir, which was not open to all the world, every eye was turned in surprise toward him. the lady at the harpsichord rose, surveyed the intruder with a haughty stare, and was about to speak when a lackey in silver-embroidered livery came hastily toward her and said something in a low tone. "what?" she ejaculated, with sudden terror. "my daughter lost?" the guests crowded around her, and a scene of great excitement followed. here m. cambray came forward and said: "i have found your daughter, countess, and return her to you." the lovely woman made one step toward the child, who had followed m. cambray into the room, then sank to the floor unconscious. she was tenderly lifted and borne into the boudoir. two physicians, who were of the company, followed. when the door closed behind them, the entire company remaining in the salon gathered about m. cambray. the ladies seized his hands; and while a blonde houri on his right sought to attract his attention, a brunette beauty claimed it on his left--both women ignoring the attempts of the men to shake hands with the hero of the hour. one of the men, an elderly and distinguished-looking personage with a commanding mien, now pressed forward to introduce himself. "monsieur, i am the marquis lyonel de fervlans," he repeated in a patronizing tone. "i am alfred cambray," was the simple response. "ah? pray, have the kindness to tell us--the friends of the countess--what has happened?" m. cambray related how and where he had found the lost child, the company listening with eager attention. all were deeply affected. some of the women wept. when m. cambray concluded his recital, the marquis grasped both his hands, and, pressing them warmly, said in a trembling voice: "thanks, many thanks, you brave, good man! we will never forget your kindness." one of the physicians now came from the boudoir, and announced that the countess was better, and desired to speak to the deliverer of her child. the countess was reclining on an ottoman, half buried in luxurious cushions. her little daughter was kneeling by her side, her head resting on her mother's knee. it was a charming tableau. "i am not able to express my gratitude, monsieur," began the countess, in a faint voice, extending both hands toward m. cambray. "i hope you will allow me to call you my friend. i shall never cease to thank you! amélie, my love, kiss this hand; look at this face; impress it on your heart, and never, _never_ forget it, for this brave gentleman rescued you from a most horrible fate." m. cambray listened to these profuse expressions of gratitude, but with heedless ear. his thoughts were with the fugitives. he longed to know if they had escaped pursuit. while the countess was speaking he could not help but think that a great ado was being made because a little countess had been abandoned half clad in the public street. _he_ knew of another little maid who had been treated with far greater cruelty. his reply was brief: "your little daughter is very charming." the mother sat upright with sudden decision, and unfastened the ivory locket from the black ribbon around her neck. it contained a portrait of the little countess amélie. "if the memory of the little foundling you rescued is dear to you, monsieur, then accept this from me, and think sometimes of your protégée." it was a noble gift indeed! the lovely countess had given him her most valued ornament. m. cambray expressed his thanks, pressed his lips to the countess's hand, and kissed the little amélie, who smilingly lifted her face for the caress. then he bowed courteously, and returned to the salon. he was met at the door by the marquis de fervlans, who exclaimed reproachfully: "what, you are going to desert us already? then, if you will go, you must allow me to offer you my carriage." he gave his arm to the old gentleman, and conducted him to the vestibule, where, among a number of liveried servants, stood a trim hussar in swiss uniform. the marquis ordered the hussar to fetch his carriage, and, when it drew up before the door, himself assisted m. cambray to enter it. then he shook hands cordially with the old gentleman, stepped back to the doorway, and watched the carriage roll swiftly across the square. * * * * * when the servant jocrisse had closed the boudoir door behind m. cambray, the suffering countess sprang lightly from her couch, and pressed her handkerchief to her lips to smother her laughter; the little amélie, overwhelmed by merriment, buried her face in her mother's skirts; the maid giggled discreetly; while jocrisse, clasping his rotund stomach with both hands, bent his head toward his knees, and betrayed his suppressed hilarity by his shaking shoulders. even the more important of the two physicians pursed his lips into a smile, and proffered his snuff-box to his colleague, who, smothering with laughter, whispered: "are we not capital actors?" * * * * * meanwhile m. cambray drove rapidly in the marquis de fervlans's carriage through the streets of paris. he was buried in thought. he glanced only now and then from the window. he was not altogether satisfied with himself that he was riding in a carriage which belonged to so important a person--a gentleman whose name he had never heard until that day. suddenly he was surprised to find the carriage entering a gateway. a carriage could not enter the gate at his lodgings! the swiss hussar sprang from the box, opened the carriage door, and m. cambray found himself confronted by a sergeant with a drawn sword. "this is not my residence," said the old gentleman. "certainly not," replied the sergeant. "this is the prison of st. pélagie." "what have i to do here? my name is alfred cambray." "you are the very one we have been expecting." and now it was m. cambray's turn to laugh merrily. when m. cambray's pockets had been searched, and everything suspicious confiscated, he was conducted to a room in the second story, in which he was securely locked. he had plenty of time to look about his new lodgings. apparently the room had been occupied by many an important personage. the walls were covered with names. above some of them impromptu verses had been scribbled; others had perpetuated their profiles; and still others had drawn caricatures of those who had been the means of lodging them here. the guillotine also figured among the illustrations. the new lodger was not specially surprised to find himself a prisoner; what he could not understand was the connection between the two events. how came it about that the courteous and sympathetic marquis de fervlans's carriage had brought him here from the palace of the deeply grateful countess? he was puzzling his brain over this question when his door suddenly opened, and a morose old jailer entered with some soup and bread for the prisoner. "thanks, i have dined," said m. cambray. the jailer placed the food on the table, with the words: "i want you to understand, citizen, that if you have any idea of starving yourself to death, we shall pour the soup down your throat." toward evening another visitor appeared. the door was opened with loud clanking of chains and bolts, and a tall man crossed the threshold. it was the marquis de fervlans. his manner now was not so condescending and sympathetic. he approached the prisoner, and said in a commanding tone that was evidently intended to be intimidating: "you have been betrayed, and may as well confess everything; it is the only thing that will save you." a scornful smile crossed the prisoner's lips. "that is the usual form of address to a criminal who has been arrested for burglary." the marquis laughed. "i see, m. cambray, that you are not the sort of person to be easily frightened. it is useless to adopt the usual prison methods with you. very well; then we will try a different one. it may be that we shall part quite good friends! what do i say? part? say, rather, that we may continue together, hand in hand! but to the point. you have a friend who shared the same apartment with you. this gentleman deserted you last night, i believe?" "the ingrate!" ironically ejaculated m. cambray. "beg pardon, but there was also a little girl secreted in your apartment, whom no one ever saw--" "pardon me, monsieur," interrupted cambray, "but it is not the custom for french gentlemen to spy out or chatter about secrets which relate to the fair sex." "i am not talking about the sort of female you refer to, monsieur, but about a child--a girl of perhaps twelve years." "how, pray, can one determine the age of a lady whom no one has seen?" "certain telltale circumstances give one a clue," retorted de fervlans. "why, for instance, do you keep a doll in your rooms?" "a doll? i play with it myself sometimes! i am a queer old fellow with peculiar tastes." "very good; we will allow that you are telling the truth. what have you to say to the fact that you took to your apartment yesterday evening a stray child, and an hour later your friend came out of the house with another child, wrapped in the shawl which had enveloped the lost child when you found her--" "have they been overtaken?" hastily interrupted cambray, forgetting himself. "no, they have not--more 's the pity!" returned the marquis. "my detective was not clever enough to perceive the difference between the eight-year-old girl who was carried to your apartments at ten o'clock, and the twelve-year-old little maid whom your friend brought downstairs at eleven, pretending that he was going in search of the lost child's mother. besides, everything conspired to aid your friend to escape. he was too cunning for us, and got such a start of his pursuers that there was no use trying to follow him. we do not even know in what direction he has gone." cambray repressed the sigh of relief which would have lightened his heart, and forced himself to say indifferently: "neither the young man nor the child concern me. it is his own family affair, in which i never meddled." "that is a move i cannot allow, m. cambray!" sharply responded the marquis. "there are proofs that you are perfectly familiar with his affairs." again cambray smiled scornfully. "you have evidently searched my lodgings." "we have done our duty, monsieur. we even tore up the floors, broke your furniture and ornaments,--for which we apologize,--and found nothing suspicious. notwithstanding this, however, we know very well that you received a letter yesterday warning you of approaching danger. we know very well that you and your friend traced out the route of his flight; we have a witness who listened to your plans, and who fitted together the scraps of the torn letter of warning, and read it." "and who may this witness be?" queried cambray. "the child you picked up in the street." "what!" ejaculated cambray, incredulously. "the little girl who sat shivering in the snow?" "yes; she is our most skilful detective, and has entrapped more than one conspirator," triumphantly interrupted de fervlans. "then"--and m. cambray brought his hands together in a vehement gesture--"what i have believed a myth is really true. the police authorities really employ a number of beautiful women, handsome young men, and clever children to spy out and entrap suspected persons? 'cythera's brigade' really exists?" "you had the pleasure of meeting that celebrated brigade this morning," replied de fervlans. "and those grateful men and women, who gathered about me with tearful eyes and sympathetic words--" "were members of cythera's brigade," supplemented the marquis. "and the mistress of the house--the beautiful woman who fainted at sight of her child?" "is the fair cythera's substitute! she taught her little daughter the part she played so successfully." with sudden fury m. cambray tore from his breast the ivory locket containing the little amélie's portrait, and was about to fling it on the floor and trample upon it. on second thought, he restrained himself, returned the locket to his breast, and muttered: "the child is not to blame. those who have made her such a monster are at fault. i will keep the miniature as a talisman for the future." "and now, m. cambray," pursued the marquis, "we want to learn what has become of your young friend. in fact, we _must_ know what has become of him and his charge." "i don't know where he is." "you do know. according to the report from our witness, he has fled to a 'country where order prevails, and where there are no police.' where is this country, m. cambray?" "in the moon, perhaps!" was the laconic response. "our witness heard these words from your own lips, and you pointed out the spot on the map to your friend." "your witness dreamed all this!" "m. cambray, let us talk sensibly. you are a banker--at least, that is what you are registered in the police records. it is to the interest of the state to discover your secret. if you will reveal the hiding-place of your friend you may demand your own reward. do you wish to be intrusted with the management of the state's finances? or--" "i regret, monsieur le marquis," interrupted cambray, "that i must refuse so handsome an opportunity to enrich myself. although i am a banker, i am no swindler." "very good! then you require no money. you are _not_ a banker, m. cambray; that is merely a fable. what is your ambition? should you prefer to be a governor? name any office; let it be what it may, you shall receive the appointment to-morrow." "thank you again, monsieur. i must repeat what i said before: i know nothing about the future residence of the fugitive gentleman." "and if i tell you, m. cambray, that your refusal may cost you your head?" "i should reply," returned cambray, smiling calmly, as he took up the piece of bread lying on the table, "that it is a matter of perfect indifference to me if this daily portion of bread is enjoyed by some one else to-morrow. that which i do not know i cannot tell you." "very well, then," in a harsh tone rejoined de fervlans. "i will tell you that cambray the banker may say what is not true; but the nobleman cannot lie. _marquis d'avoncourt_, do you know to what country your friend has flown?" at this question the old gentleman rose from his chair, drew himself up proudly, and gazing defiantly into the eyes of his questioner, replied: "i do." instantly de fervlans's manner changed. he became the embodiment of courtesy. he bowed with extreme politeness, then, slipping his arm familiarly through that of the prisoner, whispered insinuatingly: "and what can we do to win this information from you?" the gray-haired man released himself from de fervlans's arm, and answered with quiet irony: "i will tell you what you can do: have my head cut off, and send it to m. bichet, the celebrated professor of anatomy; perhaps he may be able to discover the information in my skull--if it is there! and now i beg you to leave me; i wish to be alone." de fervlans took up his hat, but turned at the door to say, in a meaning tone: "marquis d'avoncourt, we shall forget that you are a prisoner so long as it shall please you to remain obstinate. as for the fugitives, cythera's brigade will capture them, sooner or later. _au revoir_!" that same night the old nobleman was removed to the prison at ham. chapter iv while the ensnared conspirators against the state were receiving sentence in one district of paris, in another district the inhabitants were entertaining themselves. paris does not mourn very long. paris is like the earth: one half of it is always illumined by the sun. on this fateful evening the incroyables and the merveilleuses were amusing themselves within the walls of the palace of narcissus. the members of cythera's brigade took great pains to make outsiders believe that they never troubled themselves about that half of the world which was in shadow--that half called politics. in the salon of the fascinating countess themire dealba not a word was heard relating to affairs of state. the beautiful women who were banded together to learn the secrets which threatened the present order of government worked in an imperceptible manner. they did not belong to the ordinary class of spies--those who collect every ill-natured word, every trifling occurrence of the street. no, indeed! _they_ did nothing but amuse themselves. they were merry society women, trusty friends and confidantes. they moved in the best circles; no one ever saw them exchange a word with a police commissioner. if any one in the company happened to speak of anything even remotely connected with politics, some one quickly changed the subject to a more innocent theme; and if a stranger chanced to mention so delicate a matter as, say, the dinner which had been given by the emperor's nephew at very's, which cost seventy-five thousand francs, while forty thousand laborers were starving, then the witty countess themire herself turned the conversation to the "toilet rivalry" between the mesdames tallien and récamier. on this particular evening the countess dealba was discussing the beauties of the latest opera with a few of her most intimate friends, when the marquis de fervlans approached, and, bending over her, whispered: "i must see you alone; find an opportunity to leave the room, and join me in the conservatory." at that time it was the fashion to clothe children in garments similar to those worn by their elders. a company of little ones, therefore, looked like an assemblage of lilliputian merveilleuses and incroyables. the little men and women also accompanied their mamas to receptions and the theatre, where they joined in the conversation, danced vis-à-vis with their elders, made witty remarks, criticized the toilets and the play, gave an opinion as to whether hardy's confections or those of riches were the better, and if it were safe to depend on the friendship of the czar alexander. in this company of little ones the countess amélie was, beyond a doubt, the most conspicuous. one could not have imagined anything more interesting or entertaining than the manner of this miniature dame when left by her mama to do the honors of the house. the dignity with which the child performed her duties was enchanting. she understood perfectly how to entertain her mother's guests, how to spice her conversation with piquant anecdotes, how to mimic the manner of affected personages. she was, in a word, a prodigy! countess themire, knowing she might safely trust her little daughter to perform the duties of hostess, followed de fervlans to the conservatory. "we have been outwitted," he began at once. "they vanished twelve hours before we learned that they had flown." the countess shrugged her shoulders and tossed her head. "why do you think it necessary to tell me this?" she inquired, with a touch of asperity. "have you not got enough police to arrest the fugitives, who must pass through the entire country in their flight?" "yes, we have quite enough spies, and they are very skilful; but the fugitives are a trifle more skilful. they have disguised themselves so effectually that it is impossible to trace them. they seized a public coach by force, changed the number on it, and sent it back from the boundary by an accomplice, who left it in the rue muffetard. even should we succeed in tracing their flight, by the time we discovered them they would have crossed the boundary of switzerland, or would be sailing over the ocean. no; we must begin all over again. there is but one expedient: _you_ must travel in search of the fugitives, and bring them back." "i go in search of them and bring them back?" repeated the countess, in a startled tone. "the first part of your task will not be so difficult," continued de fervlans. "the imprisoned marquis will not reveal the destination of the fugitives; but we have learned, through your clever little daughter, that they have gone to a country where there is order, but where there are no police. that, methinks, is not a very difficult riddle to solve. you need only journey from place to place until you find such a country. the fugitives will be certain to betray themselves by their secrecy, and i have not the least doubt but your search will be rewarded before the year is out. for one year you shall have the command of three hundred thousand francs. when you discover the fugitives you will know very well what to do. the man is young and an enthusiast--an easy conquest, i should fancy; and when you have ensnared him the maid's fate is decided. we want the man, the maid, and the steel casket; any one of the three, however, will be of great value to us. you will keep us advised as to your progress, and we, of course, will assist you all we can. you know that we have secret agents all over europe. and now, you will do well to prepare for an immediate departure; there is not a moment to be lost." "but good, heavens! how can i take amélie on such a journey?" "you are not to take her with you--of what are you thinking? that man has already seen the child, and would recognize her at once." "you surely cannot mean that i am to desert my daughter?" "don't you think amélie will be in safe hands if you leave her in _my_ care?" asked de fervlans, with a glance that would have made any one who had not heard his words believe he was making a declaration of love. "besides, it will not be the first time you leave her to the care of another." "that is true," sighed the countess; "i ought to be accustomed to parting with her. have not i trusted her to the care of a police spy? and all for my own advantage! oh, what a wretched profession i have chosen for myself and my child!" "a profession that yields a handsome income, madame," supplemented the marquis, a trifle sharply. "you ought not to complain. surely the régime is not to blame that you married a roué, who squandered your fortune, and then was killed in a duel about a rope-dancer, leaving you a clever little daughter and a half-million of debts! what else could you have done to have earned a living for yourself and child?" "i might have sent the child to a foundling asylum, and sought employment for myself in the gobelin factory. it would have been better had i done so!" "i doubt it, countess. the path of virtue is only for those women who--have large feet! you are too fairy-like, and would have found the way too rough. it is much better, believe me, to serve the state. what would you? is there not a comforting word due to the conscience of the soldier who has killed a fellow-being in the interest of his country? don't you suppose his heart aches when he looks upon the death-struggles of the man he has killed without having a personal grudge against him? we are all soldiers of the state. when we assault an enemy, we do not inquire if we hurt him; we kill him! and the safety of our fatherland hallows the deed." "but that which we are doing is immoral," interposed the countess. "and that which our enemy is doing is not immoral, i presume? are not their beautiful women, their polished courtiers, acting as spies in our salons? we are only using their own weapons against them." "that may be; but it was a repulsive thought that prompted the using of children as instruments in this deadly game." "were not they the first to set us an example? was not it a repulsive thought which prompted them to hold over the heads of an entire people that hellish machine of torture in the shape of a smiling child? no, madame; we need not be ashamed of what we are doing. our men are engaged in warfare against their men; our lovely women are engaged in warfare against their lovely women; and our little children are engaged in warfare against their little children. your little amélie is a historical figure, and deserves a monument." the marquis, perceiving that his sophistry was not without its effect on the lovely woman, continued: "and then, madame, if you are weary of the rôle you and your little daughter are playing with such success, the opportunity is now offered to you to quit your present mode of life. your financial affairs are utterly ruined; you are only the nominal possessor of the estate you inherited from your ancestors. if you succeed in the task which you are about to undertake, the entire sum of money, the interest of which you receive annually, becomes your own. five millions of francs deserve some sacrifice. with this sum you can become an independent woman, and your daughter will never be reproached with having been, in her childhood, a member of cythera's brigade." countess themire deliberated a few moments; then she asked: "may i not kiss my daughter farewell?" "leave your kiss with me, and i will deliver it faithfully!" smilingly responded the marquis. "how can you jest at such a moment? suppose my absence lasts a long time?" "that is very probable." "am i not even to hear from my child--not even to let her know that i am living?" "certainly, countess; you may communicate with her through me. moreover, it rests with yourself how soon you will return. until that time it shall be my pleasure to take care of amélie; you may rest in peace as to that!" "yes; she could not be in worse hands than in those of her mother!" bitterly rejoined the countess. "the first letter, then, must be one of farewell." she rose, went into her boudoir, and wrote on a sheet of paper: "my dear child: i am compelled to take a journey. i shall write to you when i am ready to return. until then, i leave you to perform the duties of hostess, and intrust my money-chest to your care. i embrace you a thousand times. "your old friend and little mama, "themire." she folded and sealed the letter, and handed it to de fervlans. "i shall be sure to deliver it," he said. "and now, send jocrisse for a fiacre; you must not use your own carriage for this. you can leave the palace unperceived by the garden gate. speak german wherever you go, and remember that you do not understand a word of french. i think you would better begin your search in switzerland. and now, adieu, madame, until we meet again--" "if only i might take one last look at my little daughter!" pleadingly interrupted the countess. "themire! you are actually beginning to grow sentimental. that does not become a soldier!" "had i suspected this," returned themire, "i would not have given amélie's portrait to m. cambray in that ridiculous farce. i wonder if i might not get it from him?" "no; he will not part with it; he says he is going to keep it as a talisman. only m. sanson has the privilege of relieving prisoners of their trinkets, and cambray is still far enough from sanson's reach! i shall have another portrait painted of amélie, and send it to you." "but this picture was painted while yet she was an innocent child." "upon my word, madame, you are as sentimental as a professor's daughter! i begin to fear you will not accomplish your mission--that you will end by falling in love with the man you are to capture for us, and betray us to him." themire did not say another word, but hurried into her dressing-room. de fervlans wrote an order for one hundred and fifty thousand francs for the countess themire dealba for the first six months, added his wishes for a pleasant and successful journey, then returned to the salon, where he gave the missive which had been intrusted to his care to jocrisse. jocrisse placed it on a silver tray, and presented it to the tiny lady of the house. "pray allow me, ladies and gentlemen," said the lilliputian _grande dame_, as she broke the seal, "to read this letter--although i am only just learning the alphabet!" there were a number of persons in the company who understood and enjoyed the concluding words. the little countess lifted her gold-rimmed lorgnette to her eyes, and read her mother's letter. she shook her head, shrugged her shoulders, and opened wide her blue eyes. "ladies and gentlemen," she proceeded to explain, "mama has been called suddenly away. she sends her greetings to you" (this was not in the letter, but the little diplomatist thought it best to atone for her mama's neglect) "until she returns, which will be very soon" (this also was a thought of her own). "i am to fulfil the duties of lady of the house." then she turned toward de fervlans, and whispered, holding the lorgnette in front of her lips: "mama leaves her money-chest in my care"--adding, with naïve sarcasm, "which means that she has left me to battle with her creditors." part ii the home of anecdote chapter i the entire population of fertöszeg was assembled on the public highway to welcome the new proprietress of the estate. elaborate preparations had been made for the reception. an arch of green boughs--at the top of which gleamed the word "vivat" in yellow roses--spanned the road, on either side of which were ranged twelve little girls in white, with flower-baskets in their hands. they were under the superintendence of the village cantor, whose intention it was to conclude the ceremonies with a hymn of welcome by these innocent little creatures. on a sort of platform, a bevy of rosy-cheeked maids were waiting to present to the new-comer a huge hamper heaped to the brim with ripe melons, grapes, and ostyepka cheeses of marvelous shapes. mortars crowned the summit of the neighboring hill. in the shadow of a spreading beech-tree were assembled the official personages: the vice-palatine, the county surveyor, the village pastor, the district physician, the justice of the peace, and the different attendants, county and state employees, belonging to these gentlemen. the vice-palatine's assistant ought also to have been in this company, but he was busy giving the last instructions to the village beauties whose part it was to present the hamper of fruit and cheeses. these gentlemen had wives and daughters; but _they_ had stationed themselves along the trench at the side of the road. _they_ did not seek the shadow of a tree, because _they_ wished people to know that _they_ had parasols; for to own a parasol in those days was no small matter. preparations were making in the market-place for an ox-roast. the fat young ox had been spitted, and the pile of fagots underneath him was ready for the torch. hard by, on a stout trestle, rested a barrel of wine. in front of the inn a gypsy band were tuning their instruments, while at the window of the church tower might have been seen two or three child faces; they were on the lookout for the new lady of the manor, in order that they might be ready to ring the bells the moment she came in sight. there was only that one tower in the village, and there was a cross on it; but it was not a romish church, for all that. the inhabitants were adherents of luther--swabians, mixed with magyars. the municipal authorities, in their holiday attire of blue cloth, had grouped themselves about the town hall. the older men wore their long hair brushed back from the temples and held in place by a curved comb. the young men had thrust into the sides of their lambskin caps gay little nosegays of artificial flowers. _they_ proposed to fire a grand salute from the pistols they had concealed in their pockets. meanwhile, the dignitaries underneath the umbrageous beech-tree were passing the time of waiting pleasantly enough. maple wine mixed with mineral water was a very refreshing drink in the intense heat; besides, it served as a stimulant to the appetite--_appetitorium_, they called it. three wooden benches, joined together in a half-circle, formed a comfortable resting-place for the committee of reception, the chief of whom, the vice-palatine, was seated on the middle bench, drawing through the stem of his huge carved meerschaum the smoke of the sweet veker tobacco. his figure was the living illustration of the ever true axiom: "_extra hungariam non est vita_,"--an axiom which his fat red face by no means confuted,--while his heavy, stiffly waxed mustache seemed to add menacingly: "leave the hungarian in peace." he shared his seat with the clergyman, whose ecclesiastical office entitled him to that honor. the reverend gentleman, however, was an extremely humble person, whom erudition had bent and warped to such a degree that one shoulder was lower than the other, one eyelid was elevated above its fellow, and only one half of his mouth opened when he gave utterance to a remark. his part in the festive ceremony was the performance of the _beneventatio_; and although he had committed the speech to memory, he could not help but tremble at thought of having to repeat it before so grand a dame as the new mistress of the manor. he always trembled whenever he began his sermons; but once fairly started, then he became a veritable demosthenes. "i only hope, reverend sir," jestingly observed the vice-palatine, "that it will not happen to you as it did to the _csokonai_, not long ago. some wags exchanged his sermon-book for one on cookery, and he did not notice it until he began to read in the pulpit: 'the vinegar was--' then he saw that he was reading a recipe for pickled gherkins. he had the presence of mind, however, to continue, '--was offered to the saviour, who said, "it is finished."' and on that text he extemporized a discourse that astounded the entire presbytery." "i shall manage somehow to say my speech," returned the pastor, meekly, "if only i do not stumble over the name of the lady." "it is a difficult name," assented the vice-palatine. "what is it? i have already forgotten it, reverend sir." "katharina von landsknechtsschild." the vice-palatine's pointed mustaches essayed to give utterance to the name. "lantz-k-nek-hisz-sild--that's asking a great deal from a body at one time!" he concluded, in disgust at his ill success. "and yet, it is a good old hungarian family name. the last diet recognized her ancestors as belonging to the nobility." this remark was made by a third gentleman. he was sitting on the left of the vice-palatine, and was clad in snuff-colored clothes. his face was covered with small-pox marks; he had tangled yellow hair and inflamed eyelids. "are you acquainted with the family, doctor?" asked the vice-palatine. "of course i am," replied the doctor. "baron landsknechtsschild inherited this estate from his mother, who was a markoczy. the baron sold the estate to his niece katharina. you, herr surveyor, must have seen the baron, when the land was surveyed around the nameless castle for the mad count?" the surveyor, who was seated beside the doctor, was a clever man in his profession, but little given to conversation. when he did open his lips, he rarely got beyond: "i--say--what was it, now, i was going to say?" as no one seemed willing to-day to wait until he could remember what he wanted to remark, the doctor, who was never at a loss for words, continued: "the baroness katharina paid one hundred thousand florins for the estate, with all its prerogatives--" "that's quite a handsome sum," observed the vice-palatine. "and, what is handsomer, it is said the new proprietress intends to take up a permanent residence here. is not that the report, herr justice? you ought to know." the justice had an odd habit, while speaking, of rubbing together the palms of his hands, as if he were rolling little dumplings between them. "yes--yes," he replied, beginning his dumpling-rolling; "that is quite true. the baroness sent some beautiful furniture from vienna; also a piano, and a tuner to tune it. all the rooms at the manor have been hung with new tapestry, and the conservatory has been completely renovated." "i wonder how the baroness came to take such a fancy to this quiet neighborhood? it is very strange, too, that none of the neighboring nobles have been invited here to meet her. it is as if she intended to let them know in advance that she did n't want their acquaintance. at any other celebration of this sort half the county would have been invited, and here are only ourselves--and we are here because we are obliged, _ex officio_, to be present." this speech was delivered over the mouthpiece of the vice-palatine's meerschaum. "i fancy i can enlighten you," responded the doctor. "i thought it likely that the 'county clock' could tell us something about it," laughingly interpolated the vice-palatine. "you may laugh as much as you like, but i always tell what is true," retorted the "county clock." "they say that the baroness was betrothed to a gentleman from bavaria, that the wedding-day was set, when the bridegroom heard that the lady he was about to marry was--" "hush!" hastily whispered the justice; "the servants might hear you." "oh, it is n't anything scandalous. all that the bridegroom heard was that the baroness was a lutheran; and as the _matrimonia mixta_ are forbidden in vienna and in bavaria, the bridegroom withdrew from the engagement. in her grief over the affair, the _sposa repudiata_ said farewell to the world, and determined to wear the_parta_[2] for the remainder of her days. that is why she chose this remote region as a residence." [footnote 2: a head-covering worn only by hungarian maidens.] here the bell in the church tower began to ring. it was followed by a roar from the mortars on the hilltop. the gypsy band began to play biharis's "vierzigmann marsch"; a cloud of dust rose from the highway; and soon afterward there appeared an outrider with three ostrich-plumes in his hat. he was followed by a four-horse coach, with coachman and footman on the box. the committee of reception came forth from the shade of the beech and ranged themselves underneath the arch. the clergyman for the last time took his little black book from his pocket, and satisfied himself that his speech was still in it. the coach stopped, and it was discovered that no one occupied it; only the discarded shawl and traveling-wraps told that women had been riding in the conveyance. the general consternation which ensued was ended by the agent from vienna, who drove up in a second vehicle. he explained that the baroness and her companion had alighted at the park gate, whence they would proceed on foot up the shorter foot-path to the manor. and thus ended all the magnificent preparations for the reception! a servant now came running from the village, his plumed _czako_ in one hand, and announced that the baroness awaited the dignitaries at the manor. this was, to say the least, exasperating! a whole week spent in preparing--for nothing! you may be sure every one had something to say about it, audibly and to themselves, and some one was even heard to mutter: "this is the _second_ mad person come to live in fertöszeg." and then they all betook themselves, a disappointed company, to their homes. the baroness, who had preferred to walk the shorter path through the park to driving around the village in the dust for the sake of receiving a ceremonious welcome, was a lovely blonde, a true viennese, good-humored, and frank as a child. she treated every one with cordial friendliness. one might easily have seen that everything rural was new to her. while walking through the park she took off her hat and decorated it with the wild flowers which grew along the path. in the farm-yard she caught two or three little chickens, calling them canaries--a mistake the mother hen sought in the most emphatic manner to correct. the surly old watch-dog's head was patted. she brushed with her dainty fingers the hair from the eyes of the gaping farmer children. she was here and there in a moment, driving to despair her companion, whose gouty limbs were unable to keep pace with the flying feet of her mistress. at the manor the baroness was received by the steward, who had been sent on in advance with orders to prepare the "installation dinner." then she proceeded at once to inspect every corner and crevice--the kitchen as well as the dining-room, astonishing the cooks with her knowledge of their art. she was summoned from the kitchen to receive the dignitaries. "let there be no ceremony, gentlemen," she exclaimed in her musical voice, hastening toward them. "i detest all formalities. i have had a surfeit of them in vienna, and intend to breathe natural air here in the country, without 'fuss or feathers,' with no incense save that which rises from burning tobacco! this is why i avoided your parade out yonder on the highway. i want nothing but a cordial shake of your hands; and as regards the official formalities of this 'installation' business, you must settle that with my agent, who has authority to act for me. after that has been arranged, we will all act as if we were old acquaintances, and every one of you must consider himself at home here." to this gracious speech the vice-palatine gave utterance to something which sounded like: "kisz-ti-hand!" "ah!" returned the baroness, "you speak german?" "well, yes," replied the descendant of the scythians; "only, i am likely to blunder when speaking it, as did the valiant barkocz. when our glorious queen maria theresa recovered from the chicken-pox, she was bemoaning the disfiguring scars left on her face, when the brave soldier, in order to comfort her, said: 'but your majesty still has very beautiful _leather_.'" "ha, ha, ha!" merrily laughed the baroness. "you are the gentleman who has an anecdote to suit every occasion. i have already heard about you. pray introduce the other gentlemen." the vice-palatine proceeded to obey this request. "this is the rev. herr tobias mercatoris, our parish clergyman. he has a beautiful speech prepared to receive your ladyship; but he can't repeat it here, as it begins, 'here in the grateful shadow of these green trees.'" "oh, well, your reverence, instead of the speech, i will listen to your sermons on sundays. i intend to become a very zealous member of your congregation." "and this, your ladyship," continued the master of ceremonies, "is dr. philip tromfszky, resident physician of fertöszeg, who is celebrated not only for his surgical and medical skill, but is acknowledged here, as well as in raab, komorn, eisenburg, and odenburg, as the greatest gossip and news dispenser in the kingdom." "a most excellent accomplishment!" laughingly exclaimed the baroness. "i am devoted to gossip; and i shall manage to have some ailment every few days in order to have the doctor come to see me!" then came the surveyor's turn. "this, your ladyship, is herr martin doboka, county surveyor and expert mathematician. he will measure for you land, water, or fog; and if your watch stops going, he will repair it for you!" "and who may this be?" smilingly inquired the lady, indicating the vice-palatine's assistant, who had thrust his long neck inquisitively forward. "oh, he is n't anybody!" replied the vice-palatine. "he is never called by name. when you want him just say: '_audiat!_' he is one of those persons of whom cziraky said: 'my lad, don't trouble yourself to inquire where you shall seat yourself at table; for wherever you sit will always be the lowest place!'" this anecdote caused "audiat" to draw back his head and seek to make himself invisible. "and now, i must present myself: i am the vice-palatine of this county, and am called bernat görömbölyi von dravakeresztur." "my dear sir!" ejaculated the baroness, laughing heartily, "i could n't commit all that to memory in three years!" "that is exactly the way your ladyship's name affects me!" "then i will tell you what we will do. instead of torturing each other with our unpronounceable names, let us at once adopt the familiar 'thou,' and call each other by our christian names." "yes; but when i enter into a 'brotherhood' of that sort, i always kiss the person with whom i form a compact." "well, that can also be done in this instance!" promptly responded the baroness, proffering, without affectation of maidenly coyness, the ceremonial kiss, and cordially shaking hands with the vice-palatine. then she said: "we are now bernat _bácsi_, and katinka; and as that is happily arranged, i will ask the gentlemen to go into the agent's office and conclude our official business. meanwhile, i shall make my toilet for dinner, where we will all meet again." "what a perfectly charming woman!" exclaimed the justice, when their hostess had vanished from the room. "i wonder what would happen," observed the doctor, with a malicious grin, "if the vice-palatine's wife should hear of that kiss? would n't there be a row, though!" the heroic descendant of the scythians at these words became seriously alarmed. "the herr doctor, i trust, will be honorable enough not to gossip about it," he said meekly. "oh, you may rest without fear, so far as _i_ am concerned; but i would n't say as much for the surveyor, here. if ever he should succeed in getting beyond 'i say,' i won't answer for the safety of your secret, herr vice-palatine! when your wife hears, moreover, that it is 'bernat' and 'katinka' up here, it will require something besides an anecdote to parry what will follow!" chapter ii when the baroness appeared at the dinner-table, she was attired simply, yet with a certain elegance. she wore a plain black silk gown, with no other ornamentation save the string of genuine pearls about her throat. the sombre hue of her gown signified mourning; the gems represented tears; but her manner was by no means in keeping with either; she was cheerful, even gay. but laughter very often serves to mask a sorrowful heart. "thy place is here by my side," said the baroness, mindful of the "thee-and-thou" compact with herr bernat. the vice-palatine, remembering his spouse, sought to modify the familiarity. "i forgot to tell you, baroness," he observed, as he seated himself in the chair beside her own, "that with us in this region 'thou' is used only by children and the gypsies. to those with whom we are on terms of intimacy we say 'he' or 'she,' to which we add, if we wish, the words _bácsi_, or _hugom_, which are equivalent to 'cousin.'" "and do you never say 'thou' to your wife?" "to her also i say 'she' or 'you.'" "what a singular country! well, then, bernat bácsi, if it pleases 'him,' will 'he' sit here by me?" baroness katinka understood perfectly how to conduct the conversation during the repast--an art which was not appreciated by her right-hand neighbor, herr mercatoris. the learned gentleman had bad teeth, in consequence of which eating was a sort of penitential performance that left him no time for discourse. but the doctor and the vice-palatine showed themselves all the more willing to share the conversation with their hostess. "the official business was satisfactorily arranged without me, was it not, bernat bácsi?" after a brief pause, inquired the baroness. "not altogether. we are like the gypsy who said that he was going to marry a countess. he was willing, and all that was yet necessary was the consent of a countess. our business requires the consent of a baroness--that is, of katinka hugom." "to what must i give my consent?" "that the conditions relating to the nameless castle shall continue the same as heretofore." "nameless castle?--conditions?--what does that mean? i should like very much to know." "katinka hugom can see the nameless castle from the terrace out yonder. it is a hunting-seat that was built by a markoczy on the shore of lake neusiedl, on the site of a primitive pile-dwelling. three years ago, a gentleman from a foreign country came to fertöszeg, and took such a fancy to the isolated house that he leased it from the baron, the former owner, on condition that no one but himself and servants should be permitted to enter the grounds belonging to the castle. the question now is, will katinka hugom consent to the conditions, or will she revoke them?" "and if i should choose to do the latter?" inquired the baroness. "then your ladyship would be obliged to give a handsome bonus to the lessee. shall you revoke the conditions?" "it depends entirely on the sort of person my tenant proves to be." "he is a very peculiar man, to say the least--one who avoids all contact with his fellow-men." "what is his name?" "i don't think any one around here knows it. that is why his residence has been called the nameless castle." "but how is it possible that the name of a man who has lived here three years is not known?" "well, that is easily explained. he never goes anywhere, never receives visitors, and his servants never call him anything but 'the count.'" "surely he receives letters by post?" "yes, frequently, and from all parts of the known world. very often he receives letters which contain money, and for which he is obliged to give a receipt; but no one has yet been able to decipher the illegible characters on the letters addressed to him, or those of his own hand." "i should think the authorities had a right to demand the information?" "which authorities?" "why--'he,' bernat bácsi." "i? why, what business is it of mine?" "the authorities ought to inquire who strangers are, and where they come from. and such an authority is 'he'--bernat bácsi!" "hum; does 'she' take me to be a detective?" "but you surely have a right to demand to see his passport?" "passport? i would rather allow myself to be thrown from the window of the county-house than demand a passport from any one who comes to hungary, or set my foot in the house of a gentleman without his permission!" "then you don't care what people do here?" "why should we? the noble does as he pleases, and the peasant as he must." "suppose the man in the nameless castle were plotting some dreadful treason?" "that would be the affair of the king's attorney, not mine. moreover, nothing whatever can be said against the tenant of the nameless castle. he is a quiet and inoffensive gentleman." "is he alone? has he no family?" "that the herr justice is better able to tell your ladyship than am i." "ah! then, _herr hofrichter_," inquired the lady of the manor, turning toward the justice, "what do _you_ know about this mysterious personage? has he a wife?" "it seems as if he had a wife, your ladyship; but i really cannot say for certain if he has one." "well, i confess my curiosity is aroused! how is it possible not to know whether the man is married or not? are the people invisible?" "invisible? by no means, your ladyship. the nameless count and a lady drive out every morning at ten o'clock. they drive as far as the neighboring village, where they turn and come back to the castle. but the lady wears such a heavy veil that one can't tell if she be old or young." "if they drive out they certainly have a coachman; and one might easily learn from a servant what are the relations between his master and mistress." "yes, so one might. the coachman comes often to the village, and he can speak german, too. there is a fat cook, who never leaves the castle, because she can't walk. then, there are two more servants, schmidt and his wife; but they live in a cottage near the castle. every morning at five o'clock they go to the castle gate, where they receive from some one, through the wicket, orders for the day. at nine o'clock they return to the gate, where a basket has been placed for the things they have bought. but they never speak of the lady, because they have never seen her face, either." "what sort of a man is the groom?" "the people about here call him the man with the iron mouth. it is believed the fat cook is his wife, because he never even looks at the girls in the village. he will not answer any questions; only once he condescended to say that his mistress was a penniless orphan, who had nothing, yet who got everything she wanted." "does no one visit them?" "if any one goes to the castle, the count alone receives the visitor; the lady never appears; and no one has yet had courage enough to ask for her. but that they are christians, one may know from their kitchen: there is always a lamb for dinner on easter; and the usual _heiligen stritzel_ on all saints'. but they never go to church, nor is the pastor ever received at the castle." "what reason can they have for so much mystery, i wonder?" musingly observed the baroness. "that i cannot say. i can furnish only the data; for the deductions i must refer your ladyship to the herr doctor." "ah, true!" ejaculated her ladyship, joining in the general laughter. "the doctor, to be sure! if you are the county clock, herr doctor, surely you ought to know something about our mysterious neighbors?" "i have two versions, either of which your ladyship is at liberty to accept," promptly responded the doctor. "according to the first 'authentic' declaration, the nameless count is the chief of a band of robbers, who ply their nefarious trade in a foreign land. the lady is his mistress. she fell once into the hands of justice, in germany, and was branded as a criminal on her forehead. that accounts for the heavy veil she always wears--" "oh, that is quite too horribly romantic, herr doctor!" interrupted the baroness. "we cannot accept that version. let us hear the other one." "the second is more likely to be the true one. four years ago the newspapers were full of a remarkable abduction case. a stranger--no one knew who he was--abducted the wife of a french officer from dieppe. since then the betrayed husband has been searching all over the world for his runaway wife and her lover; and the pair at the castle are supposed to be they." "that certainly is the more plausible solution of the mystery. but there is one flaw. if the lovers fled here to fertöszeg to escape pursuit, the lady has chosen the very worst means to remain undiscovered. who would recognize them here if they went about in the ordinary manner? the story of the veil will spread farther and farther, and will ultimately betray them to the pursuing husband." by this time the reverend herr mercatoris had got the better of his bad teeth, and was now ready to join the conversation. "gentlemen and ladies," he began, "allow me to say a word about this matter, the details of which no one knows better than myself, as i have for months been in communication with the nameless gentleman at the castle." "what sort of communication?" "through the medium of a correspondence, which has been conducted in quite a peculiar manner. the count--we will call him so, although we are not justified in so doing, for the gentleman did not announce himself as such--the count sends me every morning his copy of the augsburg 'allgemeine zeitung.' moreover, i frequently receive letters from him through frau schmidt; but i always have to return them as soon as i have read them. they are not written in a man's hand; the writing is unmistakably feminine. the seal is never stamped; only once i noticed on it a crest with three flowers--" "what sort of flowers?" hastily interposed the baroness. "i don't know the names of them, your ladyship." "and what do you write about?" she asked again. "the correspondence began by the count asking a trifling favor of me. he complained that the dogs in the village barked so loud; then, that the children robbed the birds' nests; then, that the night-watchman called the hour unnecessarily loud. these complaints, however, were not made in his own name, but by another person whom he did not name. he wrote merely: 'complainant is afraid when the dogs bark.' 'complainant loves birds.' 'complainant is made nervous by the night-watchman.' then he sent some money for the owners of the barking dogs, asking that the curs be shut indoors nights; and some for the children, so they would cease to rob the birds' nests; and some for the watchman, whom he requested to shout his loudest at the other end of the village. when i had attended to his requests, he began to send me his newspaper, which is a great favor, for i can ill afford to subscribe for one myself. later, he loaned me some books; he has the classics of all nations--the works of wieland, kleist, börne, lessing, locke, schleiermacher. then we began to write about the books, and became entangled in a most exciting argument. frau schmidt, who was the bearer of this exchange of opinions, very often passed to and fro between the castle and the parsonage a dozen times a day; and all the time we never said anything to each other, when we happened to meet in the road, but 'good day.' from the letters, however, i became convinced that the mysterious gentleman is neither a criminal, nor a fugitive from justice, nor yet an adventurous hero who abducts women! nor is he an unfortunate misanthrope. he is, on the contrary, a philanthropist in the widest sense--one who takes an interest in everything that goes on about him, and is eager to help his suffering fellows. in a word, he is a philosopher who is happy when he is surrounded by peace and quiet." the baroness, who had listened with interest to the reverend gentleman's words, now made inquiry: "how does this nameless gentleman learn of his poor neighbors' needs, when neither he nor his servants associate with any one outside the castle?" "in a very simple manner, your ladyship. he has a very powerful telescope in the tower of the castle, with which he can view every portion of the surrounding region. he thus learns when there is illness or death, whether a house needs repair; and wherever anything is needed, the means to help are sent to me. on christmas he has all the children from the village up at the castle, where he has a splendid christmas tree with lighted tapers, and a gift for every child,--clothes, books, and sweets,--which he distributes with his own hand. i can tell you an incident which is characteristic of the man. one day the county arrested a poor woman, the wife of a notorious thief. the herr vice-palatine will remember the case--rakoncza jutka, the wife of the robber satan laczi?" "yes, i remember. she is still in prison," assented the gentleman referred to. "yes. well, she has a little son. when the mother was taken to prison, the little lad was turned away from every door, was beaten and abused by the other children, until at last he fled to the marshes, where he ate the young shoots of the reeds, and slept in the mire. the nameless count discovered with his telescope the little outcast, and wrote to me to have him taken to frau schmidt, where he would be well taken care of until his mother came back." by this time the tears were running down the baroness's cheeks. "poor little lad!" she murmured brokenly. "your story has affected me deeply, herr pastor." then she summoned her steward, and bade him fill a large hamper with sweets and pasties, and send it to frau schmidt for the poor little boy. "and tell frau schmidt," she added, "to send the child to the manor. we will see to it that he has some suitable clothes. i am delighted, reverend sir, to learn that my tenant is a true nobleman." "his deeds certainly proclaim him as such, your ladyship." "how do _you_ explain the mystery of the veiled lady?" "i cannot explain it, your ladyship; she is never mentioned in our correspondence." "she may be a prisoner, detained at the castle by force." "that cannot be; for she has a hundred opportunities to escape, or to ask for help." here the surveyor managed to express his belief that the reason the lady wore a veil was because of the repulsiveness of her face. at this, a voice that had not yet been heard said, at the lower end of the table: "but the lady is one the most beautiful creatures i ever saw--and quite young." every eye was turned toward the speaker. "what? audiat? how dares he say such a thing?" demanded the vice-palatine. "because i have seen her." "you have seen her? when did you see her? where did you see her--her whom no one yet has seen?" "when i was returning from college last year, _per pedes apostolorum_, for my money had given out, and my knapsack was empty. i was picking hazelnuts from the bushes in the park of the nameless castle, when i heard a window open. i looked up, and saw in the open sash a face the like of which i have never seen, even in a picture." "ah!" ejaculated the baroness. "tell us what is she like. come nearer to me." the clerk, however, was too bashful to leave his place, whereupon the baroness rose and took a seat by his side. "she has long, curling black hair," he went on. "her face is fair as a lily and red as a rose, her brow pure and high, with no sign of the branding-iron. her mouth is small and delicate. indeed, her entire appearance that day was like that of an angel looking down from heaven." "is she a maid or a married woman?" inquired one of the company. a maid, in those days, was very easily distinguished from her married sister. the latter was never seen without a cap. "a young girl not more than fifteen, i should say," was the reply. "a cap would not suit her face." "ha, ha, ha!" laughed bernat bácsi. "and this enchanting fairy opened the window to show her lovely face to audiat!" "no; she did not open the window on my account," retorted the young man, "but for the beasts that were luckier than i--for four cats that were playing in the gutter of the roof; a white one, a black one, a yellow one, and a gray one; and all of them scampered toward her when they heard her call." "the cats are her only companions--that much we know from the servants," affirmed the justice. the laurels which his clerk had won made the vice-palatine jealous. "audiat," he said, in a reproving tone, "you ought to learn that a young person should speak only when spoken to; indeed,--as the learned professor hatvani says,--even then it is not necessary to answer all questions." but the company around the dinner-table did not share these views. the clerk was assailed on all sides--very much as would have been an aëronaut who had just alighted from a montgolfier--to relate all that he had seen in those regions not yet penetrated by man. what sort of gown did the mysterious lady wear? was he certain that she had no cap on? was she really no older than fifteen years? the vice-palatine at last put an end to his clerk's triumph. "tut, tut! what can you expect to learn from a mere lad like him?--when he saw her only for an instant! just wait; _i_ will find out all about this nameless gentleman and lady." "pray how do you propose to accomplish that?" queried the baroness, who had returned to her former seat. "i shall go to the nameless castle." "suppose you are not permitted to enter?" "what? _i_, the vice-palatine, not permitted to enter? wait; i will explain my plan to you over the coffee." when the time came to serve the black coffee, the amiable hostess suggested that it would be pleasant to enjoy it in the open air; whereupon the company repaired to the veranda where, on several small tables, the fragrant mocha was steaming in the cups. here the baroness and the vice-palatine seated themselves where they could look directly at the nameless castle; and herr bernat görömbölyi proceeded to explain how he intended to take the castle without force--which was forbidden a hungarian official. then the two ladies withdrew to make their toilets for the evening; and the gentlemen betook themselves to the smoking-room, to indulge in a little game of chance, without which no "installation" ceremony would have been complete. chapter iii the following morning, after a very satisfactory breakfast, the gentlemen took leave of their amiable hostess, bernat bácsi lingering behind the rest to whisper significantly: "i will not say farewell, katinka hugom, for i am coming back to tell you all about it." then he took his place in the extra post-chaise, and bade the postilion drive directly to the neighboring castle. the nameless castle was built on a narrow tongue of land that extended into lake neusiedl. the road to the castle gate ran along a sort of causeway, which was protected from the water by a strong bulwark composed of fascines, and a row of willows with knotty crowns. a drawbridge at the farther end made it necessary for the person who wished to enter the gate to ask permission. on ringing the bell, there appeared at the gate the servant who has already been described,--the groom, coachman, and man of all work in one person. he had on a handsome livery, white gloves, white stockings, and shoes without heels. "is the count at home?" inquired the vice-palatine. "he is." "announce us. i am the vice-palatine of the county, and wish to pay an official visit." "the herr count is already informed of the gentlemen's arrival, and bids them welcome." this certainly was getting on smoothly enough! and the most convincing proof of a hearty welcome was that the stately groom himself hastened to remove the luggage from the chaise and carry it into the vestibule--a sign that the guests were expected to make a visit of some duration. now, however, something curious happened. before the groom opened the hall door, he produced three pairs of socks, woven of strands of cloth,--_mamuss_ they are called in this region,--and respectfully requested the visitors to draw them over their boots. "and why, pray?" demanded the astonished vice-palatine. "because in this house the clatter of boots is not considered pleasant; and because the socks prevent boots from leaving dusty marks on the carpets." "this is exactly like visiting a powder-magazine." but they had to submit and draw their socks over their yellow boots, and, thus equipped, they ascended the staircase to the reception-room. an air of almost painful neatness reigned in all parts of the castle. stairs and corridors were covered with coarse white cloth, the sort used for peasants' clothing in hungary. the walls were hung with glossy white paper. every door-latch had been polished until it glistened. there were no cobwebs to be seen in the corners; nor would a spider have had anything to prey upon here, for there were no flies, either. the floor of the reception-room into which the visitors had been conducted shone like a mirror, and not a speck of dust was to be seen on the furniture. "the herr count awaits your lordship in the salon," announced the groom, and conducted herr bernat into the adjoining chamber. here, too, the furniture was white and gold. the oil-paintings in the rococo frames represented landscapes, fruit pieces, and game; there was not a portrait among them. beside the oval table with tigers' feet stood the mysterious occupant of the nameless castle. he was a tall man, with knightly bearing, expressive face, a high, broad forehead left uncovered by his natural hair, a straight greek nose, gray eyes, a short mustache and pointed beard, which where a shade lighter than his hair. "_magnifice comes_--" the vice-palatine was beginning in latin, when the count interposed: "i speak hungarian." "impossible!" exclaimed the visitor, whose astonishment was reflected in his face. "hungarian? why, where can your worship have learned it?" "from the grammar." "from the grammar?" for the vice-palatine this was the most astounding of all the strange things about the mysterious castle. had he not always known that hungarian could only be learned by beginning when a child and living in a hungarian family? that any one had learned the language as one learns the _hic, hæc, hoc_ was a marvel that deserved to be recorded. "from the grammar?" he repeated. "well, that is wonderful! i certainly believed i should have to speak latin to your worship. but allow me to introduce my humble self--" "i already have the honor," quietly interrupted the count, "of knowing that you are herr vice-palatine bernat görömbölyi von dravakeresztur." he repeated the whole name without a single mistake! the vice-palatine bowed, and began again: "the object of my visit to-day is--" again he was interrupted. "i know that also," said the count. "the fertöszeg estate has passed into the hands of another proprietor, who has a legal right to withdraw the lease and revoke the conditions made and agreed to by her predecessor; and the herr vice-palatine is come, at the request of the baroness, to serve a notice to quit." herr bernat did not like it when any one interrupted him or knew beforehand what he intended to say. "on the contrary, i came because the baroness desires to renew the lease. she has learned how kind to the poor your worship is, and offers the castle and park at half the rent paid heretofore." he fancied this would melt the haughty lord of the castle, but it seemed to increase his hauteur. "thanks," frigidly responded the count. "if the baroness thinks the rent too high, she will find in her own neighborhood poor people whom she can assist. i shall continue to pay the same rent i paid to the former owner." "then my business will be easily settled. i have brought my clerk with me; he can write out the necessary papers, and the matter can be concluded at once." "thank you very much," returned the count, but without offering to shake hands. instead, he kept his arms crossed behind his back. "before we proceed to business," resumed the vice-palatine, "i must tell your worship an anecdote. a professor once told his pupils that he knew everything. shortly afterward he asked one of the lads what his name was. 'why,' responded the youth, 'how does it come that you don't know my name--you who know everything?'" "i cannot see why you thought it necessary to relate this anecdote to me," observed the count, without a smile. "i introduce it because i am compelled to inquire your worship's name and title, in order to draw up the contracts properly." this, then, was the strategem by which he proposed to learn the name which no one yet had been able to decipher on the count's letters? the count gazed fixedly for several seconds at his questioner, then replied quietly: "my name is count ludwig vavel de versay--with a _y_ after the _a_." "thanks. i shall not forget it; i have a very good memory," said herr bernat, who was perfectly satisfied with his success. "allow me, also, to inquire the family name of the worshipful frau countess?" at this question the count at last removed his hands from his back, and with the sort of gesture a man makes who would tear asunder an adversary. at the same time he cast upon herr bernat a glance that reminded the valiant official of the royal commissioner, as well as of his energetic spouse at home. the angry man seemed to have increased a head in stature. instead of replying to the question, he turned on his heel and strode from the room, leaving his visitor standing in the middle of the floor. herr bernat was perplexed; he did not know what to do next. was it not quite natural to ask the name of a man's wife when a legal contract was to be written? his question, therefore, had not been an insult. at last, as the count did not return, there was nothing left for herr bernat to do but go to his room and wait there for further developments. the contracts would have to be renewed, else the count would have to vacate the castle; and one could easily see that a great deal of money had been expended in fitting it up. the count had transformed the old hunting-seat, which had been a filthy little nest, into a veritable fairy castle. yes, undoubtedly the contracts would be renewed. the vice-palatine was pacing the floor of his room in his noiseless cloth socks, when he suddenly heard the voices of his clerk and his servant outside the door. "well, janos, we are not going to dine here to-day; from what i can learn, we are going to be eaten ourselves." "what do you mean?" "the groom told me his master was loading his pistols to shoot some one. the count challenges to a duel every one who inquires after the countess." the voices ceased. the vice-palatine opened wide his eyes, and muttered: "may the devil fly away with him! he wants to fight a duel, does he? i am not afraid of his pistols; i have one, too, and a sword into the bargain. but it 's a silly business altogether! i am to fight about a woman i have n't even seen! and what will my wife say? i wish i had n't come into this crazy castle! i wish i had n't sealed a compact of fraternity with the baroness! why did not i leave this whole installation business to the second vice-palatine? if only i could think of an excuse to turn my back on this lunatic asylum! but i am not going to run away from a pistol. the hungarian noble is a born soldier. if only i had my pipe! a man is only half a man without his pipe. a pipe inspires one with ideas. where, i wonder, is that audiat gadding?" at this moment the clerk opened the door. "fetch our luggage, audiat; we are going to leave this damned lunatic asylum. the herr count may see to it then how he renews his lease." hereupon he kicked off the socks with such vigor that the very castle shook. then, grasping his sword in his hand, he marched out of his room, and down the staircase, to prove that he was not fleeing like a coward, but was clearing his way by force. when the clerk, who went to fetch the luggage, was about to enter the groom's apartment, the count came toward him and said: "you are the vice-palatine's clerk?" "that 's what they call me." "when do you expect to become a lawyer?" "when i have passed my examination." "when will that be?" "when i have served a year as jurat, and have paid a ducat for my diploma." "i will give you the ducat, and when you have become a lawyer i will employ you as my attorney at six hundred guilders a year. i know that a hungarian gentleman will not accept a gift without making some return; i ask you, therefore, to give me for this ducat some information." "what is it you wish to know?" "how can i obtain possession of a portion of lake neusiedl for my own use alone?" "by becoming a naturalized citizen of the county, and by purchase of a portion of the shore. i dare say there are some landowners on the shore who would be glad to part with their possessions in exchange for solid cash. if you buy such an estate you will have sole right to that part of the water in front of your property, and to the middle of the lake." "thank you. one more question: if you were my attorney, what could you do to prevent me from being ejected from this castle, in case i did not sign a new contract with the present owner?" "first, i should take advantage of the law of possession, and drag the case through a twelve years' process; then i should appeal, which would postpone a settlement for three years longer. would that be long enough?" "quite!" the count nodded a farewell to the youthful jurist without even inquiring his name; nor did audiat venture to propound a like question to his future employer. bernat bácsi did not, as he had promised, return to the manor to tell the baroness the result of his visit. he drove direct to his home. part iii the mistress of the cats chapter i when they heard the call, "puss, puss!" they scampered down the roof, leaped from the eaves, and vanished, one after the other, between the curtains of the open window. it was quite an ethnographic, so to speak, collection of cats; a panther-like french pussy from dund, a caucasian with long pointed ears, one from china with wavy silken fur and drooping ears. then the window was closed, for the company were all assembled--four cats, two pug-dogs, and a sparrow, and the hostess, a young girl. the girl, to judge from her figure, was perhaps fifteen years old; but her manner and speech were those of a much younger child. with her arched brow and rainbow-formed eyebrows, she might have served as a model for a saint, had not the roguish smile about the corners of her red lips betrayed an earthly origin. the sparkling dark eyes, delicately chiseled nostrils, and rounded chin gave to her face certain family characteristics which many persons would have recognized at a first glance. her clothing was richly adorned with lace and embroidery, which was not the fashion for girls of her age; at the same time, there was about her attire a peculiar negligence, as if she had no one to advise her what was proper to wear, or how to wear it. her room was furnished with luxurious elegance. satin hangings covered the walls; the furniture was upholstered with rare gobelin tapestry. gilded cabinets veneered with tortoise-shell held, behind glass doors, all sorts of costly toys, and dolls in full costume. on a venetian table with mosaic top lay a pack of cards and three heaps of money--one of gold, one of silver, the third of copper. on a low, three-legged table was a something shaped like an organ, with a long row of metal and wooden pipes. near the window stood a drawing-table, on which were sheets of drawing-board, and glasses containing pulverized colors. there was also a bookcase; on the shelves were volumes of vertuch's "orbis pictus," the "portefeuille des enfants," the "history of robinson crusoe," and several numbers of a fashion magazine, the "album des salons," the illustrations of which lay scattered about on tables and chairs. the guests were all assembled; not one was missing. the little hostess inquired after the health of each one in turn, and how they had enjoyed their outing. they all had names. the cats were hitz, mitz, pani, and miura. they were introduced to the two pugs, phryxus and helle. then the little maid fetched a porcelain basin, and with a sponge washed each nose and paw. only after this operation had been thoroughly performed were the guests allowed to take their places at the breakfast-table--the four cats opposite the two pugs. then a clean napkin was tied about the neck of each guest,--that their jabots might not get soiled with milk,--and a cup of bread and milk placed in front of each one. no complaints were allowed (the one that broke this rule was severely lectured), while all of them had patiently to submit when the sparrow helped himself from whichever cup he chose. the breakfast over, the guests bow-wowed and miaued their thanks, and were dismissed to their morning nap. the musical clock now began to play its shepherd's song; the brass cyclops standing on the dial struck the hour; the cuckoo called, and the halberdier saluted. then the little maid changed her toilet. she had a whole wardrobe full of clothes; she might select what she chose to wear. there was no one to tell her what to put on, or to help her attire herself. when her toilet was completed, a bell outside rang once, whereupon she donned her hat and tied over her face a heavy lace veil that effectually concealed her features. after a few minutes the bell rang a second time, and the sound of wheels in the courtyard was heard. then three taps sounded on the door, and in answer to the little maid's clear-voiced "come in!" a gentleman in promenade toilet entered the room and bowed respectfully. first he satisfied himself that the veil was securely fastened around the young girl's hat; then, drawing her hand through his arm, he led her to the carriage. on the box was seated the broad-shouldered groom, now clad in coachman's costume. the gentleman assisted the little maid into the carriage, took his seat by her side, and the black horses set off over the same road they had traversed a thousand times, in the regulation trot, avoiding the main thoroughfare of the village. those persons whom they chanced to meet did not salute, for they knew that the occupants of the carriage from the nameless castle did not wish to be spoken to; and any of the villagers who were standing idly at their doors stepped inside until they had passed; no inquisitive woman face peered after them. and thus the carriage passed on its way, as if it had been invisible. when it arrived at the forest, the horses knew just where they had to halt. here the gentleman assisted his veiled companion to alight, gave her his left arm, because he held in his right hand a heavy walking-stick, in the center of which was concealed a long, three-edged poniard, an effective weapon in the hands of him who knew how to wield it. in silence the man and the maid promenaded along the green sward in the shade of the trees. a campanula had just opened its blue eye at the foot of one of the trees, and pale-blue forget-me-nots grew along the path. blue was the little maid's favorite color; but she was not permitted to pluck the flowers herself. she had never been told why she must not do this; perhaps it was because the flowers belonged to some one else. sometimes the little maid's steps were so light and elastic, as if a fairy were gliding over the dewy grass; and sometimes she walked so slowly, so wearily, as if a little old grandmother came limping along, hunting for lichens on the mossy ground. after the promenade, they seated themselves again in the carriage, which returned to the nameless castle, and the gates were closed again. the man conducted the maid to her room, and the serious occupation of the day began. books were produced, and the man proceeded to explain the classics. they were his own favorites; he could not give her any others. she had not yet seen or heard of romances, and she was still too young to begin the study of history. the man could teach the maid only what he himself knew; a strange tutor or governess was not allowed to enter the castle. because her instructor could not play the piano, the little maid had not learned. but in order that she might enjoy listening to music, a hand-organ had been bought for her, and new melodies were inserted in it every four months. when the little maid wearied of her organ and her picture-making, she seated herself at the card-table, and played _l'hombre_, or _tarok_, with two imaginary adversaries, enjoying the manner in which the copper coins won the gold ones. at noon, when the bell rang a third time, the man tapped at the door again, offered his gloved hand to the maid, and conducted her to the dining-room. at either end of a large table was a plate. the maid took her place at the head; the man seated himself at the foot. they conversed during the meal. the maid talked about her cats and dogs; the man told her about his books. when the maid wanted anything, she called the man ludwig; and when the man addressed his companion, he called her simply marie. after dinner, they went to the library to look at the late newspapers. ludwig himself made the coffee, after which he read the papers, and dictated his comments and criticisms on certain articles to marie, who wrote them out in her delicate hair-line chirography. when ludwig and marie separated for the afternoon, he touched his lips to her hand and brow. marie then returned to her own apartments, played the hand-organ for her pets, changed her dolls' toilets, counted her gains or losses at cards, colored with her paints a few of the illustrations in the magazines, looked through her "orbis pictus," reading without difficulty the text which was printed in four languages, and read for the hundredth time her favorite "robinson crusoe." and thus passed day after day, from spring until autumn, from autumn until spring. evenings, when marie prepared for bed, before she undressed herself, she spread a heavy silken coverlet over the leather lounge which stood near the door. she knew very well that the some one she called ludwig slept every night on the lounge, but he came in so late, and went away so early in the morning, that she never heard his coming or his going. the little maid was a sound sleeper, and the pugs never barked at the master of the house, who gave them lumps of sugar. often the little maid had determined that she would not go to sleep until she heard ludwig come into the room. but all her attempts to remain awake were in vain. her eyelids closed the moment her head touched the pillow. then she tried to waken early, in order to wish him good morning; but when she thrust her little head from between the bed-curtains, and called cheerily, "good morning, dear ludwig!" there was no one there. ludwig never slept more than four hours of the twenty-four, and his slumber was so light that he woke at the slightest noise. then, too, he slept like a soldier in the field--always clothed, with his weapons beside him. chapter ii one day in the year formed an exception to all the rest. it was marie's birthday. from her earliest childhood this one day had been entirely her own. on this day she addressed ludwig with the familiar "thou," as she had been wont to do when he had taught her to walk. she always looked forward with great pleasure to this day, and made for it all sorts of plans whose accomplishment was extremely problematic. and who came to congratulate her on her birthday? first of all, the solitary sparrow, whose name was david--surely because he, too, was a tireless singer! already at early dawn, when the first faint rosy hues of morning glimmered through the jalousie, he would fly to the head of her bed. then the cats would come with their gratulations, but not until their little mistress had leaped from the bed, run to the window, flung open the sash, and called, "puss, puss!" then the whole four would scamper into the room, one after the other, and wish her many happy returns of the day. when the pugs had gone through their part of the program, the little maid proceeded to attire herself, a task she performed behind a tall folding screen. when she stepped forth again, she had on a gorgeous chinese-silk wrapper, covered all over with gay-colored palms, and confined only at the waist with a heavy silk cord. her hair was twisted into a single knot on the crown of her head. then she prepared breakfast for herself and her guests. the eight of them drank cold milk, and ate of the dainty little cakes which some one placed on her table every night while she slept. to-day marie did not amuse herself with her guests, but turned over the leaves of her picture-book, thus passing the time until she should hear, after the bell had rung twice, the tap at her door. "come in!" the man who entered was surprised. "what? we are not yet ready for the drive?" he exclaimed. the maid threw her book aside, ran toward him, and flung her arms with childish abandon around his neck. "we are not going to drive to-day. dost thou not know that this is my birthday--that i alone give orders in this house to-day? to-day everything must be done as _i_ say; and _i_ say that we will pass the time of the drive here in my room, and that thou shalt answer several silly questions which have come into my head. and forget not that we are to 'thou' each other to-day. and now, congratulate me nicely. come, let us hear it!" the count almost imperceptibly bent his knee and his head, but spoke not one word. there are gratulations which are expressed in this manner. "very good! then i am a queen for to-day, and thou art my sole subject. sit thou here at my feet on this taboret." the man obeyed. marie seated herself on the ottoman, and drew her feet underneath the wide skirt of her robe. "put that book away!" she commanded, when ludwig stooped to lift from the floor the volume she had cast there. "i know every one of the four volumes by heart! why dost not thou give me one of the books thou readest so often?" "because they are medical works." "and why dost thou read such books?" "in order that, should any one in the castle become ill, i may be able to cure him or her without a doctor." "and must the person die who is ill and cannot be cured?" "that is generally the end of a fatal illness." "does it hurt to die?" "that i am unable to tell, as i have never tried it." "ha, ha, ha!" laughed the maid. "thou canst not put me off that way! thou knowest many things thou hast not yet tried. thou hast read about them; thou knowest! what is death like? is it more unpleasant than a disagreeable dream? is the pain all over when one has died, or is there more to come afterward? if death is painful, why must we die? if it is pleasant, why must we live?" children ask such strange questions! "life is a gift from god that must be preserved as long as possible," returned ludwig, evading the main question. "through us the world exists--" "what is the world?" interrupted marie. "the entire human race and their habitations--the earth." "then every person owns a plot of earth? where is the plot which belongs to us? answer me that!" "by the way, that reminds me!" exclaimed ludwig, relieved to find an opportunity to change the subject. "i have not yet told thee that i intend to buy a lovely plot of ground on the shore of the lake, which is to be made into a pretty flower-garden for thy use alone. will not that be pleasant?" "thou art very kind; the garden will be lovely. that plot of ground, then, will be our home, will it not? what is one's home called?" "it is called the fatherland." "then every country is not one's fatherland?" "if our enemies live there, it is not." "what are enemies?" "persons with whom we are angry." "what is angry? i have never yet seen anything like it. why art thou never angry?" "because i have no reason to be angry with thee, and i never associate with any one else." "what do those persons do who become angry with one another?" "they avoid each other. if they are very angry they fight; and if they are very, very angry they kill each other." the maid was tortured with curiosity to-day. she drew a pin from her robe, and secretly thrust the point into ludwig's hand. "what art thou doing?" he asked, in surprise. "i want to see what thou art like when thou art angry. did it hurt thee?" "certainly it hurt me; see, the blood is flowing." "ah, heaven!" cried the maid, in terror, drew the young man's head toward her, and pressed a kiss on his face. he sprang to his feet, his face pale as death, extreme horror depicted in his glance. "there!" exclaimed the maid. "thou dost not kill me, and yet i have made thee very angry." "this is not anger," sighed the young man. "what is it, then?" "it has no name." "then i may not kiss thee? thou lettest me kiss thee last year, and the year before, and every other year." "but thou art fifteen years old to-day." "ah! then what was allowed last year, and always before that, is not allowed now. dost not thou love me any more?" "all my thoughts are filled with thee." "thou knowest that i have always been allowed to make one wish on my birthday, and that it has always been granted. that is what some one accustomed me to--thou knowest very well who." "thy desires have always been fulfilled." "yes; and children understand how to desire what is impossible. but grown persons are clever enough to know how to impose on the children. three years ago i asked thee to bring me some one with whom i could talk--some one who would be company for me. thou broughtest me cats and dogs and a bird! two years ago i wished i might learn how to make pictures; and i was given paper patterns to color with water-colors. one year ago to-day i wished i might learn how to make music; and a hand-organ was bought for me. oh, yes; my wishes have always been fulfilled, but always in a way that cheated me. children are always treated so. to-day thou sayest that i am fifteen years old, and that i am not any more to be treated as a child. mark that! to-day, as heretofore, i ask something of thee which thou canst give me--and thou canst not cheat me, either!" "whatever it may be, thou shalt have it, marie." "thy hand on it! now, thou knowest that i asked thee not long ago to send to paris for a 'melusine costume' for me!" "and has it not already arrived? i myself delivered the box into thy hands." "knowest thou what a melusine costume is? see, this is it." with these words she sprang from her seat, untied the cord about her waist, flung off the silken wrapper, and stood in front of the speechless young man in one of those costumes worn by paris dames at the sea-shore when they disport themselves amid the waves of the ocean. the melusine costume was a bathing-dress. "to-day, ludwig, i ask that thou wilt teach me how to swim. the lake is just out yonder below the garden." the maid, in her pale-blue bathing-dress, looked like one of those fairy-like creatures in shakspere's "midsummer night's dream," innocent and alluring, child and siren. disconcerted and embarrassed, ludwig raised his hand. "art thou going to strike me?" inquired the child, half crying, half laughing. "pray put on the wrapper again!" said ludwig, taking the garment from the sofa and with it veiling the model for a naiad. "what sort of a caprice is this?" "i have had the thought in my head for a long, long time, and i beg that thou wilt grant my request. thou canst not say that thou canst not swim; for once, when we were traveling in great haste, i know not why, we came to a river, and found that the boat was on the farther shore. thou swammest across, and broughtest back the boat in which the four of us then crossed to the other side. already then the desire to swim arose in me. what a delicious sensation to swim through the water--to make wings of one's arms and fly like a bird! since we live in this castle the wish has become stronger. night after night i dream that i am cleaving through the waves. i never see god's sky when i go out, because i have to cover my face. it is just like looking at creation through a grating! i should love dearly to sing and shout for joy; but i dare not, for i am afraid the trees, the walls, the people, might hear me and betray me. but out yonder i could float on the green waves, where i should meet no one, where no one would see me. i could look up at the shining sky, and about in chorus with the fish-hawks, surrounded by the darting fishes, that would tell no one what they had seen or heard. that would be supreme happiness for me; wilt not thou help me to secure it?" the child's wish was so true, so earnest, and ludwig himself had experienced the proud delights of which she had spoken. perhaps, too, he had related to marie the story of clelia and her companions, who swam the tiber to preserve the roman maidens' reputation for virtue. "whatever gives pleasure to thee pleases me," he said, extending his hand to take hers. "and thou wilt grant my wish? oh, how kind, how dear thou art!" and in vain the young man sought to withdraw the hand she covered with kisses. "what!" she exclaimed reproachfully, "may i not kiss thy hand either?" "how canst thou behave so, marie? thou art fifteen years old! a grown-up girl does not kiss a man's hand." he passed his hand across his brow and sighed heavily; then he rose to his feet. "where art thou going? knowest thou not that to-day thou dost not belong to thy horrid books nor to thy telescope, but that thou art my subject?" "i go to execute the commands of my little queen. if she desires to learn to swim, i must have a bath-house built on the shore, and look about for a suitable spot in the little cove." "when i have learned to swim all by myself, may not i go beyond the little cove--away out into the open lake?" "yes, on two conditions. one is that i may follow in my canoe--" "but not keep very near to me?" "of course not. the second condition is that in daylight thou wilt not swim beyond those willows which conceal the cove. only on moonlight evenings mayest thou venture into the open lake." "but why may not i venture by daylight?" "because a telescope does not enable one to distinguish features after night. other people may have a telescope, like myself." "who would have one in this village?" "the manor has a new occupant. a lady has taken possession there." "a lady? is she pretty?" "she is young." "didst thou see her through the telescope? what kind of hair has she got?" "blonde." "then she must be very pretty. may i take a look at her some time?" "i am afraid thou mightest fall in love with her; for she is very beautiful, and very good." "how dost thou know she is good?" "because she visits the sick and the poor, and because she goes regularly to church." "why do we never go to church?" "because we profess a different belief from that acknowledged by those persons who attend this church." "do they pray to a different god from ours?" "no; they pray to the same god." "then why should n't we all go to the same church?" unable longer to control himself, ludwig took the shrewd little child-head between his hands, and said tenderly: "my darling! my little queen! not all the synods of the four quarters of the globe could answer thy questions--let alone this poor forgotten soldier!" "there! thou always pretendest to be stupid when i want to borrow a little bit of thy wisdom. thou art like the rich man who tells the beggar that he has no money. by the way, i must not forget that i always send money to the poor children on my birthday. come, tell me which of the heaps i shall send to-day--these small coins, or these large ones? if thou thinkest i ought to send these little yellow ones, i have no objections. i think i prefer to keep the white coins, they have such a musical sound; besides, they have the image of the virgin. if thou thinkest i ought to send some of the large red ones, too, i will do so." the "little yellow ones" were gold sovereigns; the "white coins" were silver _zwanziger_; and the "large red ones" were copper medals of the austrian minister of finance, worth half a guilder. "we will send some of the small coins and some of the large ones," decided ludwig, smiling at the little maid's ignorance of the value of the money. chapter iii tradition maintained that many years before, during the preceding century, the tongue of land now occupied by the nameless castle was part of the lake; and it may have been true, for neusiedl lake is a very capricious body of water. during the past two decades we ourselves have seen a greater portion of the lake suddenly recede, leaving dry land where once had been several feet of water. the owners of what had once been the shore took possession of the dry lake bottom; they used it for meadows and pastures; leased it, and the lessees built farm-houses and steam-mills on the "new ground." they cultivated wheat and maize, and for many years harvested two crops a year. suddenly the lake took a notion to occupy its old bed again; and when the water had resumed its former level, fields and farms had vanished beneath the green flood; only here and there the top of a chimney indicated where a steam-mill had been. magic tricks like this neusiedl lake has played more than once on trusting mortals. on either side of the peninsula on which stood the nameless castle was a little cove. one of these the count had spoken of to marie; the other separated the castle from the village of fertöszeg. the manor, the habitation of the owner of the fertöszeg estate, stood on the slope of a hill at the eastern end of the village, and fronted, as did the neighboring castle, on the lake. in the second half of the month of august, in the year 1806, one might have seen from the veranda of the manor, after the sun had gone down and the marvelous tints of the evening sky were reflected in the water, a small boat speed out from the cove on the farther side of the nameless castle, trailing after it a long silvery streak on the parti-colored surface of the lake. a solitary man sat in the boat. but what could not be seen from the veranda of the manor was that a girlish form swam a little in advance of the boat. marie had proved an excellent scholar in the school of the hydriads. already after the fourth lesson she could swim alone, and sped over the waves as lightly and gracefully as a swan. she did not need to wear a hat on these evening swimming excursions; her long hair floated unbound after her on the waves. when the twilight shadows deepened, the swimmer would speed far ahead of the accompanying canoe. she had lost all fear of the water. the waves were her friends--they knew each other well. when she wished to rest, she would turn her face to the sky, fold her arms across her breast, and lie on the waves as among swelling cushions like a child in a rocking cradle. and here she was allowed the full privileges of a child. she shouted; called to the startled wild geese; teased the night-swallows, and the bats skimming along the surface of the lake in quest of water-spiders. here she even ventured to sing, and gave voice to charming melodies, which floated over the water like the sounds of an æolian harp. many hours were spent thus on the lake. the little maid never wearied of the water. the protecting element restored to her nerves the strength which the stepmotherly earth had taken from them. a promenade of a hundred steps would tire her so that she would have to stop and rest. she had become unused to walking. but here in the water she moved about like a naiad; her whole being was transformed; she lived! then, when her guardian would call her, she would swim back to the canoe, clamber into it, and spread her long hair over his knees to dry while they rowed back to the shore. poor little maid! she declared she had found happiness in the water. * * * * * one evening, after the waning moon had risen, ludwig's canoe, as usual, followed marie, who was swimming a considerable distance ahead. among the peculiarities of neusiedl lake are its numerous islets, the shores of which are thickly grown with rushes, and covered with broom and tall trees. such an island lay not far from the shore in front of the nameless castle; it had frequently aroused marie's curiosity. the little maid was now permitted to swim as far out into the open world of waves as she desired, only now and again signaling her whereabouts through a clear-toned "ho, ho!" during this time ludwig reclined in his boat, and while the waves gently rocked him, he gazed dreamily into the depths of the starry sky, and listened to the mysterious voices of the night--the moaning, murmuring, echoing voices floating across the surface of the water. suddenly a piercing scream mingled with the mysterious voices of the night. it was marie's voice. frantic with terror, ludwig seized his oars, and the canoe shot through the water in the direction of the scream. the trail of light left behind her by the swimmer was visible on the calm surface of the lake. suddenly it made an abrupt turn, and began to form a gigantic v. evidently the little maid was impelled by desperate terror to reach the protecting canoe. when she came abreast of it she uttered a second cry, convulsively grasped the edge of the boat, and cast a terrified glance backward. "marie!" cried the count, greatly alarmed, seizing the girdle about her waist and lifting her into the canoe. "what has happened? who is following you?" the child trembled violently; her teeth chattered, and she gasped for breath, unable to speak; only her large eyes were still fixed with an expression of horror on the water. ludwig looked searchingly around, but could see nothing. and yet, after a few seconds, something rose before him. what was it? man or beast? the head, the face, were head and face of a human being--a man, perhaps. the cheeks and head were covered with short reddish hair like the fur of an otter. the long, pointed ears stood upright. the mouth was closed so tightly that the lips were invisible. the nose was flat. the eyes, like those of a fish, were round and staring. there was no expression whatever in the features. the mysterious monster had risen quite close to the boat. ludwig seized an oar with both hands to crush the monster's head; but the heavy blow fell on the water. the creature had vanished underneath the boat, and only the motion of the water on the other side indicated the direction it had taken. terror and rage had benumbed ludwig's nerves. what was it? who had sent this nameless monster after his carefully guarded treasure? even the bottom of the lake concealed her enemies! he could think of nothing but intrigues and malignant persecutions. rage boiled in his veins. he enveloped the maid in her bath-mantle, and took up his oars. "i will come back here to-morrow," he muttered to himself, "hunt up this creature, and shoot it--be it man or beast." marie murmured something which sounded like a remonstrance. "i will shoot the creature!" repeated ludwig, savagely. the young girl withdrew trembling to the stern of the boat, and said nothing further; she even strove to suppress her nervous terror, like a child that has behaved naughtily. when the boat reached the shore, ludwig bade marie in a stern voice to make haste and change her bathing-dress, and became very impatient when she lingered longer than usual in the bath-house. then he took her arm and walked rapidly with her to the castle. "are you really going to shoot that creature?" asked marie, still trembling. "yes." "but suppose it is a human being?" "then i shall certainly shoot him." "i will never, never again venture into the lake." "i am certain of that! if you once become frightened in the water, you will always have a dread of it." "my dear, beautiful lake!" sighed marie, casting backward a sorrowful glance at the glittering expanse of water, at the paradise of her dreams, which the rising wind was curling into wavelets. "go at once to bed," said ludwig, when he had conducted his charge to the door of her room. "cover yourself up well, and if you feel chilly i will make you a cup of camomile tea." all children have such a distaste for this herb tea that it was not to be wondered at if marie declared she did not feel in the least chilly, and that she would go at once to bed. but she did not sleep well. she dreamed all night long of the water-monster. she saw it pursuing her. the staring fish-eyes rose before her in the darkness. then she saw ludwig with his gun searching for the monster--saw him shoot at it, but without effect. the hideous creature leaped merrily away. more than once she awoke from her restless slumber and called softly: "ludwig, are you there?" but no one answered the question. since her last birthday ludwig had not occupied the lounge in her room. marie had discovered this. she had placed a rose-leaf on the silken coverlet every evening, and found it still there in the morning. if any one had slept on the lounge, the rose-leaf would have fallen to the floor. the following day ludwig was more silent than usual. he did not speak once during their drive, and ate hardly anything at meals. one could easily see how impatiently he waited for evening, when he might go down to the lake and search for the monster--a sorry object for a fury such as his! an otter, most likely, or a beaver--mayhap an abortion of the dead sea, which had survived the ages since the days of sodom! all the same, it was a living creature, and must become food for fishes. marie, however, prayed so fervently that nothing might come of ludwig's fury that heaven heard the prayer. the weather changed suddenly in the afternoon. a cold west wind succeeded to the warm august sunshine; clouds of dust arose; then came a heavy downpour of rain. ludwig was obliged to forego his intention to row about on the lake in the evening. he spent the entire evening in his room, leaving marie to complain to her cats; but they were sleepy, and paid no attention to what she said. the little maid had no desire to go to bed; she was afraid she might dream again of horrible things. the heavy rain beat against the windows; thunder rumbled in the distance. "i should not like to venture out of the house in such weather," said marie to her favorite cat, who was dozing on her knee. "ugh-h! just think of crossing the lonely court, or going through the dark woods! ugh-h! how horrible it must be there now! and then, to pass the graveyard at the end of the village! when the lightning flashes, the crosses lift their heads from the darkness--ugh-h!" the clock struck eleven; directly afterward there came a hesitating knock at her door. "come in! you may come in!" she called joyfully. she thought it was ludwig. the door opened slowly, only half-way, and the voice which began to speak was not ludwig's; it was the groom. "beg pardon, madame!" (thus he addressed the little maid). "is it you, henry? what do you want? you may come in. i am still up." the groom entered, and closed the door behind him. he was a tall, gray-haired man, with an honest face and enormously large hands. "what is it, henry? did the count send you?" "no, madame; i only wish he were able." "why? what is the matter with him?" "i don't know, indeed! i believe he is dying." "who? ludwig?" "yes, madame; my master." "for god's sake, tell me what you mean!" "he is lying on his bed, quite out of his mind. his face is flushed, his eyes gleam like hot coals, and he is talking wildly. i have never seen him in such a condition." "oh, heaven! what shall we do?" "i don't know, madame. when any of us gets sick the count knows what to do; but he does n't seem able to cure himself now; the contents of the medicine-chest are scattered all over the floor." "is there no doctor in the village?" "yes, madame; the county physician." "then he must be sent for." "i thought of that, but i did not like to venture to do so." "why not?" "because the count has declared that he will shoot me if i attempt to bring a stranger into his room, or into madame's. he told me i must never admit within the castle gate a doctor, a preacher, or a woman; and i should not think of disobeying him." "but now that he is so ill? and you say he may die? merciful god! ludwig die! it cannot--must not--happen!" "but how will madame hinder it?" "if you will not venture to fetch the doctor, then i will go myself." "oh, madame! you must not even think of doing this!" "i think of nothing else but that he is ill unto death. i am going, and you are coming with me." "holy father! the count will kill me if i do that." "and if you don't do it you will kill the count." "that is true, too, madame." "then don't you do anything. _i_ shall do what is necessary. i will put on my veil, and let no one see my face." "but in this storm? just listen, madame, how it thunders." "i am not afraid of thunder, you stupid henry. light a lantern, and arm yourself with a stout cudgel, while i am putting on my pattens. if ludwig should get angry, i shall be on hand to pacify him. if only the dear lord will spare his life! oh, hasten, hasten, my good henry!" "he will shoot me dead; i know it. but let him, in god's name! i do it at your command, madame. if madame is really determined to go herself for the doctor, then we will take the carriage." "no, indeed! ludwig would hear the sound of wheels, and know what we were doing. then he would jump out of bed, run into the court, and take a cold that would certainly be his death. no; we must go on foot, as noiselessly as possible. it is not so very far to the village. go now, and fetch the lantern." several minutes afterward, the gates of the nameless castle opened, and there came forth a veiled lady, who clung with one hand to the arm of a tall man, and carried a lantern in the other. her companion held over her, to protect her from the pouring rain, a large red umbrella, and steadied his steps in the slippery mud with a stout walking-stick. the lady walked so rapidly that her companion with difficulty kept pace with her. chapter iv dr. tromfszky had just returned from a _visum repertum_ in a criminal case, and had concluded that he would go to bed so soon as he had finished his supper. the rain fell in torrents on the roof, and rushed through the gutters with a roaring noise. "now just let any one send again for me this night!" he exclaimed, when his housekeeper came to remove the remnants of cheese from the supper-table. "i would n't go--not if the primate himself got a fish-bone fast in his throat; no, not for a hundred ducats. i swear it!" at that moment there came a knock at the street door, and a very peremptory one, too. "there! did n't i know some one would take it into his head to let the devil fetch him to-night? go to the door, zsuzsa, and tell them that i have a pain in my foot--that i have just applied a poultice, and can't walk." frau zsuzsa, with the kitchen lamp in her hand, waddled into the corridor. after inquiring the second time through the door, "who is it?" and the one outside had answered: "it is i," she became convinced, from the musical feminine tone, that it was not the notorious robber, satan laczi, who was seeking admittance. then she opened the door a few inches, and said: "the herr doctor can't go out any more to-night; he has gone to bed, and is poulticing his foot." the door was open wide enough to admit a delicate feminine hand, which pressed into the housekeeper's palm a little heap of money. by the light of the lamp frau zsuzsa recognized the shining silver coins, and the door was opened its full width. when she saw before her the veiled lady she became quite complaisant. curiosity is a powerful lever. "i humbly beg your ladyship to enter." "please tell the doctor the lady from the nameless castle wishes to see him." frau zsuzsa placed the lamp on the kitchen table, and left the visitors standing in the middle of the floor. "well, what were you talking about so long out yonder?" demanded the doctor, when she burst into his study. "make haste and put on your coat again; the veiled lady from the nameless castle is here." "what? well, that is an event!" exclaimed the doctor, hurriedly thrusting his arms into the sleeves of his coat. "is the count with her?" "no; the groom accompanied her." these magic words, "the veiled lady," had more influence on the doctor than any imaginable number of ducats. at last he was to behold the mythological appearance--yes, and even hear her voice! "show her ladyship into the guest-chamber, and take a lamp in there," he ordered, following quickly, after he had adjusted his cravat in front of the looking-glass. then she stood before him--the mysterious woman. her face was veiled as usual. behind her stood the groom, with whose appearance every child in the village was familiar. "herr doctor," stammered the young girl, so faintly that it was difficult to tell whether it was the voice of a child, a young or an old woman, "i beg that you will come with me at once to the castle; the gentleman is very seriously ill." "certainly; i am delighted!--that is, i am not delighted to hear of the worshipful gentleman's illness, but glad that i am fortunate enough to be of service to him. i shall be ready in a few moments." "oh, pray make haste." "the carriage will take us to the castle in five minutes, your ladyship." "but we did not come in a carriage; we walked." only now the doctor noticed that the lady's gown was thickly spattered with mud. "what? came on foot in such weather--all the way from the nameless castle? and your ladyship has a carriage and horses?" "cannot you come with us on foot, herr doctor?" "i should like very much to accompany your ladyship; but really, i have _rheumatismus acutus_ in my foot, and were i to get wet i should certainly have an _ischias_." marie lifted her clasped hands in despair to her lips, but the beseeching expression on her face was hidden by the heavy veil. could the doctor have seen the tearful eyes, the trembling lips! seeing that her voiceless petition was in vain, marie drew from her bosom a silken purse, and emptied the contents, gold, silver, and copper coins, on the table. "here," she exclaimed proudly. "i have much more money like this, and will reward you richly if you will come with me." the doctor was amazed. there on the table lay more gold than the whole county could have mustered in these days of paper notes. truly these people were not to be despised. "if only it did not rain so heavily--" "i will let you take my umbrella." "thanks, your ladyship; i have one of my own." "then let us start at once." "but my foot--it pains dreadfully." "we can easily arrange that. henry, here, is a very strong man; he will take you on his shoulders, and bring you back from the castle in the carriage." there were no further objections to be offered when henry, with great willingness, placed his broad shoulders at the doctor's service. the doctor hastily thrust what was necessary into a bag, locked the money marie had given him in a drawer, bade frau zsuzsa remain awake until he returned, and clambered on henry's back. in one hand he held his umbrella, in the other the lantern; and thus the little company took their way to the castle--the "double man" in advance, the little maid following with her umbrella. the doctor had sufficient cause to be excited. what usurious gossip-interest might be collected from such a capitol! dr. tromfszky already had an enviable reputation in the county, but what would it become when it became known that he was physician in ordinary to the nameless castle? the rain was not falling so heavily when they arrived at the castle. marie and henry at once conducted the doctor to ludwig's chamber. henry first thrust his head cautiously through the partly open door, then whispered that his master was still tossing deliriously about on the bed; whereupon the doctor summoned courage to enter the room. his first act was to snuff the candle, the wick having become so charred it scarcely gave any light. he could now examine the invalid's face, which was covered with a burning flush. his eyes rolled wildly. he had not removed his clothes, but had torn them away from his breast. "h'm! h'm!" muttered the doctor, searching in his bag for his bloodletting instruments. then he approached the bed, and laid his fingers on the invalid's pulse. at the touch of his cold hand the patient suddenly sat upright and uttered a cry of terror: "who are you?" "i am the doctor--the county physician--dr. tromfszky. pray, herr count, let me see your tongue." instead of his tongue, the count exhibited a powerful fist. "what do you want here? who brought you here?" he demanded. "pray, pray be calm, herr count," soothingly responded the doctor, who was inclined to look upon this aggressive exhibition as a result of the fever. "allow me to examine your pulse. we have here a slight paroxysm that requires medical aid. come, let me feel your pulse; one, two--" the count snatched his wrist from the doctor's grasp, and cried angrily: "but i don't need a doctor, or any medicine. there is nothing at all the matter with me. i don't want anything from you, but to know who brought you here." "beg pardon," retorted the offended doctor. "i was summoned, and came through this dreadful storm. i was told that the herr count was seriously ill." "who said so? henry?" demanded the count, rising on one knee. henry did not venture to move or speak. "did you fetch this doctor, henry?" again demanded the invalid, with expanded nostrils, panting with fury. the doctor, fancying that it would be well to tell the truth, now interposed politely: "allow me, herr count! herr henry did not come alone to fetch me, but he came with the gracious countess; and on foot, too, in this weather." "what? marie?" gasped the invalid; and at that moment his face looked as if he had become suddenly insane. an involuntary epileptic convulsion shook his limbs. he fell from the bed, but sprang at the same instant to his feet again, flung himself like an angry lion upon henry, caught him by the throat, and cried with the voice of a demon: "wretch! betrayer! what have you dared to do? i will kill you!" the doctor required nothing further. he did not stop to see the friendly promise fulfilled, but, leaving his lances, elixirs, and plasters behind him, he flew down the staircase, four steps at a time, and into the pouring rain, totally forgetting the ischias which threatened his leg. nor did he once think of a carriage, or of a human dromedary,--not even of a lantern, or an umbrella,--as he galloped down the dark road through the thickest of the mud. when the count seized henry by the throat and began to shake him, as a lion does the captured buffalo, marie stepped suddenly to his side, and in a clear, commanding tone cried: "louis!" at this word he released henry, fell on his knees at marie's feet, clasped both arms around her, and, sobbing convulsively, pressed kiss after kiss on the little maid's wet and muddy gown. "why--why did you do this for me?" he exclaimed, in a choking voice. the doctor's visit had, after all, benefited the invalid. the spontaneous reaction which followed the violent fit of passion caused a sudden turn in his illness. the salutary crisis came of its own accord during the outburst of rage, which threw him into a profuse perspiration. the brain gradually returned to its normal condition. "you will get well again, will you not?" stammered the little maid shyly, laying her hand on the invalid's brow. "if you really want me to get well," returned ludwig, "then you must comply with my request. go to your room, take off these wet clothes, and go to bed. and you must promise never again to go on another errand like the one you performed this evening. i hope you may sleep soundly." "i will do whatever you wish, ludwig--anything to prevent your getting angry again." the little maid returned to her room, took off her wet clothes, and lay down on the bed; but she could not sleep. every hour she rose, threw on her wrapper, thrust her feet into her slippers, and stole to the door of ludwig's room to whisper: "how is he now, henry?" "he is sleeping quietly," henry would answer encouragingly. the faithful fellow had forgotten his master's anger, and was watching over him as tenderly as a mother over her child. "he did not hurt you very much, did he, henry?" "no; it did not hurt, and i deserved what i got." the little maid pressed the old servant's hand, whereupon he sank to his knees at her feet, and, kissing her pretty fingers, whispered: "this fully repays me." the next morning ludwig was entirely recovered. he rose, and, as was his wont, drank six tumblerfuls of water--his usual breakfast. of the events of the past night he spoke not one word. at ten o'clock the occupants of the nameless castle were to be seen out driving as usual--the white-haired groom, the stern-visaged gentleman, and the veiled lady. that same morning dr. tromfszky received from the castle a packet containing his medical belongings, and an envelop in which he found a hundred-guilder bank-note, but not a single written word. meanwhile the days passed with their usual monotony for the occupants of the nameless castle, and september, with its delightfully warm weather drew on apace. in hungary the long autumn makes ample amends for the brief spring--like the frugal mother who stores away in may gifts with which to surprise her children later in the season. down at the lake, a merry crowd of naked children disported in the water; their shouts and laughter could be heard at the castle. ludwig fully understood the deep melancholy which had settled on marie's countenance. her sole amusement, her greatest happiness, had been taken from her. other high-born maidens had so many ways of enjoying themselves; she had none. no train of admirers paid court to her. no strains of merry dance-music entranced her ear. celebrated actors came and went; she did not delight in their performances--she had never even seen a theater. she had no girl friends with whom to exchange confidences--with whom to make merry over the silly flatterers who paid court to them; no acquaintances whose envy she could arouse by the magnificence of her toilets--one of the greatest pleasures in life! she had no other flatterers but her cats; no other confidantes but her cats; no other actors but her cats. the world of waves had been her sole enjoyment. the water had been her theater, balls, concert--the great world. it was her freedom. the land was a prison. again it was the full of the moon, and quite warm. the tulip-formed blossoms of the luxuriant water-lilies were in bloom along the lake shore. ludwig's heart ached with pity for the little maid when he saw how sorrowfully she gazed from her window on the glittering lake. "come, marie," he said, "fetch your bathing-dress, and let us try the lake again. i will stay close by you, and take good care that nothing frightens you. we will not go out of the cove." how delighted the child was to hear these words! she danced and skipped for joy; she called him her dear ludwig. then she hunted up the discarded melusine costume, and hastened with such speed toward the shore that ludwig was obliged to run to keep up with her. but the nearer she approached to the bath-house, the less quickly she walked; and when she stood in the doorway she said: "oh, how my heart beats!" when ludwig appeared with the canoe from behind the willows, the charming naiad stepped from the bath-house. the rippling waves bore the moonlight to her feet, where she stood on the narrow platform which projected into the lake. she knelt and, bending forward, kissed the water; it was her beloved! after a moment's hesitation she dropped gently from the platform, as she had been wont to do; but when she felt the waves about her shoulders, she uttered a cry of terror, and grasped the edge of the canoe with both hands. "lift me out, ludwig! i cannot bear it; i am afraid!" with a sorrowful heart the little maid took leave of her favorite element. the hot tears gushed from her eyes, and fell into the water; it was as if she were bidding an eternal, farewell to her beloved. from that hour the child became a silent and thoughtful woman. * * * * * then followed the stormy days of autumn, the long evenings, the weeks and months when nothing could be done but stay in doors and amuse one's self with books--dante, shakspere, horace. to these were occasionally added learned folios sent from stuttgart to count ludwig, who seemed to find his greatest enjoyment in perusing works on philosophy and science. meanwhile the communication by letter between the count and the erudite shepherd of souls in the village was continued. one day herr mercatoris sent to the castle a brochure on which he had proudly written, "with the compliments of the author." the booklet was written in latin, and was an account of the natural wonder which is, to this day, reckoned among the numerous memorable peculiarities of lake neusiedl,--a human being that lived in the water and ate live fishes. a little boy who had lost both parents, and had no one to care for him, had strayed into the morass of the hansag, and, living there among the wild animals, had become a wild animal himself, an inhabitant of the water like the otters, a dumb creature from whose lips issued no human sound. the decade of years he had existed in the water had changed his skin to a thick hide covered with a heavy growth of hair. the phenomenon would doubtless be accepted by many as a convincing proof that the human being was really evolved from the wild animal. accompanying the description was an engraved portrait of the natural wonder. the new owner of fertöszeg, baroness katharina landsknechtsschild, had been told that a strange creature was frightening the village children who bathed in the lake. she had given orders to some fishermen to catch the monster, which they had been fortunate enough to do while fishing for sturgeon. the boy-fish had been taken to the manor, where he had been properly clothed, and placed in the care of a servant whose task it was to teach the poor lad to speak, and walk upright instead of on all fours, as had been his habit. success had so far attended the efforts to tame the wild boy that he would eat bread and keep on his clothes. he had also learned to say "ham-ham" when he wanted something to eat; and he had been taught to turn the spit in the kitchen. the kind-hearted baroness was sparing no pains to restore the lad to his original condition. no one was allowed to strike or abuse him in any way. this brochure had a twofold effect upon the count. he became convinced that the monster which had frightened marie was not an assassin hired by her enemies, not an expert diver, but a natural abnormity that had acted innocently when he pursued the swimming maid. second, the count could not help but reproach himself when he remembered that _he_ would have destroyed the irresponsible creature whom his neighbor was endeavoring to transform again into a human being. how much nobler was this woman's heart than his own! his fair neighbor began to interest him. he took the pamphlet to marie, who shuddered when her eyes fell on the engraving. "the creature is really a harmless human being, marie, and i am sorry we became so excited over it. our neighbor, the lovely baroness, is trying to restore the poor lad to his original condition. next summer you will not need to be afraid to venture into the lake again." the little maid gazed thoughtfully into ludwig's eyes for several moments; evidently she was pondering over something. there had risen in her mind a suspicion that ludwig himself had written the pamphlet, and had had the monster's portrait engraved, in order to quiet her fears and restore her confidence in the water. "will you take me sometime to visit the baroness?" she asked suddenly. "and why?" inquired ludwig, in turn, rising from his seat. "that i, too, may see the wonderful improvement in the monster." "no," he returned shortly, and taking up the pamphlet, he quitted the room. "no!" "but why 'no'?" part iv satan laczi chapter i count vavel (thus he was addressed on his letters) had arranged an observatory in the tower of the nameless castle. here was his telescope, by the aid of which he viewed the heavens by night, and by day observed the doings of his fellow-men. he noticed everything that went on about him. he peered into the neighboring farm-yards and cottages, was a spectator of the community's disputes as well as its diversions. of late, the chief object of his telescopic observations during the day were the doings at the neighboring manor. he was the "lion-head" and the "council of ten" in one person. the question was, whether the new mistress of the manor, the unmarried baroness, should "cross the bridge of sighs"? his telescope told him that this woman was young and very fair; and it told him also that she lived a very secluded life. she never went beyond the village, nor did she receive any visitors. in the neighborhood of neusiedl lake one village was joined to another, and these were populated by pleasure-loving and sociable families of distinction. it was therefore a difficult matter for the well-born man or woman who took up a residence in the neighborhood to avoid the jovial sociability which reigned in those aristocratic circles. count vavel himself had been overwhelmed with hospitable attentions the first year of his occupancy of the nameless castle; but his refusals to accept the numerous invitations had been so decided that they were not repeated. he frequently saw through his telescope the same four-horse equipages which had once stopped in front of his own gates drive into the court at the manor; and he recognized in the occupants the same jovial blades, the eligible young nobles, who had honored him with their visits. he noticed, too, that none of the visitors spent a night at the manor. very often the baroness did not leave her room when a caller came; it may have been that she had refused to receive him on the plea of illness. during the winter count vavel frequently saw his fair neighbor skating on the frozen cove; while a servant propelled her companion over the ice in a chair-sledge. on these occasions the count would admire the baroness's graceful figure, her intrepid movements, and her beautiful face, which was flushed with the exercise and by the cutting wind. but what pleased him most of all was that the baroness never once during her skating exercises cast an inquiring glance toward the windows of the nameless castle--not even when she came quite close to it. on christmas eve she, like count vavel, arranged a christmas tree for the village children. the little ones hastened from the manor to the castle, and repeated wonderful tales of the gifts they had received from the baroness's own hands. every sunday the count saw the lady from the manor take her way to church, on foot if the roads were good; and on her homeward way he could see her distribute alms among the beggars who were ranged along either side of the road. this the count did not approve. he, too, gave plenteously to the poor, but through the village pastor, and only to those needy ones who were too modest to beg openly. the street beggars he repulsed with great harshness--with one exception. this was a one-legged man, who had lost his limb at marengo, and who stationed himself regularly beside the cross at the end of the village. here he would stand, leaning on his crutches, and the count, in driving past, would always drop a coin into the maimed warrior's hat. one day when the carriage drew near the cross, count vavel saw the old soldier, as usual, but without his crutches. instead, he leaned on a walking-stick, and stood on two legs. the count stopped the carriage, and asked: "are not you the one-legged soldier?" "i am, your lordship," replied the man; "but that angel, the baroness, has had a wooden leg made for me,--i could dance with it if i wished,--so i don't need to beg any more, for i can cut wood now, and thus earn my living. may god bless her who has done this for me!" the count was dissatisfied with himself. this woman understood everything better than he did. he felt that she was his rival, and from this feeling sprang the desire to compete with her. an opportunity very soon offered. one day the count received from the reverend herr mercatoris a gracefully worded appeal for charity. the new owner of fertöszeg had interested herself in the fate of the destitute children whose fathers had gone to the war, and, in order to render their condition more comfortable, had undertaken to found a home for them. she had already given the necessary buildings, and had furnished them. she now applied to the sympathies of the well-to-do residents of the county for assistance to educate the children. in addition to food and shelter, they required teachers. such sums as were necessary for this purpose must be raised by a general subscription from the charitably inclined. the count promptly responded to this request. he sent the pastor fifty louis d'or. but in the letter which accompanied the gift he stipulated that the boy whose mother was in prison should not be removed from frau schmidt's care to the children's asylum. it was quite in the order of things that the baroness should acknowledge the munificent gift by a letter of thanks. this missive was beautifully written. the orthography was singularly faultless. the expressions were gracefully worded and artless; nothing of flattery or sentimentality--merely courteous gratefulness. the letter concluded thus: "you will pardon me, i trust, if i add that the stipulation which you append to your generous gift surprises me; for it means either that you disapprove the principle of my undertaking, or you do not wish to transfer to another the burden you have taken upon yourself. if the latter be the reason, i am perfectly willing to agree to the stipulation; if it be the former, then i should like very much to hear your objection, in order that i may justify my action." this was a challenge that could not be ignored. the count, of course, would have to convince his fair neighbor that he was in perfect sympathy with the principle of her philanthropic project, and he wrote accordingly; but he added that he disapproved the prison-like system of children's asylums, the convict-like regulations of such institutions. _he_ thought the little ones would be better cared for, and much happier, were they placed in private homes, to grow up as useful men and women amid scenes and in the sphere of life to which they belonged. the count's polemic reply was not without effect. the baroness, who had her own views on the matter, was quite as ready to take the field, with as many theoretic and empiric data and recognized authorities as had been her opponent. the count one day would despatch a letter to the manor, and baroness katharina would send her reply the next--each determined not to remain the other's debtor. the count's epistles were dictated to marie; he added only the letter v to the signature. this battle on paper was not without practical results. the baroness paid daily visits to her "children's home"; and on mild spring days the count very often saw her sitting on the open veranda, with her companion and one or two maid-servants, sewing at children's garments until late in the evening. the count, on his part, sent every day for his little protégé, and spent several hours patiently teaching the lad, in order that he might compete favorably with the baroness's charges. the task was by no means an easy one, as the lad possessed a very dull brain. this was, it must be confessed, an excellent thing for the orphans. if the motherly care which the baroness lavished on her charges were to be given to all destitute orphans in children's asylums, then the "convict system" certainly was a perfect one; while, on the other hand, if a preceptor like count vavel took it upon himself to instruct a forsaken lad, then one might certainly expect a genius to evolve from the little dullard growing up in a peasant's cottage. ultimately, however, the victory fell to the lady. it happened as follows: one day the count was again the recipient of a letter from his neighbor at the manor (they had not yet exchanged verbal communication). the letter ran thus: "herr count: i dare say you know that the father of your little protégé is no other than the notorious robber, satan laczi, whom it is impossible to capture. the mother of the lad was arrested on suspicion. she lived in the village under her own honest family name--satan laczi being only a thief's appellation. as nothing could be proved against her, the woman has been set at liberty, and has returned to the village. here she found every door closed against her--for who would care to shelter the wife of a robber? at last the poor woman came to me, and begged me to give her work. my servants are greatly excited because i have taken her into my employ; but i am convinced that the woman is innocent and honest. were i to cast her adrift, she might become what she has been accused of being--the accomplice of thieves. i know she will conduct herself properly with me. i tell you all this because, if you approve what i have done, you will permit the lad you have taken under your protection to come to the manor, where he would be with his mother. if, however, you condemn my action, you will refuse to grant my request, and generously continue to care for the lad in your own way. the decision i leave to you." count vavel was forced to capitulate. the baroness's action--taking into her household the woman who had been repulsed by all the world--was so praiseworthy, so sublime, that nothing could approach it. that same day he sent the lad with frau schmidt to the manor, and herewith the correspondence between himself and the baroness ceased. there was no further subject for argument. and yet, count vavel could not help but think of this woman. who was she? he had sought to learn from his foreign correspondents something concerning the baroness katharina, but could gain no information save that which we have already heard from the county physician: disappointed love and shame at her rejection had driven the youthful baroness to this secluded neighborhood. this reason, however, did not altogether satisfy count vavel. women, especially young women, rarely quit the pleasures of the gay world because of one single disappointment. and for count vavel mistrust was a duty; for the reader must, ere this, have suspected that the count and the mysterious man of the rue mouffetard were identical, and that marie was none other than the child he had rescued from her enemies. here in this land, where order prevailed, but where there were no police, he was guarding the treasure intrusted to his care, and he would continue to guard her until relieved of the duty. but when would the relief come? one year after another passed, and the hour he dreamed of seemed still further away. when he had accepted the responsible mission he had said to himself: "in a year we shall gain our object, and i shall be released." but hope had deceived him; and as the years passed onward, he began to realize how vast, how enormous, was the task he had undertaken. it was within the possibilities that he, a young man in the flower of his youth, should be able to bury himself in an unknown corner of the world, to give up all his friends, to renounce everything that made life worth living, but that he should bury with himself in his silk-lined tomb a young girl to whom he had become everything, who yet might not even dream of becoming anything to him--that was beyond human might. more and more he realized that his old friend's prophetic words were approaching fulfilment: "the child will grow to be a lovely woman. already she is fond of you; she will love you then. then what?" "i shall look upon myself as the inhabitant of a different planet," he had replied; and he had kept his promise. but the little maid had not promised anything; and if, perchance, she guessed the weighty secret of her destiny, whence could she have taken the strength of mind to battle against what threatened to drive even the strong man to madness? ludwig was thirty-one years old, the fourth year in this house of voluntary madmen. with extreme solicitude he saw the child grow to womanhood, blessed with all the magic charms of her sex. gladly would he have kept her a child had it been in his power. he treated her as a child--gave her dolls and the toys of a child; but this could not go on forever. deeply concerned, ludwig observed that marie's countenance became more and more melancholy, and that now it rarely expressed childlike naïveté. a dreamy melancholy had settled upon it. and of what did she dream? why was she so sad? why did she start? why did the blood rush to her cheeks when he came suddenly into her presence? chapter ii count vavel had made his fair neighbor at the manor the object of study. he had ample time for the task; he had nothing else to do. and, as he was debarred from making direct inquiries concerning her, or from hearing the current gossip of the neighborhood, he learned only that about her which his telescope revealed; and from this, with the aid of his imagination, he formed a conclusion--and an erroneous one, very probably. his neighbor lived in strict seclusion, and was a man-hater. but, for all that, she was neither a nun nor an amazon. she was a true woman, neither inconsolably melancholy nor wantonly merry. she proved herself an excellent housewife. she rose betimes mornings, sent her workmen about their various tasks, saw that everything was properly attended to. very often she rode on horseback, or drove in a light wagon, to look about her estate. she had arranged an extensive dairy, and paid daily visits to her stables. she did not seem aware that an attentive observer constantly watched her with his telescope from the tower of the nameless castle. so, at least, it might be assumed; for the lady very often assisted in the labor of the garden, when, in transplanting tulip bulbs, she would so soil her pretty white hands to the wrists with black mold that it would be quite distressing to see them. certainly this was sufficient proof that her labor was without design. and, what was more to the purpose, she acted as if perfectly unaware of the fact that a lady lived in the nameless castle who possibly might be the wife of her tenant. common courtesy and the conventional usages of society demanded that the lady who took up a residence anywhere should call on the ladies of the neighborhood--if only to leave a card with the servant at the door. the baroness had omitted this ceremony, which proved that she either did not know of marie's hiding-place, or that she possessed enough delicacy of feeling to understand that it would be inconvenient to the one concerned were she to take any notice of the circumstance. either reason was satisfactory to count vavel. but a woman without curiosity! meanwhile the count had learned something about her which might be of some use to marie. he had received, during the winter, a letter from the young law student with whom he had become acquainted on the occasion of the vice-palatine's unpleasant visit to the castle. the young man wrote to say that he had passed his examination, and that when he should receive the necessary authority from the count he would be ready to proceed to the business they had talked about. the count replied that a renewal of his lease was not necessary. the new owner of the castle having neglected to serve a notice to quit within the proper time, the old contracts were still valid. therefore, it was only necessary to secure the naturalization documents, and to purchase a plot of ground on the shore of the lake. the young lawyer arranged these matters satisfactorily, and the count had nothing further to do than to appoint an _absentium ablegatus_ to the diet, and to take possession of his new purchase, which lay adjacent to the nameless castle. the count at once had the plot of ground inclosed with a high fence of stout planks, engaged a gardener, and had it transformed into a beautiful flower-garden. then, when the first spring blossoms began to open, he said to marie, one balmy, sunshiny afternoon: "come, we will take a promenade." he conducted the veiled maiden through the park, along the freshly graveled path to the inclosed plot of ground. "here is your garden," he said, opening the gate. "now you, too, own a plot of ground." count vavel had expected to see the little maid clap her hands with delight, and hasten to pluck the flowers for a nosegay. instead, however, she clung to his arm and sighed heavily. "why do you sigh, marie? are you not pleased with your garden?" "yes; i think it beautiful." "then why do you sigh?" "because i cannot thank you as i wish." "but you have already thanked me." "that was only with words. tell me, can any one see us here?" "no one; we are alone." at these words the little maid tore the veil from her face, and for the first time in many years god's free sunlight illumined her lovely features. what those features expressed, what those eyes flashed through their tears, that was her gratitude. when she had illumined the heart of her guardian with this expressive glance, she was about to draw the veil over her face again; but ludwig laid a gently restraining hand on hers, and said: "leave your face uncovered, marie; no one can see it here; and every day for one hour you may walk thus here, without fear of being seen, for i shall send the gardener elsewhere during that time." when they were leaving the garden, marie plucked two forget-me-nots, and gave one of them to ludwig. from that day she had one more pleasure: the garden, a free sight of the sky, the warmth of the sunlight--enjoyments hitherto denied her; but, all the same, the childlike cheerfulness faded more and more from her countenance. ludwig, who was distressed to see this continued melancholy in the child's face, searched among his pedagogic remedies for a cure for such moods. a sixteen-year-old girl might begin the study of history. at this age she would already become interested in descriptions of national customs, in archaeological study, in travels. he therefore collected for marie's edification quite a library, and became a zealous expounder of the various works. in a short time, however, he became aware that his pupil was not so studious as she had been formerly. she paid little heed to his learned discourses, and even neglected to learn her lessons. for this he was frequently obliged to reprove her. this was a sort of refrigerating process. for an instructor to scold a youthful pupil is the best proof that he is a being from a different planet! one day the tutor was delineating with great eloquence to his scholar--who, he imagined, was listening with special interest--the glorious deeds of heroism performed by st. louis, and was tracing on the map the heroic king's memorable crusade. the scholar, however, was writing something on a sheet of paper which lay on the table in front of her. "what are you writing, marie?" the little maid handed him the sheet of paper. on it were the words: "dear ludwig, love me." map and book dropped from the count's hands. the little maid's frank, sincere gaze met his own. she was not ashamed of what she had written, or that she had let him read it. she thought it quite in the order of things. "and don't i love you?" exclaimed ludwig, with sudden sharpness. "don't i love you as the fakir loves his brahma--as the carthusian loves his virgin mary? don't i love you quite as dearly?" "then don't love me--quite so dearly," responded marie, rising and going to her own room, where she began to play with her cats. from that hour she would not learn anything more from ludwig. the young man, however, placed the slip of paper containing the words, "dear ludwig, love me," among his relics. * * * * * since the new mistress's advent in the neighboring manor count vavel had spent more time than usual in his observatory. at first suspicion had been his motive. now, however, there was a certain fascination in bringing near to him with his telescope the woman with whom he had exchanged only written communication. if he was so eager to behold her, why did he not go to the manor? why did he look at her only through his telescope? she would certainly receive his visits; and what then? this "what then?" was the fetter which bound him hand and foot, was the lock upon his lips. he must make no acquaintances. results might follow; and what then? the entombed man must not quit his grave. he might only seat himself at the window of his tomb, and thence look out on the beautiful, forbidden world. what a stately appearance the lady makes as she strolls in her long white gown across the green sward over yonder! her long golden hair falls in glittering masses from beneath her wide-rimmed straw hat. now she stops; she seems to be looking for some one. now her lips open; she is calling some one. her form is quite near, but her voice stops over yonder, a thousand paces distant. the person she calls does not appear in the field of vision. now she calls louder, and the listening ear hears the words, "dear ludwig!" he starts. these words have not come from the phantom of the object-glass, but from a living being that stands by his side--marie. the count sprang to his feet, surprised and embarrassed, unable to say a word. marie, however, did not wait for him to speak, but said with eager inquisitiveness: "what are you looking at through that great pipe?" before ludwig could turn the glass in another direction, the little maid had taken his seat, and was gazing, with a wilful smile on her lips, through the "great pipe." the smile gradually faded from her lips as she viewed the world revealed by the telescope--the beautiful woman over yonder amid her flowers, her form encircled by the nimbus of rainbow hues. when she withdrew her eye from the glass, her face betrayed the new emotion which had taken possession of her. the lengthened features, the half-opened lips, the contracted brows, the half-closed eyes, all these betrayed--ludwig was perfectly familiar with the expression--jealousy. marie had discovered that there was an enchantingly beautiful woman upon whose phenomenal charms _her_ ludwig came up here to feast his eyes. the faithless one! ludwig was going to speak, but marie laid her hand against his lips, and turned again to the telescope. the "green-eyed monster" wanted to see some more! suddenly her face brightened; a joyful smile wreathed her lips. she seized ludwig's hand, and exclaimed, in a voice that sounded like a sigh of relief: "what you told me was true, after all! you did not want to deceive me." "what do you see?" asked ludwig. "i see the water-monster that frightened me. i believed that you invented a fable and had it printed in that book in order to deceive me. and now i see the creature over yonder with the beautiful lady. she called to him, and he came walking on his hands and feet. now he is standing upright. how ridiculous the poor thing looks in his red clothes! he does n't want to keep on his hat, and persists in wanting to walk on all fours like a poodle. dear heaven! what a kind lady she must be to have so much patience with him!" then she rose suddenly from the telescope, flung her arms around ludwig's neck, and began to sob. her warm tears moistened the young man's face; but they were not tears of grief. very soon she ceased sobbing, and smiled through her tears. "i am so thankful i came up here! you will let me come again, won't you, ludwig? i will come only when you ask me. and to-morrow we will resume our swimming excursions. you will come with me in the canoe, won't you?" ludwig assented, and the child skipped, humming cheerily, down the tower stairs; and the whole day long the old castle echoed with her merry singing. chapter iii and why should not baroness landsknechtsschild take observations with a telescope, as well as her neighbor at the nameless castle? she could very easily do so unnoticed. from the outside of a house, when it is light, one cannot see what is going on in a dark room. this question count vavel was given an opportunity to decide. the astronomical calendar had announced a total eclipse of the moon on a certain night in july. the moon would enter the shadow at ten o'clock, and reach full obscuration toward midnight. ludwig had persuaded marie to observe the phenomenon with him; and the young girl was astonished beyond measure when she beheld for the first time the full moon through the telescope. ludwig explained to her that the large, brilliant circles were extinct craters; the dark blotches, seas. at that time scientists still accepted the theory of oceans on the moon. what interested marie most of all, however, was the question, "were there people on the moon?" ludwig promised to procure for her the fanciful descriptions of a supposed journey made to the moon by some naturalists in the preceding century. innocent enough reading for a girl of sixteen! "i wonder what the people are like who live on the moon?" and ludwig's mental reply was: "one of them stands here by your side!" after a while marie wearied of the heavenly phenomena, and when the hour came at which she usually went to bed she was overcome by sleep. in vain ludwig sought to keep her awake by telling her about the imbrian ocean, and relating the wonders of mount aristarchus. marie could not keep from nodding, and several times she caught herself dreaming. "i shall not wait to see the end of the eclipse," she said to ludwig. "it is very pretty and interesting, but i am sleepy." she was yet so much a child that she would not have given up her sweet slumbers for an eclipse of all the planets of the universe. ludwig accompanied her to the door of her apartments, bade her good night, and returned to the observatory. already the disk of the moon was half obscured. ludwig removed the astronomical eye-piece from the telescope, and inserted the tellurian glass instead; then he turned the object-glass toward the neighboring manor instead of toward the moon. now, if ever, was the time to find out if his fair neighbor possessed a telescope. if she had one, she would certainly be using it now. it was sufficiently light to enable him to see quite distinctly the baroness sitting, with two other women, on the veranda. she was observing the eclipse, but with an opera-glass--a magnifier that certainly could not reveal very much. of this count ludwig might rest satisfied. and yet, in spite of the satisfaction this decision had given him, he continued to observe the disappearance of the moonlight from the veranda of the manor with far more attention than he bestowed upon the gradual darkening of the heavenly luminary itself. then there happened to the baroness's companions what had happened to marie: the women began to nod, whereupon the baroness sent them to bed. there remained now only the count and his fair neighbor to continue the astronomical observations. the lady looked at the moon; the count looked at the lady. the baroness, as was evident, was thorough in whatever she undertook. she waited for the full obscuration--until the last vestige of moonlight had vanished, and only a strange-looking, dull, copper-hued ball hung in the sky. the baroness now rose and went into the house. the astronomer on the castle tower observed that she neglected to close the veranda door. it was now quite dark; the silence of midnight reigned over everything. count vavel waited in his observatory until the moon emerged from shadow. instead of the moon, something quite different came within the field of vision. from the shrubbery in the rear of the manor there emerged a man. he looked cautiously about him, then signaled backward with his hand, whereupon a second man, then a third and a fourth, appeared. dark as it was, the count could distinguish that the men wore masks, and carried hatchets in their hands. he could not see what sort of clothes they wore. they were robbers. one of the men swung himself over the iron trellis of the veranda; his companions waited below, in the shadow of the gate. the count hastened from his observatory. first he wakened henry. "robbers have broken into the manor, henry!" "the rascals certainly chose a good time to do it; now that the moon is in shadow, no one will see them," sleepily returned henry. "i saw them, and i am going to scare them away." "we can fire off our guns from here; that will scare them," suggested henry. "are you out of your senses, henry? we should frighten marie; and were she to learn that there are robbers in the neighborhood, she would want to go away from here, and you know we are chained to this place." "yes; then i don't know what we can do. shall i go down and rouse the village?" "so that you may be called on to testify before a court, and be compelled to tell who you are, what you are, and how you came here?" impatiently interposed the count. "that is true. then i can't raise an alarm?" "certainly not. do as i tell you. stop here in the castle, take your station in front of marie's door, and i will go over to the manor. give me your walking-stick." "what? you are going after the robbers with a walking-stick?" "they are only petty thieves; they are not real robbers. men of this sort will run when they hear a footstep. besides, there are only four of them." "four against one who has nothing but a cudgel!" "in which is concealed a sharp poniard--a very effective weapon at close quarters," supplemented the count. "but don't stop here talking, henry. fetch the stick, and my driving-coat, into the pocket of which put my bloodletting instruments. some one might faint over yonder, and i should need them." henry brought the stick and coat. only after he had gone some distance from the castle did count vavel notice that some heavy object kept thumping against his side. the faithful henry had smuggled a double-barreled pistol into the pocket of his coat, in addition to the bloodletting instruments. the count did not take the road which ran around the cove to the manor, but hurried to the shore, where he sprang into his canoe, and with a few powerful strokes of the oars reached the opposite shore. a few steps took him to the manor. his heart beat rapidly. he had a certain dread of the coming meeting--not the meeting with the robbers, but with the baroness. the gates of the manor were open, as was usual in hungarian manors day and night. the count crossed the court, and as he turned the corner of the house there happened what he had predicted: the masked man who was on watch at the door gave a shrill whistle, then dashed into the shrubbery. count vavel did not give chase to the fleeing thief, but, swinging his cudgel around his head, ran through the open door into the hall. here a lamp was burning. he hurried into the salon, and saw, as he entered, two more of the robbers jump from the window into the garden. count ludwig hurried on toward the adjoining room, whence came the faint light of a lamp. the light came from another room still farther on. it was the sleeping-chamber of the lady of the house. there were no robbers here, but on the table lay jewelry and articles of silver which had been emptied from the cases lying about the floor. in an arm-chair which stood near the bed-alcove reclined a female form, the arms and hands firmly bound with cords to the chair. what a beautiful creature! the clinging folds of her dressing-robe revealed the perfect proportions of her figure. her hair fell like a golden cataract to the floor. modest blushes and joy at her deliverance made the lovely face even more enchanting when the knightly deliverer entered the room--a hero who came with a cudgel to do battle against a band of robbers, and conquered! "i am count vavel," he hastened to explain, cudgel in hand, that the lady might not think him another robber and fall into a faint. "pray release me," in a low tone begged the lady, her cheeks crimsoning with modest shame when he bent over her to untie the cords. the task was quickly performed; the count took a knife from his pocket and cut the cords; then he turned to look for a bell. "please don't ring," hastily interposed the baroness. "don't rouse my people from their slumbers. the robbers are gone, and have taken nothing. you came in good time to help me." "did the rascals ill-treat you, baroness?" "they only tied me to this chair; but they threatened to kill me if i refused to give them money--they were not content to take only my jewelry. i was about to give them an order to the steward, who has charge of my money, when your arrival suddenly ended the agreement we had made." "agreement?" repeated the count. "a pretty business, truly!" "pray don't speak so loudly; i don't want any one to be alarmed--and please go into the next room, where you will find my maid, who is also bound." count vavel went into the small chamber which communicated with that of the baroness, and saw lying on the bed a woman whose hands and feet were bound; a handkerchief had been thrust into her mouth. he quickly released her from the cords and handkerchief; but she did not stir: she had evidently lost consciousness. by this time the baroness had followed with a lighted candle. she had flung a silken shawl about her shoulders, thrust her feet into turkish slippers, and tucked her hair underneath a becoming lace cap. "is she dead?" she asked, lifting an anxious glance to ludwig's face. "no, she is not dead," replied the count, who was attentively scanning the unconscious woman's face. "what is the matter with her?" pursued the baroness, with evident distress. the count now recognized the woman's face. he had seen her with the lad who had been his protégé, and who was now a member of the baroness's household. it was the wife of satan laczi. "no, she is not dead," he repeated; "she has only fainted." the baroness hastily fetched her smelling-salts, and held them to the unconscious woman's nostrils. "peasant women have strong constitutions," observed the count. "when such a one loses consciousness a perfume like that will not restore her; she needs to be bled." "but good heavens! what are we to do? i can't think of sending for the doctor now! i don't want him to hear of what has happened here to-night." "i understand bloodletting," observed vavel. "you, herr count?" "yes; i have studied medicine and surgery." "but you have no lance." "i brought my chirurgic instruments with me." "then you thought you might find here some one who had fainted?" exclaimed the baroness, wonderingly. "yes. i shall require the assistance of a maid to hold the woman's arm while i perform the operation." "i don't want any of the servants wakened. can't i--help you?" she suggested hesitatingly. "are not you afraid of the sight of blood, baroness?" "of course i am; but i will endure that rather than have one of my maids see you here at this hour." "but this one will see me when she recovers consciousness." "oh, i can trust this one; she will be silent." "then let us make an attempt." the result of the attempt was, the fainting maid was restored to consciousness by the skilfully applied lance, while the face of the assisting lady became deathly pale. her eyes closed, her lips became blue. fortunately, she had a more susceptible nature than her maid. a few drops of cold water sprinkled on her face, and the smelling-salts, quickly restored her to consciousness. during these few moments her head had rested on the young man's shoulder, her form had been supported on his arm. "don't trouble any further about me," she murmured, when she opened her eyes and saw herself in vavel's arms; "but attend to that poor woman"; and she hastily rose from her recumbent position. the woman was shivering with a chill--or was it the result of extreme terror? if the former, then a little medicine would soon help her; but if it was terror, there was no remedy for it. to all questions she returned but the one answer: "oh, my god! my god!" the baroness and count vavel now returned to the outer room. "i regret very much, baroness, that you have had an unpleasant experience like this--here in our peaceful neighborhood, where every one is so honest that you might leave your purse lying out in the court; no one would take it." the baroness laughingly interrupted him: "the robber adventure amused more than it frightened me. all my life i have wanted to see a real hungarian robber, of whom the viennese tell such wonderful tales. my wish has been gratified, and i have had a real adventure--the sort one reads in romances." "your romance might have had a sorrowful conclusion," responded count ludwig, seriously. "yes--if heaven had not sent a brave deliverer to my rescue." "you may well say heaven sent him," smilingly returned the count; "for if there had not been an eclipse of the moon to-night, which i was observing through my telescope, and at the same time taking a look about the neighborhood, i should not have seen the masked men enter the manor." "what!" in astonishment exclaimed the baroness; "you saw the men through a telescope? truly, _i_ shall have to be on my guard in future! but," she added more seriously, lifting from the table the count's walking-stick, toward which he had extended his hand, "before you go i want to beg a favor. please do not mention the occurrence of this night to any one. i don't want the authorities to make any inquiries concerning the attempted robbery." "that favor i grant most willingly," replied count vavel, who had not the least desire for a legal examination which would require him to tell who he was, what he was, whence he came, and what he was doing here. "i can tell you why i don't want the affair known," continued the baroness. "the woman in yonder is the one of whom i wrote you some time ago--the wife of ladislaus satan, or, as he is called, satan laczi. should it become known that a robbery was attempted here, the villagers will say at once, 'it was the wife of the robber satan laczi who helped the men to rob her mistress,' and the poor woman will be sent back to prison." "and do you really believe her innocent?" "i can assure you that she knew nothing about this matter. i shall not send her away, but, as a proof that i trust her entirely, shall let her sleep in the room next to mine, and let her carry all my keys!" to emphasize her declaration, she thumped the floor vigorously with vavel's iron-ferruled stick. involuntarily the count extended his hand to her. she grasped it cordially, and, shaking it, added: "don't speak of our meeting to-night to any one; i shall not mention it, i can promise you! and now, i will give you your stick; i am certain some one at home is anxious about you. god be with you!" at home count vavel found henry on guard at the door of marie's room, his musket cocked, ready for action. "did anything happen here?" asked the count. "did marie waken?" "no; but she called out several times in her sleep, and once i heard her say quite distinctly: 'ludwig, take care; she will bite!" * * * * * count vavel could not deny that his fair neighbor had made a very favorable impression on him. in astronomy she had taken the place of the moon, in classic literature that of an ideal, and in metaphysics that of the absolutely good. he had sufficient command of himself, however, to suppress the desire to see her again. from that day he did not again turn his telescope toward the neighboring manor. but to prevent his thoughts from straying there was beyond his power. these straying thoughts after a while began to betray themselves in his countenance and in his eyes; and there are persons who understand how to read faces and eyes. "are you troubled about anything, ludwig?" one day inquired marie, after they had been sitting in silence together for a long while. ludwig started guiltily. "ye-es; i have bad news from abroad." such a reply, however, cannot deceive those who understand the language of the face and eyes. one afternoon marie stole noiselessly up to the observatory, and surprised ludwig at the telescope. "let me see, too, ludwig. are you looking at something pretty?" "very pretty," answered ludwig, giving place to the young girl. marie looked through the glass, and saw a farm-yard overgrown with weeds. on an inverted tub near the door of the cottage sat a little old grandmother teaching her grandchildren how to knit a stocking. "then you were not looking at our lovely neighbor," said marie. "why don't you look at her?" "because it is not necessary for me to know what she is doing." marie turned the telescope toward the manor, and persisted until she had found what she was looking for. "how sad she looks!" she said to ludwig. but he paid no attention to her words. "now it seems as though she were looking straight into my eyes; now she clasps her hands as if she were praying." ludwig said, with pedagogic calmness: "if you continue to gaze with such intensity through the telescope your face will become distorted." marie laughed. "if i had a crooked mouth, and kept one eye shut, people would say, 'there goes that ugly little marie!' then i should not have to wear a veil any more." she distorted her face as she had described, and turned it toward ludwig, who said hastily: "don't--don't do that, marie." "is it not all the same to you whether i am ugly or pretty?" she retorted. then, as if to soften the harshness of her words, she added: "even if i were ugly, would you love me--as the fakir loves his brahma?" * * * * * ludwig continued his correspondence with the learned herr mercatoris. he always dictated his letters to marie. no one in the neighborhood had yet seen his own writing. therefore, it would have been impossible for him to ask the pastor anything relating to the baroness without marie knowing it. in one of his letters, however, he inquired how the mother of the lad he had once had in his care was conducting herself at the manor, and was informed that the woman had disappeared--and without leaving any explanation for her conduct--a few days after the eclipse of the moon. the baroness had been greatly troubled by the woman's going, but would not consent to having a search made for her, as she had taken nothing from the manor. this incident made count vavel believe that the woman had secretly joined the band of robbers, and that there would be another attempt made sometime to break into the manor. from that time the count slept more frequently in his observatory than he did in his bedchamber, where an entire arsenal of muskets and other firearms were always kept in readiness. one evening, when he approached the door of his room, he was surprised to see a light through the keyhole; some one was in the room. he entered hastily. on the table was a lighted candle, and standing with his back toward the table was a strange man, clad in a costume unlike that worn by the dwellers in that neighborhood. for an instant count vavel surveyed the stranger, who was standing between him and his weapons; then he demanded imperiously: "who are you? how came you here, and what do you want?" "i am satan laczi," coolly replied the man. on hearing the name, count vavel sprang suddenly toward the robber, and seized him by the arms. the fellow's arms were like the legs of a vulture--nothing but bone and sinew. count vavel was an athletic man, strong and powerful; but had the room been filled with men as strong and powerful as he, and had they every one hurled themselves upon satan laczi, he would have had no difficulty in defending himself. he had performed such a feat more than once. this evening, however, he made no move to defend himself, but looked calmly at his assailant, and said: "the herr count can see that i have no weapons; and yet, there are enough here, had i wanted to arm myself against an attack. i am not here for an evil purpose." the count released his hold on the man's arms, and looked at him in surprise. "why are you here?" he asked. "first, because i want to tell the herr count that it was not i who attempted to rob the baroness, nor were those thieves comrades of mine. i know that the people around here say it was satan laczi; but it was n't, and i came to tell you so. i confess i have robbed churches; but the house which has given shelter and food to my poor little lad is more sacred to me than a church. the people insist that i was guilty of such baseness because i am satan laczi; but the herr count, who has doubtless read a description of my person, can say whether or no it was i he saw at the manor." with these words he turned his face toward the light. it was a very repulsive countenance. "do you think there is another face that the description of mine would fit, herr count?" he asked, a certain melancholy softening the repulsiveness of his features. "but what is the use of such senseless chatter?" he added hastily. "i am not silly enough to come here seeking honor and respect--though it does vex me when people say that one man with a cudgel put to flight satan laczi and three of his comrades. i came here to-night because the herr count rescued my poor little lad from the morass, gave him shelter and food, and even condescended to teach him. for all this i owe you, herr count, and i am come to return favor for favor. you are thinking: 'how can this robber repay me what he owes?' i will tell you: by giving you a robber's information. i want to prove to the herr count that the robber--the true robber who understands his trade--can enter this securely barred castle whenever he is so minded. the locks on the doors, the bolts on the windows, are no hindrance to the man who understands his business, and the way _i_ came in another can come as well. it is said that the herr count guards a great treasure here in this castle. i don't know, and i don't ask, what this treasure is. if i should find it, i would n't take it from the herr count, and if any one else took it i should try to get it back for him. but some one may steal in here, as i did, while the herr count is looking at the stars up in the tower, and carry off his carefully guarded treasure." count vavel gave utterance to a groan of terror; his knees gave way beneath him; a chill shook his entire frame. "marie!" he gasped, forgetting himself. then, hastily snatching the candle from the table, he rushed frantically toward the young girl's sleeping-chamber, leaving satan laczi alone in his room. since he had ceased guarding marie's door at night by sleeping on the lounge in her room, he had cautioned her to lock the door before retiring. now he found the door open. breathless with fear, the count sprang toward the alcove and flung back the bed-curtains. the little maid was sleeping peacefully, her face resting against her arm. her favorite cat was lying at her feet, and on the floor by the bedside lay the two pugs. but the door of the wall-cupboard in which was hidden the steel casket stood wide open, and on the casket was a singular toy--a miniature human figure turning a spinning-wheel. for an instant count vavel's heart ceased beating. here was sufficient proof that the maid, together with the steel casket, might have been carried away during his absence. he took the curious image, which was molded of black bread, and returned to his room. as he crossed the threshold, satan laczi pointed to the toy and said: "i left it on the casket as a remembrance in exchange for the little stockings some one in this house knit for my little lad. we learn to make such things in prison, where time hangs heavily on one's hands." "but how did you manage to open the door when it was locked and the key inside?" inquired the count. satan laczi showed him the tools which he used to turn keys from the outside. "any burglar can open a door from the outside if the key is left in the lock, herr count. only those doors can be securely locked which have no keyholes outside." "i have no idea how that could be arranged," said count vavel. "i am acquainted with a jack of all trades here in the neighborhood who could make such a door for you if i told him how to make it. he is a carpenter, locksmith, and clock-maker, all in one person." the count shook his head wonderingly. the robber was to direct the locksmith how to fashion a lock that no one could open! "shall i send the man to the castle?" asked satan laczi. "yes; if the fellow is sensible, and does not chatter." "but he is a fool that never knows when to stop talking. but he talks only on one subject, so you need not be afraid to employ him. he understands everything you tell him, will do just as you say, but will not talk about what he is doing for you. there is only one subject on which he will chatter, and that is, how napoleon might be beaten. he is continually talking about stratagems, infernal machines, and how to win a battle. on this subject he is crazy. he will make doors for the herr count that can't be opened, and tell everybody else only how to make infernal machines, and how to build fortifications." "very good; then send him to me." "but--i must say something else, herr count--no matter how secure your locks may be, that treasure is best guarded against robbers which is kept in the room you sleep in. a man of courage is worth a hundred locks. i am not talking without a purpose when i say the herr count must look after his treasure. i know more than i say, and satan laczi is not the greatest robber in the world. be on your guard!" "i thank you." "does the herr count still believe that it was i and my comrades who broke into the manor?" "no; i am convinced that it was not you." "then my mission here is accomplished--" "not yet," interposed the count, stepping to a cupboard, and taking from it a straw-covered bottle and a goblet. "here,"--filling the goblet and handing it to the robber,--"he who comes to my house as a guest must not quit it without a parting glass." "a strange guest, indeed!" responded the robber, taking the proffered glass. "i came without knocking for admittance. but i performed a masterpiece to-day; the herr count will find it out soon enough! i do not drink to your welfare herr count, for my good wishes don't go for much in heaven!" the count seated himself at the table, and said: "don't go just yet, my friend; i want to give you a few words of advice. i believe you are a good man at heart. quit your present mode of life, which will ultimately lead you--" "yes, i know--to the gallows and to hell," interposed the robber. "take up some trade," pursued the count. "i will gladly assist you to become an honest man. i will lend you the money necessary to begin work, and you can pay me when you have succeeded. surely honest labor is the best." "i thank you for the good advice, herr count, but it is too late. i know very well what would be best for me; but, as i said, it is too late now. there was a time when i would gladly have labored at my trade,--for i have one,--but no one would tolerate me because of my repulsive face. from my childhood i have been an object of ridicule and abuse. my father was well-born, but he died in a political prison, and i was left destitute with this hideous face. no one would employ me for anything but swine-herd; and even then luck was against me, for if anything went wrong with a litter of pigs, i was always blamed for the mishap, and sent about my business. count jharose gave me a job once; it was a ridiculous task, but i was glad to get any kind of honest work. i had to exercise the count's two tame bears--promenade with them through the village. the bears' fore paws were tied about their necks, so that they were obliged to walk on their hind feet, and i had to walk between them, my hands resting on a fore leg of each animal, as if i were escorting two young women. when we promenaded thus along the village street, the people would laugh and shout: 'there go count jharose's three tame bears.' at last i got out of the way of doing hard work, and got used to being ridiculed by all the world. but i had not yet learned to steal. the bears grew fat under my care. i was given every day two loaves of bread to feed to them. one day i saw, in a wretched hut at the end of the village, a poor woman and her daughter who were starving. from that day the bears began to grow thin; for i stole one of the loaves of bread and gave it to the poor women, who were glad enough to get it, i can tell you! but the steward found out my theft, and i was dismissed from the count's service. the poor women were turned out of their miserable hut. the mother froze to death,--for it was winter then,--and the daughter was left on my hands. we got a franciscan monk, whom we met in the forest, to marry us--which was a bad move for the girl, for no one would employ her, because she was my wife. so the forest became our home, hollow trees our shelter; and what a friend an old tree can become! well, to make a long story short, necessity very soon taught me how to take what belonged to others. i got used to the vagrant life. i could not sleep under a roof any more. i could n't live among men, and pull off my hat to my betters. when the little lad came into the world, i said to my wife: 'do you quit the forest, and look for work in some village. don't let the little one grow up to become a thief.' she did as i bade her; but the people who hired her always found out that she was the wife of satan laczi, and then they would not keep her, and she would have to come back to me in the forest. and that is where i shall end my days--in the forest. i am not good for anything any more; i could n't even plow a furrow any more. i shall end on the gallows--i feel it. i should have liked the life of a soldier, but they never would take me; they always said i would disgrace any regiment to which i might belong. yes, i would rather have been a soldier than anything else; but what is not to be will not be! i shall keep to my forest. i am obliged to the herr count for his good wishes and this delicious brandy." the robber placed the empty glass on the table, took up his hat, and walked with heavy steps toward the door. here he halted to say: "i must tell you that the touch-holes of all your firearms are filled with wax. have them cleaned, or you will not be able to shoot with them." the count rose, and hastened to convince himself that this statement was true. he found that his firearms had indeed been rendered useless; the robber had taken good care to protect himself from an attack. when vavel looked around again, satan laczi had disappeared. chapter iv the afternoon of the following day, henry entered the count's study to announce that a crazy person was below, who insisted on speaking to the lord of the castle. the stranger said he had invented a cannon that would at one shot destroy fifteen hundred men. he would take no denial, but insisted that henry should tell the herr count that master matyas had arrived. "yes; i sent for him to come here," answered the count. "show him up." the appearance of the man whom henry conducted to his master's presence was certainly original. he wore a costume unlike any prevailing fashion. his upper garment was so made that it might be worn either as a coat or a mantle; if sleeves were desired there were sleeves, and none if none were required. even his shoes were inventions of his own, for no regular shoemaker could have fashioned them. he held between the fingers of his right hand a bit of lead-pencil, with which he would illustrate what he described on the palm of his left hand. "you come in good time, master matyas," said the count. "yes--yes. if only i had been in good time at the battle of marengo!" sighed the singular man. "too late now for regrets of that sort, master matyas," smilingly responded count vavel. "facts cannot be changed! i have a task for you which i desire to have completed as quickly as possible. come, and i will show you what i want you to do." it was the hour marie spent in her garden; consequently the count was at liberty to conduct the jack of all trades to the young girl's apartment, and explain what he wished to have done. master matyas listened attentively to what the count said, and took the necessary measurements. when he had done so, he turned toward his patron, and said in a serious tone: "do you know why we lost the battle of marengo? because general gvozdanovics, when napoleon's cavalry made that famous assault, was not clever enough to order three men into every tree on that long avenue--two of the men to load the muskets, while the third kept up a continual fire. the french horsemen could not have ridden up the trees, and the entire troop of cavalry would have dropped under the continuous fire! the general certainly should have commanded: 'half battalion--half left! up the trees--forward!'" "that is true, master matyas," assented count vavel; "but i should like to know if you fully understand what i want you to do, and if you can do it?" master matyas's face brightened suddenly. "i 'll tell you what, herr count; if i succeed in doing what you want, i shall be able, if ever napoleon makes another attack on us, to pen him up, with his entire army, so securely that he won't be able to stir!" "i have no doubt of that!" again assented the count. "what i want, however, is a secure barrier that cannot be opened from the outside. pray understand me. i want this barrier made in such a manner that the person within the barricade will have sufficient light and air, but be invisible to any one outside, and be perfectly secure from intruders. could not you let me have a little drawing of what you propose to do?" "certainly"; and taking a small sketch-book from his pocket, master matyas proceeded to do as he was requested--first, however, explaining to the count a drawing of the cannon which would mow down at one shot fifteen hundred men. "you see," he explained, "here are two cannon welded together at the breech, with their muzzles ten degrees apart. but one touch-hole suffices for both. the balls are connected by a long chain, and when the cannon are fired off, the balls naturally fly in opposite directions and forward at the same time, and, stretching the chain, mow off the heads of every man jack with whom it comes in contact! fire! boom! heads off!" the count was perfectly satisfied with master matyas. he had found a man who fully understood his business, and who knew how to hold his tongue on all subjects but on that of his infernal machines, and of his stratagems to defeat napoleon. for two weeks master matyas labored diligently at his task in the nameless castle, during which time henry heard so much about warlike stratagems that his sides ached from the continued laughter. but when the villagers questioned master matyas about his work at the castle, they could learn nothing from him but schemes to capture the ever-victorious corsican. "herr count," one day observed henry, toward the close of the second week, "if i hear much more of master matyas's wonderful battles, i shall become as crazy as he is!" and the count replied: "you are crazy already, my good henry--and so am i!" at last the task was completed. count vavel was satisfied with the work master matyas had performed, and it only remained for marie to express herself satisfied with the arrangement which would barricade her every night as securely as were the treasures of the "green vault" in dresden. a few days afterward was marie's sixteenth birthday. count vavel had come to her apartments, as usual, to congratulate her, and to hear what her birthday wish might be. but the young girl, whose sparkling eyes had become veiled with melancholy, whose red lips had already learned to express sadness, had no commands to give to-day. after dinner the count, on some pretence, detained marie in the library while master matyas completed his task in her room. this masterpiece was a peculiar curtain composed of small squares of steel so joined together that light and air could easily penetrate the screen. it was fitted between the two marble columns which supported the arch of the bed-alcove. when the metal curtain was lowered, by means of a cord, two springs in the floor caught and held it so securely that it could not be lifted from the outside. to raise the screen the person in the alcove had only to touch a secret spring near the bed, when the screen would roll up of itself. "and hast thou no wish this year, marie?" asked the count, adopting, as usual on this anniversary, the familiar "thou." "yes, i have one, dear ludwig," replied the young girl, but with no brightening of the melancholy features. "i have lost something, but thou canst not give it back to me." "and what may this something be? what hast thou lost, marie? tell me." "my former sweet, sound sleep! and thou canst not buy me another in vienna or paris. i used to sleep so soundly. i used to be so fond of my sweet slumber that i could hardly wait to say my prayers, and often i would be in dreamland long before i got to the 'amen.' and if by any chance i awoke in the night and heard the clock strike, i would beg of it not to hurry along the hours so fast--i did not want morning to come so soon! but now that i have to sleep with locked doors, i lie awake often until midnight--terrified by i know not what. i dread to be so entirely alone when everything is so quiet; and when it is dark i feel as if some one were stealthily creeping about my room. when i hear a noise i wonder what it can be, and my heart beats so rapidly! then i draw the covers over my head to shut out all sound, and if i fall asleep thus i have such disagreeable dreams that i am glad when i waken again." count vavel gently took the young girl's hand in his. "suppose i could restore to thee thy former sweet slumber, marie? suppose i take up my old quarters on the lounge by the door?" the young girl gazed into his eyes as if she would penetrate his very soul. then she said sorrowfully: "no, dear ludwig; that would not restore my slumber." "then suppose i have thought of something that will? come with me, and see." she laid her hand on his arm, and went with him to her room. ludwig conducted her into the alcove, and stepped outside. "draw the cord which hangs at the head of the bed," he said, smiling at her wondering face. marie did as he bade her, and the metal screen unrolled, and was caught in the springs in the floor. "oh, how wonderful!" she exclaimed in amazement. "i am a prisoner in my own alcove." "only so long as you care to remain in your prison," returned count vavel. "no one can lift the screen from this side; but if you will press your foot on the little brass button in the floor at the foot of the column to your left, you will be at liberty again." the next instant master matyas's handiwork was rolled up to the ceiling. marie was filled with delight and astonishment. "there is another work of art connected with this wonderful mechanism," said the count, after marie had rolled and unrolled the screen several times. "the cord which releases the screen rings a bell in my room. when i hear the bell i shall know that you have retired; then i shall bring my books and papers into your room out yonder, and continue my work there. only enough light will penetrate the screen to the alcove to prevent utter darkness. you will not need to be afraid hereafter, and perhaps the sweet, sound sleep will return to you." marie did not offer to kiss her guardian for this birthday gift. she merely held out both hands, and gave his a clasp that was so close and warm that it said more than words or kisses. she waited impatiently for evening to test the working of her wonderful screen. she did not amuse herself with her cards, as usual, but went to bed at ten o'clock. at the same moment that the screen unrolled and was caught by the springs in the floor, count ludwig's footsteps were heard in the corridor. in one hand he carried a two-branched candlestick, in the other his pistol-case and ink-horn. his pen was between his lips; his books and papers were held under his arm. he seated himself at a table, and resumed his studies. marie would have been untrue to her sex had she not watched him for several minutes through her metal screen--watched and admired the superb head, supported on one hand as he bent intently over his book, the broad brow, the classical nose, the chin and lips of an achilles--all as motionless as if they had been molded in bronze. a true hero--a hero who battled with the most powerful demons of earth, the human passions, and conquered. from that day marie found her old sweet sleep again. the second day marie's curiosity prompted her to signal to ludwig half an hour earlier. he heard, and came as readily at half-past nine o'clock. and then the little maid (like all indulged children) abused her privileges: she signaled at nine o'clock, and at last at eight o'clock--retiring with the birds in order to test if ludwig would obey the signal. he always came promptly when the falling screen summoned him. and then marie said to herself: "he loves me. he loves me very much--as the fakir loves his brahma, as the carthusian loves his sainted virgin. that is how he loves me!" part v ange barthelmy chapter i so far as marie's safety from robbers was concerned, count vavel might now rest content. satan laczi's advice had been obeyed to the letter. but how about baroness landsknechtsschild? danger still threatened her. count vavel was seriously concerned about his fair neighbor, and wondered how he might communicate his extraordinary discovery to her. what could he do to warn her of the danger which still threatened her? should he call in person at the manor, and tell her of his interview with satan laczi? a propitious chance came to count vavel's aid in his perplexity. one afternoon the sound of a trumpet drew him to his window. on looking out, he beheld a division of cavalry riding along the highway toward the village. they were dragoons, as their glistening helmets indicated. when the troop drew near to the village, the band struck up a lively mazurka, and to this spirited march the soldiers made their entry into fertöszeg. ludwig could see through his telescope how the men were quartered in the houses in the village; and in the evening, after the retreat had been sounded, he also saw that the windows of the hitherto unused wing of the manor were brilliantly illuminated. evidently the officers in command of the troop had taken up their quarters there, which was proper. the armed guard on duty at the manor gates verified this supposition. count vavel might now feel perfectly sure that no robbers would attempt to break into the manor; they were too cunning to come prowling about a place where cavalry officers were quartered. and with the arrival of the troop another danger had been averted. now baroness katharina would not break into the nameless castle and despoil count vavel of something which satan laczi could not, with all his cunning, have restored to him--his heart! count ludwig did not trouble himself further about the manor. he was convinced that enough gallant cavalrymen were over yonder to entertain the fair mistress, so that she would no longer wait for any more tiresome philosophizing from him. every evening he could hear the band playing on the veranda of the manor, and very often, too, the merry dance-music, which floated from the open windows until a late hour of the night. they were enjoying themselves over yonder, and they were right in so doing. how did all this concern him? in one respect, however, the soldiers taking up their quarters in fertöszeg concerned him: they exercised daily on the same road over which it was his custom to take his daily drive with marie. in order to avoid meeting them, he was obliged to change the hour to noon, when the soldiers would be at dinner. several days after the arrival of the troop at fertöszeg, the officer in command paid a visit at the nameless castle--a courtesy required from one who was familiar with the usages of good society. at the door, however, he was told by the groom that count vavel was not at home. he left his card, which henry at once delivered to his master, who was in his study. the card bore the name: "vicomte leon barthelmy, k. k., colonel of cavalry." count vavel tried to remember where he had heard the name before, but without success. he quieted his dread which this act of ceremony had aroused in him by the thought that it contained no further significance than the conventional courtesy which a stranger felt himself called upon to pay to a resident. the call would, of course, have to be returned. from his observatory count vavel informed himself at what hour the colonel betook himself to the exercise-ground, and chose that time to make his visit. naturally he found the colonel absent, and left a card for him. a few days afterward colonel barthelmy again alighted from his horse at the door of the nameless castle, and again met with a disappointment--the herr count was not at home to visitors; he was engaged, and had given orders not to be disturbed. again the troop's commander left his card, determining to remain indoors at the manor until the return visit had been paid, which would have to be done within twenty-four hours if no rudeness were intended. he was not a little astonished to find, on returning to the manor, that count vavel had left a card for him with the porter. such promptness perplexed the colonel. how had the count managed to reach the manor before he did? the porter informed him that the gentleman from the nameless castle had rowed across the cove, which was a much shorter way than by the carriage-road around the shore. the colonel now determined to prove that he was an obstinate and persistent admirer of the occupant of the nameless castle. he paid a third visit at eight o'clock the next evening. this time henry informed the visitor that the count had gone to bed. "is he ill?" inquired the colonel. "no; this is his usual hour for retiring." "but how can a man who is not ill go to bed at eight o'clock?" and again he handed henry a card. this visit count vavel returned the next morning at three o'clock. at this hour, as may be supposed, every soul in the manor was still sound asleep. only the guards on watch at the gate demanded: "halt! who comes there?" on learning that the intruder was a "friend," they allowed him to waken the porter, who thrust his frowzy head from the half-open door to ask, in surprise, what was wanted. "is the herr colonel at home?" inquired count vavel. "yes, your lordship; but he is in bed." "is he ill?" "no, your lordship; but he is in bed, of course, at this hour." "why, how can a man who is not ill stay in bed until three o'clock?" the count turned over a corner of his card, and handed it to the porter. this, at last, the colonel understood, and left no more cards at the nameless castle. * * * * * the officers quartered at the manor were agreeable companions. vicomte leon barthelmy was a true courtier, a brave soldier, an entertaining comrade, and a generous master. even his enemies would have admitted that his manners were irresistible in the salon, as well as on the battle-field. every one knew that colonel barthelmy was a married man--that he had a wife with whom, however, he did not live, but from whom he had not been divorced. susceptible feminine hearts did not risk a flirtation with the fascinating soldier, being forewarned by the canonical laws of the church, which forbade more intimate relations. there was no need to fear for so prudent and discreet a woman as the baroness katharina landsknechtsschild. her principles were very sound, and firmly grounded. she permitted no familiarities beyond a certain limit, but made no coy pretence of avoiding innocent amusements. her affable treatment of the officers was easily explained. she had not received the gentlemen residing in the neighborhood, because they would very soon have visited the manor with a special object--they would have come as suitors for her hand. she would have been compelled to reject such offers, and would have given rise to all sorts of gossip. moreover, these country magnates were tiresome persons; for, when they were once gathered about a gaming-table, the four ladies in a pack of cards engrossed so much of their attention that they had no thought for any of the living women about them. the sons of mars, on the contrary, were devoted entirely to the service of the fair sex. many of the officers' wives accompanied the regiment, and these helped to make up the quadrille, the mazurka, the redowa,--at that time the latest dance,--and every day saw a merry gathering of revelers. one day there would be a series of entertaining games; another day there would be a play on a hastily improvised stage, in which the baroness herself would take a part, and win well-deserved applause by her graceful and artistic acting. there were several skilled amateur jugglers among the merry company, who would give performances _à la_ bosko and philadelphia; and others would delight the audience with the wonderful scenes of a magic lantern. once the baroness arranged a chase, and herself joined in the hunt after the pheasants and deer on her estate, proving herself a skilled amazon in the saddle and in the management of her rifle. then, the officers improvised a horse-race; and once they even got up a circus, in which all look part. count vavel, in his tower, was an interested spectator of many of these amusements. there had been a time when he, too, had taken part in and enjoyed just such sports. he was a lover of the chase and of horse-racing. no one knew better than he the keen delights of a clean vault over ditches and hedges. if only he might join the merry company down yonder, _he_ could show them some riding! and as for hunting? he could spend whole days on the mountains, clambering after the fleet-footed chamois, following the larger game through morass and forest. he had grown up amid exhilarating sports such as these. and the dance-music! how alluring were the strains! and how often through the day he found himself humming the melodies which had floated to him from the open windows of the manor! once he, too, had taken pleasure in jesting with fair women until their white shoulders would shake with merry laughter. and all this he must look upon and hear at a distance, since he had made himself his own jailer! * * * * * during these weeks marie was very restless. the sound of the trumpets startled her; the unusual noises terrified her. she whose nightly slumbers had been guarded from the barking of dogs and the crowing of fowls now was obliged to listen half the night to clarionet, horn, and piccolo, and to wonder what these people could be doing that they kept their music going until such late hours. one circumstance, however, reconciled marie to the excitement of these days: ludwig spent more time with her; and though his face was as stern as ever, she could not detect in it the melancholy which cannot be concealed from the eyes of the woman who can look into the depths, of the soul. chapter ii at last, one day late in the autumn, count vavel received from his correspondent, herr mercatoris, the information that the dragoon regiment was going to change its quarters, and that the departure from fertöszeg would be celebrated by various amusements, among them a regatta with colored lanterns on the lake and magnificent fireworks on the shore. "we shall manage somehow to live through it," was the count's mental comment on the news. he knew marie's horror of fire--how she suffered with terror when she saw a conflagration, no matter how distant. she was even afraid of the rockets and paper dragons which were used at the celebration at the conclusion of the grape harvest every year. on the evening of the merrymaking marie was afraid to go to bed. she begged ludwig to close the blinds and to read to her in a loud voice, so that she might not see the light of the fireworks or hear the tumult on the lake shore. that which amused the revellers at the manor was a terror for this timid child. and that they were amusing themselves over at the manor was beyond a doubt. the program for the evening's entertainment was a varied one. colonel barthelmy was in the gayest of humors. the surprise of the evening was to conclude the entertainment, and was called on the program "the militiaman." every one in the audience expected that colonel barthelmy, who had arranged this part of the entertainment, would produce something extremely amusing. the reality surpassed all expectations. the figure conducted on to the stage by the colonel was no other than the little water-monster, baroness katharina's protégé. he was clad in the uniform of a soldier, with a wooden sword and gun, a hat decorated with crane-feathers, a canteen at his side, and a knapsack on his back. an enormous false mustache extended from ear to ear, and a short-stemmed pipe was thrust between his lips. "this, gentlemen and ladies, is a militiaman." the colonel was interrupted by a burst of merriment from his audience. even the baroness laughed immoderately, but suppressed it hastily when she remembered the telescope on the tower of the nameless castle. "poor little fellow!" she murmured, with difficulty keeping her face straight. "attention!" called the colonel, snapping the whip he held in his hand. "what does the militiaman do when he is in a good humor?" a bagpipe behind the curtain now began to play a familiar air, whereupon the little monster first touched his finger to his hat, then slapped his thighs with both hands, and lifted first one foot, then the other. the baroness hid with her fan that side of her face which was toward the neighboring castle, and joined in the uproarious laughter. "you see, gracious baroness," continued the colonel, "that i have accomplished what i determined i would do--made quite a man of the little fellow." he snapped his whip again, and called sharply: "now let the militiaman show us what he does when he is in an ill humor." the bagpipe struck up a different air. the dwarf muttered something unintelligible into his mustache, and grimaced hideously. then he took from his tobacco-pouch flint, tinder, and steel, and struck fire in the proper manner; he thrust the burning tinder into his pipe, and pressed it down with his finger. tremendous applause rewarded this exhibition. "do you see, gracious baroness, what a complete man he is become? he can even strike fire and light a pipe!" by this time the gnome began to understand that his antics amused the audience, and he, too, enjoyed them. for the first time an emotion was expressed on his stolid countenance; but it was not an agreeable transformation. the corners of his mouth widened until they reached his ears, which stood still farther out from his head; he closed one eye, and opened the other to its farthest extent; and pressing the stem of his pipe more firmly between his teeth, he blew the smoke and fire from the bowl like a miniature volcano. the thicker the smoke and sparks came from the pipe, the more furious became the strange creature's glee, while the entire company shouted and clasped their hands. even the colonel himself was amazed at the performance of his dull pupil. "why have we not a hogarth among us to perpetuate this caricature?" he exclaimed delightedly. "horrible! i cannot bear to look at him," said the baroness, holding her fan in front of her face. "pray take him away, herr colonel--take him away." "presently. ho, there, my little man! what does the militiaman do when he sees the enemy?" the whip snapped, and the bagpipe set up a discordant shriek, upon which the actor sprang with one bound from the stage, and vanished behind the curtain, wooden sword and gun clattering after him, while the audience showered applause on the successful instructor. "herr colonel," observed the baroness, when quiet had been restored, "i am very much afraid that your instructions will cause me some trouble in the future." "why, how so?" in surprise questioned the colonel. "you have taught a wild creature to kindle a fire, and thus aroused in him a dangerous passion. his desire to amuse himself with the dangerous element will develop into a mania, and he will end by setting fire to houses and other buildings." "i will tell you what to do, baroness. in order that the little monster may not play his tricks about here, give him to me; i will take him with me." "no; i had rather keep him here. i shall take good care, however, that he does not get hold of tinder and flint, and have him constantly watched. you have quite ruined my system of education. _i_ taught him to kneel and fold his hands to the music of the organ; _you_ taught him to dance and grimace to the drone of the bagpipe. you have even accustomed him to drink wine, which is unchristian." the company laughed at this harmless anger. then came the fireworks. when the roman candles and the fire-wheels illumined the darkness, it became impossible to control the little monster. he rushed into the thickest of the rain of fire, and tried to catch the red and blue stars in his hands. the sparks burned holes in his clothes, and he would not have escaped a severe burning himself had not some one thrown a pail of water over him. it was impossible to restrain him. he struck out with hands and feet, and bit at any one who attempted to prevent him from running into the fire. suddenly a rocket shot in an oblique direction, and dropped into the lake. when the human beast saw this he uttered a yell, and dashed into the water. he thought that the beautiful fire belonged to him because it had fallen into his lake, and he went to hunt for it. he did not return. the baroness had search made for him; but he knew so well how to escape his pursuers that he was not seen again at the manor. the next morning, while yet the stars were glittering in the sky, the trumpets sounded the departure of the regiment. the sounds were familiar to count vavel. even yet, when the blare of trumpets roused him from sleep, he felt as if he must hasten to the stable, saddle his horse, and buckle on his sword. but those days were past. his trusty war-horse had become used to the carriage-pole, and the keen toledo blades were drawn from their scabbards only when they were to be oiled to prevent the rust from corroding them. the departure of the troops removed one care from count ludwig's mind: the noise and turmoil would cease, and peace would again return to the silent neighborhood. one morning when frau schmidt brought her basket, as usual, to the castle, there was a letter in it for the count. he recognized the hand at once; it was from his fair neighbor at the manor. "herr count: as i have something of the utmost importance to communicate to you, i beg that you will receive a call from me this morning before you take your usual drive. answer when it will be convenient for you to see me." what did it mean? something of the utmost importance? why could she not have asked him to come to the manor? the count was puzzled. and how was he to answer this most singular request? he could not write it himself; was it not said that he was unable to hold a pen? he could not dictate the letter to marie appointing a meeting with the baroness. henry was a very shrewd fellow, but he had never learned to write. at last count vavel bethought him of an expedient. he marked on the back of his card the roman numerals xi, and trusted that the baroness would understand that she was expected at eleven o'clock. when the appointed hour drew near, curiosity began to torture the count. he could not wait indoors, but hurried into the park, where he paced restlessly to and fro amid the fallen leaves. he listened anxiously to every sound, and consulted his watch every few minutes. at last the gate bell rang. he hastened to admit the visitor, and found that the baroness had understood his reply. he recognized her figure, for the face was closely veiled. she wore a pale-blue silk gown with wide sleeves--marie's favorite costume. "it is i, herr count," she said in a low tone, looking anxiously about her. "how did you come? i did not hear the carriage," said count vavel. "i rowed across the cove--alone, because no one must know that i came. can any one see us here?" "no one." "we need not go into the house," she continued; "i can tell you here why i came." ludwig was more and more perplexed. he had believed the baroness wished to enter the nameless castle out of curiosity. "my visit," pursued the lady, "has as little conventionality about it as had yours. the magnitude of the danger which prompted yours must also excuse mine; i am come to repay the debt i owe you." "danger?" repeated the count. "yes; danger threatens you--and some one else! let us come farther into the park, that no one may by a possible chance overhear me." when they had reached a sheltered spot the lady again spoke: "do you know anything about colonel barthelmy?" "i received the cards he left here when he called," indifferently replied count vavel. "you certainly have heard more about him," returned the baroness, a trifle impatiently. "his domestic troubles were in all the newspapers--it was a _cause célèbre_. he was a major in the french army, under the directory, but entered our service when the empire was established. the domestic troubles i referred to occurred while he was still in france. his young and beautiful wife ran away with another man--a man who is unknown to barthelmy, who is pursuing the fugitives over the whole world--" "ah! i remember now reading something about it. that is why his name seemed familiar to me." "i thought you must have heard something about him," responded the baroness, in a peculiar tone. then, with a sudden movement, she seized his hand and whispered: "and you are the unknown who abducted colonel barthelmy's wife." "i?" in boundless amazement ejaculated the count. then he laughed heartily. "yes, you; and you are living here in seclusion with the lovely woman whose face no one is permitted to see." ludwig ceased laughing, and replied very seriously; "gracious baroness, were i the person you believe me to be, i should have been glad to meet the man who compelled me to live here in seclusion. a skilful sword-thrust or a well-aimed bullet would have released me from this prison." "and yet, everybody believes count vavel to be ange barthelmy's lover," responded the baroness. "do _you_ believe it, baroness?" "i? perhaps--not. but colonel barthelmy believes it all the more firmly because you refused to see him." "and suppose he had seen me?" "he would have asked you to introduce him to your--family." "then he would have learned that i have no family." "but you could not have refused to tell him what relation you bear to the lady at the castle." "my answer would have been very brief had he asked the question," was the count's grim response. "i know what men mean by a 'brief' answer; the result is usually fatal." "and does your ladyship imagine that i fear such a result?" "so far as courage is concerned, i should not give any one precedence to count vavel. a regular duel, however, requires more than courage. colonel barthelmy is a soldier by profession; you are a philosopher who lives amid his studies, and whose right hand is unable to hold a pen, let alone a sword or a pistol!" count vavel was touched on the spot where men are most susceptible. "who can tell whether i have always been a studious hermit?" he demanded proudly. "besides, might it not be that my hand is unable only when i don't want to use it?" "that may be," retorted the lady. "but barthelmy, who is perfectly insane on the subject of his wife's infamy, would have the advantage of you. he is suspicious of every stranger; and of all the gossip which environs you, the legend of that elopement is the mildest." "indeed? this is very flattering! probably i am also said to be a counterfeiter?" "i am not jesting, herr count. while colonel barthelmy was my guest i was able to prevent him from taking any aggressive steps toward you; this is why you did not hear from him again after his last call on you--" "i certainly am greatly indebted to you," interrupted count vavel, with visible irony. "you owe me no thanks, herr count. when a woman tries to prevent a quarrel between two men, she does so, believe me, out of pure self-love. the emotions which electrify your nerves torment ours. i could not have continued to live here had a tragic occurrence made the place memorable. that is why i prevented an encounter between you and the colonel; so you need not thank me. however, the evening before the regiment took its departure the colonel said to me: 'i have kept my word to you, baroness; but to-morrow i cease to be your guest. i shall take steps then to learn if the mysterious lady at the nameless castle be ange barthelmy or some one else.'" at these words a deep flush crimsoned count vavel's face. "i should like to know how he proposes to settle that question?" he said, in a voice that trembled with suppressed rage. "i will tell you. just listen to the ridiculous plan which the man betrayed in his fury. he is quartered in the neighboring village to the edge of which you and a certain person drive every day. he is going to rise, with several friends, along the road; and when he meets your carriage, he is going to stop it, introduce himself, and demand if the lady by your side be mme. ange barthelmy." count vavel clenched his hands and closed his lips tightly. after a brief struggle he regained command of himself, and said quietly: "i shall, of course, reply: 'on my word as a man of honor, this lady is not ange barthelmy.'" "but if that does not satisfy him? suppose he should insist on seeing the lady? suppose he even attempts to lift the lady's veil?" "then he dies!" the count gave utterance to these words in a tone that sounded more like the growl of a lion that has the neck of his prey between his teeth. "he is capable, in his present mood, of doing anything rash," murmured the baroness, with an expression of terror in her eyes. "and i am capable of an equally rash act," responded the count. "i believe it; i have heard of such courage before. but _you_ must not forget that you do not belong to yourself; there is some one else you must think of before you risk your life." count vavel started violently; he opened his lips as if to speak, but the baroness quickly raised her hand and interposed. "i am not trying to pry into your secret, herr count; i am no spy--you must have seen that ere this. all i know is that there is under your protection a woman to whom you are everything, and who will have no one should she lose you." "but what can i do?" in desperation exclaimed count vavel. "i cannot hide in my castle until colonel barthelmy leaves the neighborhood. would you have me confess to all the world that i am a coward?" "let me advise you, herr count," with sudden resolution responded the baroness. "turn this matter, which you look upon as a tragedy, into a capital jest. take _me_ to drive with you to-day instead of your--friend." count vavel suddenly burst into a loud laugh--from extreme anger to unrestrained merriment. but the baroness did not laugh with him. "i am in earnest, count vavel. now you will understand why i came here this morning." she drew her veil over her face, and asked: "am i enough like her to take her place in the carriage?" count vavel was astounded. the likeness to marie was perfect. the gown, the hat, and veil were exactly like those marie was wont to wear when she drove out with him. the daring suggestion, however, amazed him more than anything else. "what! you, baroness? you would really venture to drive with me? have you thought of the risk--the danger to yourself?" "i have given it as much thought as did you when you risked coming to the manor with nothing but a walking-stick to battle with four thieves. one ought not stop to think of the risk when a danger is to be averted. this adventure may end as harmlessly as the other." "and suppose the colonel should by any chance see your face? no, no, baroness; there is no comparison between my venture and this plan you propose. if i had had an encounter with those thieves i might have received a wound that would soon have healed; but your pure reputation as a woman might receive a wound that would never heal." a bitter smile wreathed the lady's lips as she replied: "could any wound that i might receive increase the burden on my heart?" she laughed harshly, then asked suddenly: "perhaps you are afraid the colonel will think i am the mysterious lady of the nameless castle?" count vavel's face reddened to the roots of his hair. again the lady laughed, then said apologetically: "pardon me, but the idea amused me. but, to return to colonel barthelmy, he is going very shortly to italy with his regiment; therefore, i need not care what fables he thinks of me--or repeats. the few persons whose opinion i care for will not believe him; as for the others--pah! come, your hand on it! let us perpetrate this joke. if _i_ am willing to run the risk, you surely need not hesitate." and yet he hesitated. "don't speak of this plan of yours as a mischievous trick, baroness," he said earnestly. "it is a great, a noble sacrifice--so great, indeed, that living woman could not perform a greater--to be willing to blush with shame while innocent. she who blushes for her love does not suffer; but to flush with shame out of friendship must be a torture like that endured by martyrs." "very well, then; let it be a sacrifice--as you will! i am a willing victim! i owe you a debt of gratitude; i want to pay it. now go and order the carriage; i will wait here for you." every drop of blood in his body rebelled against his accepting this offer. a woman rescue a strong man from a threatened danger! and at what a risk! "well," a trifle impatiently exclaimed the baroness, as he still lingered, "are n't you going to fetch your cloak? i am ready for the drive." without another word the count turned and strode toward the castle. marie was satisfied with the excuse he made for not taking her with him as usual: he said he had urgent business in the neighboring village, and would have to drive there alone. then he ordered henry to harness the horses to the carriage, and drive down to the gate, where he would await him. he found the baroness waiting for him where he had left her. "well," she began, when he came near enough to hear her, "have you decided to take me with you?" "no." "then you are going to take the lady?" "no." "not? then who is going with you?" "these two pistols," replied the count, flinging back his cloak and revealing the weapons thrust into his pocket. "with these two companions i am going to meet the gentleman who is so determined to see the face of the veiled lady. i shall show him a lady whose face is not a subject of gossip." the baroness uttered a cry of terror, and seized count vavel's hand. "no, no; you shall not go alone. listen. i was prepared for just such a decision on your part, so i wrote this letter. if you persist in going alone to meet the colonel, i shall hurry back to the manor, send my groom on the swiftest horse i own with this letter to colonel barthelmy. read it." she unfolded the letter she had taken from her pocket, and held it so that count vavel might read, without taking it in his hands: "herr colonel: you need not seek mme. ange barthelmy at the nameless castle. the veiled lady seen in company with count vavel is "b. katharina landsknechtsschild." in speechless amazement count vavel looked down at the baroness, who calmly folded the letter and returned it to her pocket. "now you may go if you like," she said coolly, "and i, too, shall do as _i_ like! the colonel will then have written proof to justify him in dragging my name in the dust!" the count gazed long and earnestly into the lovely face turned defiantly toward him. what was said by those glowing eyes, what was expressed by those lips trembling with excitement, could not be mere sport. there is only one name for the emotion which urges a woman to risk so much for a man; and if count vavel guessed the name, then there was nothing for him to do but offer his arm to the lady and say: "come, baroness, we will go together." when the count assisted his veiled companion into the carriage, and took his seat by her side, not even henry could have told that it was not his young mistress from the castle who was going to drive, as usual, with her guardian. it was with a singular feeling that count vavel looked at the woman beside him, to whom he was bound for one hour by the strongest, most dangerous of ties. only for one hour! for this one hour the woman belonged to him as wholly, as entirely as the soul belongs to the living human being. and afterward? afterward she would be no more to him than is the vanished soul to the dead human being. the carriage had arrived at the boundary of the neighboring village, where the usual turn was made for the homeward drive, and they had not yet seen any one. had colonel barthelmy's words been merely an idle threat? henry knew that he was not to drive beyond this point; he mechanically turned the horses' heads in the homeward direction, as he had done every day for years. on the return drive the carriage always stopped at the edge of the forest, where a shaded path led through the dense shrubbery to a cleared space some distance from the highway. this was the spot for their daily promenade. the count and his companion had gone but a short distance along the path when they saw coming toward them three men in uniform. they were cavalry officers. the two in the rear had on white cloaks; the one in front was without, an outer garment--merely his close-fitting uniform coal. "that is barthelmy," whispered the baroness, pressing the arm on which she was leaning. the count's expression of calm indifference did not change. he walked with a firm step toward the approaching officers. very soon they stood face to face. the colonel was a tall, distinguished-looking man; he carried his head well upright, and every movement spoke of haughty self-confidence and pride. "herr count vavel, i believe?" he began, halting in front of ludwig and his companion. "allow me to introduce myself; i am colonel vicomte leon barthelmy." count vavel murmured something which gave the colonel to understand that he (the count) was very glad to learn the gentleman's name. "i have long desired to make your acquaintance," continued the colonel (his companions had halted several paces distant). "i was so unfortunate as not to find you at home the three calls i made at your castle. now, however, i shall take this opportunity to say to you what i wanted to say then. first, however, let me introduce my friends,"--waving his hand toward the two officers,--"captain kriegeisen and lieutenant zagodics, of emperor alexander's dragoons." count vavel again gave utterance to his pleasure on making the acquaintance of the colonel's friends. then he said courteously: "in what way can i serve you, herr colonel?" "in a very simple manner, herr count," responded the colonel. "i have had the peculiar misfortune which sometimes overtakes a married man; my wife deceived me, and ran away with her lover, whom i do not even know. as mine is not one of those phlegmatic natures which can meekly tolerate such an indignity, i am searching for the fugitives--for what purpose i fancy you can guess. for four years my quest has been fruitless; i have been unable to find a trace of the guilty pair. a lucky chance at last led me to this secluded corner of the earth, and here i learned that--but, to be brief, herr count, i owe it to my heart and to my honor to ask you this question: is not this lady by your side, who is always closely veiled, ange barthelmy, my wife?" "herr vicomte leon de barthelmy," calmly replied count vavel, "i give you my word of honor as a cavalier that this lady never was your wife." the colonel laughed in a peculiar manner. "your word of honor, herr count, would be entirely satisfactory in all other questions save those relating to the fair sex--and to war. you will excuse me, therefore, if i take the liberty to doubt your assertion in this case, and request you to prove that my suspicions are at fault. without this proof i will not move from this spot." "then i am very sorry for you, herr colonel," returned count vavel, "but i shall be compelled to leave you and your suspicions in possession of this spot." he made as if he would pass onward; but the colonel politely but with decision barred the path. "i must request that you wait a little longer, herr count," he said, his face darkening. "and why should i?" demanded the count. "to convince me that the lady on your arm is not my wife," was the reply, in an excited tone. "you will have to remain unconvinced," in an equally excited tone retorted count vavel; and for a brief instant it was a question which of the two enraged men would strike the first blow. the threatening scene was suddenly concluded by the baroness, who flung back her veil, exclaiming: "here, colonel barthelmy, you may convince yourself that i am _not_ your wife." leon barthelmy started in amazement, and hastily laid his hand against his lips as if to repress the words which had rushed to them. then he bowed with exaggerated courtesy, and said: "i most humbly beg your pardon, herr count vavel. this lady is _not_ ange barthelmy. these gentlemen are witnesses that i have asked your pardon in the proper form." the colonel's companions, who had come hastily forward at the threatened conflict between their superior and the count, were gazing in a peculiar manner at the lady whose hospitality they had so lately enjoyed. colonel barthelmy also, although he bowed with elaborate courtesy before the baroness, cast upon her a glance that was full of insulting scorn. the situation had changed so rapidly--as when a sudden flash of lightning illumines the darkness of night; and like the electric flash a light sped into vavel's heart and illumined it with a delicious, a heavenly warmth that made it throb madly. but only for an instant. then he realized that this woman who had dared everything for his sake had been insulted by the glance of scorn and derision. he had now lost all control of himself. he snatched a pistol from his pocket, directed the muzzle toward colonel barthelmy's sneering face, and said in a voice that quivered with savage fury: "i demand that you beg this lady's pardon." "you do?" coolly returned the colonel, still smiling, and gazing calmly into the muzzle of the pistol. "yes--or i will blow out your brains!" the two officers accompanying the colonel drew their swords. the baroness uttered a cry of terror, and flung herself on vavel's breast. "i presume you will allow me to inquire, first, what relation this lady bears to you?" colonel barthelmy asked the question in measured tones; and without an instant's hesitation came count vavel's reply: "the lady is my betrothed wife." the sneer vanished from the colonel's lips, and the swords of his companions were returned to their scabbards. "i hasten to apologize," said the colonel. "accept, madame, my deepest reverence, and do not refuse to forgive the insulting scorn my ignorance caused me to express. permit me to convince you of my sincere homage, by this salute." he bent his head and pressed his lips to one of the lady's hands, which were clasped about count vavel's arm. then, with his helmet still in his hand, he turned to count vavel, and added: "are you satisfied?" "yes," was the curt reply. "then let us shake hands--without malice. accept my sincerest congratulations. to you, baroness, i give thanks for the lesson you have taught me this morning." he bowed once more, then stepped to one side, indicating that the way was clear. the baroness drew her veil over her face, and, clinging tremblingly to the arm of her escort, walked by his side back to the highway, the three officers following at a respectful distance. when they emerged from the forest they saw the three horses which had been left by the colonel and his companions in charge of the grooms. henry must have told the gentlemen where to find his master. with what different emotions count vavel returned to the castle! the dreamer in his slumbers had given utterance to words which betrayed what he had been dreaming, and he compelled the vision to abide with him even after he had wakened. he felt that he had the right to do what he had done. this woman loved him as only a woman can love; and what he had done had only been his duty, for he loved her! what he had said was no falsehood--the words had not been forced from him merely to preserve her honor; they were the truth. count vavel stopped the carriage at the park gate, assisted his companion to alight, and sent henry on to the castle with the horses. "what have you done?" in a deeply agitated voice exclaimed the baroness, when they were alone in the park. "i gave expression to the feeling which is in my heart." "and do you realize what that has done?" "what has it done?" "it has made it impossible for us to meet again--for us ever to speak again to each other." "i cannot see it in that light." "you could were you to give it but a moment's serious thought. i do not ask what the mysterious lady at the castle is to you; i know, however, that you must be everything to her. pray don't believe me cruel enough to rob her of her whole world. i cannot ask you to believe a lie--i cannot pretend that you are nothing to me. i have allowed you to look too deeply into my heart to deny my feelings. but there is something besides love in my heart! it is pride. i am too proud to take you from the woman to whom you are bound--no matter by what ties. therefore, we must not meet again in this life; we may meet again in another world! pray do not come any farther with me; i can easily find the way to my boat. no one at the manor knows of my absence. i must be careful to return as i came--unseen. and now, one request: do not try to see me again. should you do so, it will compel me to flee from the neighborhood. adieu!" she drew her veil closer over her face, and passed swiftly with noiseless steps through the gateway. ludwig vavel stood where she had left him, and looked after her until she vanished from his sight amid the trees. then he turned and walked slowly toward the castle. chapter iii count vavel did not see marie, after his return from the drive with the baroness, until dinner. he had not ventured into her presence until then, when he fancied he had sufficiently mastered his emotions so that his countenance would not betray him. the consciousness of his disloyalty to the young girl troubled him, and he could not help but tremble when he came into her presence. it was not permitted to him to bestow his heart on any one. did he not belong, soul and body, to this innocent creature, whom he had sworn to defend with his life? from that hour, however, marie's behavior toward him was changed. he could see that she strove to be attentive and obedient, but she was shy and reserved. did she suspect the change in him? or could it be possible that she had seen the baroness driving with him? it was very late when her bell signaled that she had retired, and when ludwig entered the outer room, as usual, he found a number of books lying about on the table. evidently the young girl had been studying. the next morning ludwig came at the usual hour to conduct her to the carriage. "thank you, but i don't care to drive to-day," she said. "why not?" "riding out in a carriage does not benefit me." "when did you discover this?" "some time ago." ludwig looked at her in astonishment. what was the meaning of this? could she know that some one else had occupied her place in the carriage yesterday? "and will you not go with me to-morrow?" "if you will allow me, i shall stay at home." "is anything the matter with you, marie?" "nothing. i don't like the jolting of the carriage." "then i shall sell the horses." "it might be well to do so--if you don't want them for your own use. i shall take my exercise in the garden." "and in the winter?" "then i will promenade in the court, and make snow images, as the farmers' children do." and the end of the matter was that ludwig sold the horses, and marie's outdoor exercises were restricted to the garden. moreover, she studied and wrote all day long. when she went into the garden, josef, the gardener's boy, was sent elsewhere so long as she chose to remain among the flowers. one afternoon josef had been sent, as usual, to perform some task in the park while marie promenaded in the garden. he was busily engaged raking together the fallen leaves, when marie suddenly appeared by his side, and said breathlessly: "please take this letter." the youth, who was speechless with astonishment and confusion at sight of the lady he had been forbidden to look at, slowly extended his hand to comply with her request when count vavel, who had swiftly approached, unseen by either the youth or marie, with one hand seized the letter, and with the other sent josef flying across the sward so rapidly that he fell head over heels into some shrubbery. then the count thrust the letter into his pocket, and without a word drew the young girl's hand through his arm, and walked swiftly with her into the castle. the count conducted his charge into the library. he had not yet spoken a word. his face was startlingly pale with anger and terror. when they two were alone within the four walls of the library, he said, fixing a reproachful glance on her: "you were going to send a letter to some one?" the young girl calmly returned his glance, but did not open her lips. "to whom are you writing, marie?" marie smiled sadly, and drooped her head. vavel then drew the letter from his pocket, and read the address: "to our beautiful and kind-hearted neighbor." the count looked up in surprise. "you are writing to baroness landsknechtsschild!" he exclaimed, not without some confusion. "i did not know her name; that is why i addressed it so." vavel turned the letter in his hands, and saw that the seal had been stamped with the crest which was familiar to all the world. he hurriedly crushed it into bits, and, unfolding the letter, read: "dear, beautiful, and good lady: i want you to love my ludwig. make him happy. he is a good man. i am nothing at all to him. "marie." when he had read the touching epistle, he buried his face in his hands, and a bitter sob burst from his tortured heart. marie looked sorrowfully at his quivering frame, and sighed heavily. "oh, marie! to think you should write this! nothing at all to me!" murmured the young man, in a choking voice. "'nothing at all,'" in a low tone repeated marie. vavel moved swiftly to her side, and, looking down upon her with his burning eyes still filled with tears, asked in an unsteady voice: "what do you want, marie? tell me what you wish me to do." marie softly took his hand in both her own, and said tremulously: "i want you to give me a companion--a mother. i want some one to love,--a woman that i can love,--one who will love me and command me. i will be an obedient and dutiful daughter to such a woman. i will never grieve her, never disobey her. i am so very, very lonely!" "and am not i, too, alone and lonely, marie?" sadly responded vavel. "yes, yes. i know that, ludwig. it is your pale, melancholy face that oppresses me and makes me sad. day after day i see the pale face which my cruel, curse-laden destiny has buried here with me. i know that you are unhappy, and that i am the cause of it." "for heaven's sake, marie! who has given you such fancies?" "the long, weary nights! oh, how much i have learned from the darkness! it was not merely caprice that prompted me to ask you once what death meant. had you questioned me more fully then, i should have confessed something to you. that time, when you rescued me from death, you gave my name to sophie botta, who also took upon herself my fate. i don't know what became of her. if she died in my stead, may god comfort her! if she still lives, may god bless and help her to reign in my stead! but give me the name of sophie botta; give me the clothes of a working-girl; give me god's free world, which she enjoyed. let me become sophie botta in reality, and let me wash clothes with the washerwomen at the brook. if sophie and i exchanged lives, let the exchange become real. let me learn what it is to live, or--let me learn what it is to die." in speechless astonishment count vavel had listened to this passionate outburst. it was the first time he had ever heard the gentle girl speak so excitedly. "madame," he said with peculiar intonation, when she had ceased speaking, "i am now convinced that i am the guardian of the most precious treasure on this terrestrial ball. henceforward i shall watch over you with redoubled care." "that will be unnecessary," proudly returned the young girl. "if you wish to feel certain that i will patiently continue to abide in this nameless castle, then make a home here for me--bring some happiness into these rooms. if i see that you are happy i shall be content." "marie, marie, the day of my perfect happiness only awaits the dawn of your own! and that yours will come i firmly believe. but don't look for it here, marie. don't ask for impossibilities. marie, were my own mother, whom i worshiped, still living, i could not bring her within these walls to learn our secret." "the woman who loves will not betray a secret." for an instant ludwig did not reply; then he said: "and if it were true that some one loves me as you fancy, could i ask her to bury herself here--here where there is no intercourse with the outside world? no, no, marie; we cannot expect any one else to become an occupant of this tomb--the gates of which will not open until the trump of deliverance sounds." "and will it be long before that trump sounds, ludwig?" "i believe--nay, i know it must come very soon. the signs of the times are not deceptive. our resurrection may be nearer than we imagine; and until then, marie, let us endure with patience." marie pressed her guardian's hand, and drew a long sigh. "yes; we will endure--and wait," she repeated. "and now, give me back my letter." "why do you want it, marie?" "i shall keep it, and sometime send it to the proper address--when the angel of deliverance sounds his trump." "may god hasten his coming!" fervently appended the count. but he did not give her the letter. * * * * * count vavel now rarely ventured beyond the gate of the nameless castle. the weather had become stormy, and a severe frost had robbed the garden of its beauties. the very elements seemed to have combined against the dwellers in the castle. even the lake suddenly began to extend its limits, overflowing its banks, and inundating meadows and gardens. marie's little pleasure-garden suffered with the rest of the flooded lands, and threatened to become an unsightly swamp. count vavel, knowing how marie delighted to ramble amid her flowers, determined to protect the garden from further destruction. laborers were easily secured. the numerous families of working-people who had been rendered homeless by the inundation besieged the castle for assistance and work, and none were turned empty-handed away. a small army was put to work to construct an embankment that would prevent further encroachment upon the garden by the water, while to herr mercatoris the count sent a liberal sum of money to be distributed among the sufferers by the flood. this gift renewed the correspondence between the castle and the parsonage, which had been dropped for several months. the pastor, in acknowledging the receipt of the money, wrote: "the flood has made a new survey of the lake necessary, as the evil cannot be remedied until it has been determined what obstructs the outlet. our surveyor made a calculation as to the probable cost of the work, and found that it would require an enormous sum of money--almost five thousand guilders! where was all this money to come from? the puzzling question was answered by that angel from heaven, baroness landsknechtsschild. when she heard of the sufferings of the poor people who had been driven from their homes by the inundation, she offered to supply the entire sum necessary. now, it seems, something besides the money is required for the undertaking. "the surveyor, in order to calculate the distances which cannot be measured by the chain, needs a superior telescope, and such a glass would cost two or three thousand guilders more. as your lordship is the owner of a telescope, i take it upon myself to beg the loan of it--if your lordship can spare it to the surveyor for a short time." the next day count vavel sent his telescope to the parsonage, with the message that it was a present to the surveyor. then, that he might not be again tempted to look out upon the world and its people, the count closed the tower windows. part vi death and new life in the nameless castle chapter i since count vavel had ceased to take outdoor exercise, he had renewed his fencing practice with henry, who was also an expert swordsman. in a room on the ground floor of the castle, whence the clashing of steel could not penetrate to marie's apartments, the two men, master and man, would fight their friendly battles twice daily, and with such vigor that their bodies (as they wore no plastrons) were covered with scratches and bruises. one morning the count waited in vain for henry to make his appearance in the fencing-hall. it was long past the usual hour for their practice, and the count, becoming impatient, went in search of the old servant. the groom's apartment was on the same floor with the kitchen, adjoining the room occupied by his wife lisette, the cook. the door of henry's room which opened into the corridor was locked; the count, therefore, passed into the kitchen, where lisette was preparing dinner. "where is henry?" he asked of the unwieldy mountain of flesh, topped by a face as broad and round as the full moon. "he is in bed," replied lisette, without looking up from her work. "is he ill?" "i believe he has had a stroke of apoplexy." she said it with as little emotion as if she had spoken of an underdone pasty. the count hastened through lisette's room to henry's bedside. the poor fellow was lying among the pillows; his mouth and one eye were painfully distorted. "henry!" ejaculated the count, in a tone of alarm; "my poor henry, you are very ill." "ye-es--your--lord-ship," he answered slowly, and with difficulty; "but--but--i shall soon--soon be--all right--again." ludwig lifted the sick man's hand from the coverlet, and felt the pulse. "yes, you are very ill indeed, henry--so ill that i would not attempt to treat you. we must have a doctor." "he--he won't come--here; he is--afraid. besides, there is nothing--the matter with--any part of me but--but my--tongue. i can--can hardly--move--it." "you must not die, henry--you dare not!" in an agony of terror exclaimed ludwig. "what would become of me--of marie?" "that--that is what--troubles--troubles me--most, herr count. who will--take my--place? perhaps--that old soldier--with the machine leg--" "no! no! no! oh, henry, no one could take your place. you are to me what his arms are to a soldier. you are the guardian of all my thoughts--my only friend and comrade in this solitude." the poor old servant tried to draw his distorted features into a smile. "i am--not sorry for--myself--herr count; only for you two. i have earned--a rest; i have--lost everything--and have long ago--ceased to hope for--anything. i feel that--this is--the end. no doctor can--help me. i know--i am--dying." he paused to breathe heavily for several moments, then added: "there is--something--i should--like to have--before--before i--go." "what is it, henry?" "i know you--will be--angry--herr count, but--i cannot--cannot die without--consolation." "consolation?" echoed ludwig. "yes--the last consolation--for the--dying. i have not--confessed for--sixteen years; and the--multitude of my--sins--oppresses me. pray--pray, herr count, send for--a priest." "impossible, henry. impossible!" "i beseech you--in the name of god--let me see a priest. have mercy--on your poor old servant, herr count. my soul feels--the torments of hell; i see the everlasting flames--and the sneering devils--" "henry, henry," impatiently remonstrated his master, "don't be childish. you are only tormenting yourself with fancies. does the soldier who falls in battle have time to confess his sins? who grants him absolution?" "perhaps--were i in--the midst of the turmoil of battle--i should not feel this agony of mind. but here--there is so much time to think. every sin that i have committed--rises before me like--like a troop of soldiers that--have been mustered for roll-call." "pray cease these idle fancies, henry. of what are you thinking? you want to tell a priest that you are living here under a false name--tell him that i, too, am an impostor? you would say to him: 'when the revolutionists imprisoned my royal master and his family, to behead them afterward, i clothed my own daughter in the garments belonging to my master's daughter, in order to save the royal child from death, i gave up my own child to danger, and carried my master's child to a place of safety. my own child i gave up to play the rôle of king's daughter, when kings and their offspring were hunted down like wild beasts; and made of the king's daughter a servant, that she might be allowed to go free. i counterfeited certificates of baptism, registers, passports, in order to save the king's daughter from her enemies. i bore false witness--committed perjury in order to hide her from her persecutors--'" "yes--yes," moaned the dying man, "all that have i done." "and do you imagine that you will be allowed to breathe such a confession into a human ear?" sternly responded the count. "i must--i must--to make my peace with god." "henry, if you knew god as he is you would not tremble before him. if you could realize the immeasurable greatness of his benevolence, his love, his mercy, you would not be afraid to appear before him with the plea: 'master, thou sentest me forth; thou hast summoned me to return. i came from thee; to thee i return. and all that which has happened to me between my going and my coming thou knowest.'" "ah, yes, herr count, you have a great soul. it will know how to rise to its creator. but what can my poor, ignorant little soul do when it leaves my body? it will not be able to find its way to god. i am afraid; i tremble. oh, my sins, my sins!" "your sins are imaginary, henry," almost irritably responded count vavel. "i swear to you, by the peace of my own soul, that the load beneath which you groan is not sin, but virtue. if it be true that human speech and thought are transmitted to the other world, and if there is a voice that questions us, and a countenance that looks upon us, then answer with confidence: 'yes, i have transgressed many of thy laws; but all my transgressions were committed to save one of thy angels.'" "ah, yes, herr count, if i could talk like that; but i can't." "and are not all your thoughts already known to him who reads all hearts? it does not require the absolution of a priest to admit you to his paradise." but henry refused to be comforted; his eyes burned with the fire of terror as he moaned again and again: "i shall be damned! i shall be damned!" count vavel now lost all patience, and, forgetting himself in his anger, exclaimed: "henry, if you persist in your foolishness you will deserve damnation. did not you say so yourself, when you pledged your word to me on that eventful day? did you not say, 'the wretch who would become a traitor deserves to be damned'?" with these words he rose and strode toward the door. but ere he reached it his feeling heart got the better of his anger. he turned and walked back to the bed, took the dying man's ice-cold hand in his, and said gently: "my old comrade--my brave old companion in arms! we must not part in anger. don't you trust me any more? listen, my old friend, to what i say to you. you are going on before to arrange quarters; then i will follow. when i arrive at the gates of paradise, my first question to st. peter will be, 'is my good old comrade, the honest, virtuous henry, within?' and should the sainted gatekeeper reply, 'no, he is not here; he is down below,' then i shall say to him, 'i am very much obliged to you, old fellow, for your friendliness, but a paradise from which my old friend henry is excluded is no place for me. i am going down below to be with him.' that is what i shall say, so help me heaven!" the sufferer who stood on the threshold of death strove to smile. he could not return the pressure of his master's hand, but he slowly and with painful effort turned his head so that his cold lips rested against the count's hand. "yes--yes," he whispered, and his dim eyes brightened for an instant. "if we were down there together--you and i--we should not have to stop long there; some one with her prayers would very soon win our release." count vavel suddenly beat his palm against his forehead, and exclaimed: "i never once thought of her! wait, my brave henry. i will return immediately. i cannot allow you to have a priest, but i will bring an angel to your bedside." he hastened to marie's apartments. "you have been weeping?" she exclaimed, looking up into his tear-stained eyes with deep concern. "yes, marie; we are going to lose our poor old henry." "oh, my god! how entirely alone we shall be then!" "will you come with me to his bedside? the sight of you will cheer his last moments." "yes, yes; come quickly." a wonderful light brightened henry's face when he saw his young mistress. she moved softly to the head of his bed, and with her delicate fingers gently stroked the cheeks of the trusty old servant. he closed his eyes and sighed when her hand touched his face. "is he smiling?" whispered marie to ludwig, gazing with compassionate awe on the distorted countenance. then she bent over him and said: "henry--my good henry, would you like me to pray with you?" she knelt beside the bed and in a feeling tone repeated the beautiful prayer which the good père lacordaire composed for those who journey to the other world, pausing from time to time to let the dying man repeat the words after her. henry's tongue became heavier and heavier as he repeated, with visible effort, the soul-inspiring words. then marie repeated the lord's prayer. even ludwig could not do otherwise than bend his knee upon the chair by which he stood, and bow his skeptical head, while the innocent maid and his dying servant prayed together. when marie rose from her knees, the painful smile had vanished from henry's lips; his face was calm and peaceful; the distortion had disappeared from his countenance. * * * * * after henry's death, life for the occupants of the nameless castle became still more uncomfortable. ludwig vavel had lost his only friend--the only one who had shared his cares and his confidences. he was obliged to hire a servant to assist lisette, and, remembering what henry had advised, took the old soldier with the wooden leg into the castle. for the old invalid, the change from hard labor to comfortable quarters and easy work was certainly an improvement. instead of cutting wood all day long for a mere pittance, he had now nothing to do but brush clothes which were never dusty, polish the furniture, receive the supplies from and deliver orders to frau schmidt every morning, to place the newspapers on the library table, and convey the victuals from the kitchen to the dining-room. but two weeks of this easy work and good wages, and the comforts of the castle, were all that the old soldier could endure. then he took off his handsome livery, and begged to be allowed to return to his former life of hardship and poverty. afterward he was heard to aver that not for the whole castle would he consent to live in it an entire year--where not one word was spoken all day long; even the cook never opened her lips. no, he could not stand it; he would rather, a hundred times over, cut wood for five groats the day. no sooner did baroness katharina learn that count vavel was again without a man-servant than she sent to the castle satan laczi's son, who was then twelve years old, and a useful lad. two leading ideas now filled count vavel's entire soul. one was an enthusiastic admiration for a high ideal, whose embodiment he believed he had found in the lovely person of his young charge. all the emotions that a man of deep and profound nature lavishes on his faithful love, his only offspring, his queen, his guardian saint, count ludwig now bestowed on this one woman, who endured with patience, renounced with meekness, forgave and loved with her whole heart, and who, even in her banishment, adored her native land which had repulsed and cruelly persecuted her. the second idea encompassed all the emotions of an opposing passion: a boundless hatred for the giant who, with strides that covered kingdoms and empires, was marching over the entire eastern hemisphere, marking his every step with graves and human skeletons; an enmity toward the titan who was using thrones as footstools, and who had made himself a god over a greater portion of europe, count vavel was not the only one who cherished a hatred of this sort; it was felt all over europe. what was happening in those days could be learned only through the english newspapers. liberty of speech was prohibited throughout the entire continent. only an indiscreet correspondent would trust his secret to the post; and ludwig vavel only by the exercise of extreme caution could learn from his banker in holland what was necessary for him to know. through this medium he learned of the general discontent with the methods of the all-powerful one. he learned of the plans of the philadelphia club, which counted among its members renowned officers in the army of france. he heard that a number of distinguished frenchmen had offered their services and swords to the foreign imperial army against their own hated emperor. he heard of the dissatisfied murmuring among the french people against the frightful waste of human life, the never-ending intrigues, the approaching shadows of the coalition. all this he heard there in the nameless castle, while he waited for his watchword, ready when it came to reply: "here!" and while he waited he interested himself also in what was going on in the land in which he sojourned. he had two sources for acquiring information on this subject--herr mercatoris in fertöszeg, and the young attorney, who was now living in pest. the count corresponded with both gentlemen,--personally he had never spoken to the pastor, and but once to his attorney,--and from their letters learned what was going on in that portion of the world in the vicinity of the nameless castle. however, as there was a wide difference between the characters of his two correspondents, the count was often puzzled to which of them he should give credence. the pastor, who was a student and a philosopher, and a defender of the existing state of affairs, affirmed that there was not on the face of the globe a more contented and peace-loving folk than the hungarians. the young lawyer, on the other hand, asserted that the existing system was all wrong; that general dissatisfaction prevailed throughout hungary. his irony did not spare the great ones who swayed the destiny of the country. in a word, resentment against oppression, and discontent, might be read in every line of his epistles. count vavel was rather inclined to believe that the younger man expressed the temper of the nation. in reality, however, it was only the discontent of a small social body, which found quite enough room for its meetings in the sleeping-chamber of one of the sympathizers. within this circumscribed space, and amid a lively interchange of opinions, originated many a daring project that was never carried beyond the threshold of the hall of meeting. ludwig vavel, on reading the young man's letters, had come to the conclusion that hungary awaited his (vavel's) enemy as its liberator. the diet, it is true, had authorized the "recruit contingent," but the recruits were not taken from those who were inspired with love for the fatherland, and who would do battle for an idea. the enlisted men were chiefly homeless wanderers. this "cannon-fodder" would go into battle without enthusiasm, would perform what was required of them like obedient machines. of what good would be such a crew against a host that had called into being a great national consciousness, a host that was made up of the best force of a vigorous people, a host whose every member was proud of his ensign with its eagle, and who held himself superior to every other soldier in the world? vavel well knew that the giant of the century could be conquered only by heroes and patriots. a hireling crew could not enter the field against him. chapter ii when a sacrifice is demanded by one's fatherland, it becomes the duty of every true patriot to offer himself as the victim. consequently, herr vice-palatine bernat görömbölyi von dravakeresztur did not hesitate to immolate himself on the sacrificial altar when his attention was directed by his superior to section 1 of article ii. in the laws enacted by the diet in the year 1808. said clause required the vice-palatine to call in person on those "high and mighty persons" who, instead of appearing with their horses at the _lustrations_,--according to section 17 of article iii.,--preferred to send the fine of fifty marks for non-attendance. among these absentees from the county meetings was count ludwig vavel. the vice-palatine's task was to teach these refractories, through patriotic reasoning, to amend their ways. the sacrifice attendant upon the performance of this duty was that herr bernat would be obliged, during his official visit to the nameless castle, to abstain from smoking. but duty is duty, and he decided to do it. he preceded his call at the castle by a letter to count vavel, in which he explained, with satisfaction to himself, the cause of his hasty retreat on the occasion of his former visit, and also announced his projected official attendance upon the herr count on the following day. he arrived at the castle in due time; and count vavel, who wished to make amends for his former rudeness to so important a personage, greeted him with great cordiality. "the herr count has been ill, i understand?" began herr bernat, when greetings had been exchanged. "i have not been ill--at least, not to my knowledge," smilingly responded the count. "indeed? i fancied you must be ill because you did not attend the lustrations, but sent the fine instead." "may i ask if many persons attended the meeting?" asked count vavel. "quite a number of the lesser magnates were present; the more important nobles were conspicuous by their absence. i attributed this failure to appear at the lustrations to section i of article iii. of the militia law, which prohibits the noble militiaman from wearing gold or silver ornamentation on his uniform. this inhibition, you must know, is intended to prevent emulation in splendor of decoration among our own people, and also to restrain the rapacity of the enemy." "then you imagine, herr vice-palatine, that i do not attend the meetings because i am not permitted to wear gold buttons and cords on my coat?" smilingly queried the count. "i confess i cannot think of any other reason, herr count." "then i will tell you the true one," rather haughtily rejoined count vavel, believing that his visitor was inclined to be sarcastic. "i do not attend your meetings because i look upon the entire law as a jest--mere child's play. it begins with the mental reservation, 'the hungarian noble militia will be called into service _only_ in case of imminent danger of an attack from a foreign enemy, and then only if the attacking army be so powerful that the regular imperial troops shall be unable to withstand it!' that the enemy is the more powerful no commander-in-chief finds out until he has been thoroughly whipped! the mission of the hungarian noble militia, therefore, is to move into the field--untrained for service--when the regular troops find they cannot cope with a superior foe! this is utterly ridiculous! and, moreover, what sort of an organization must that be in which 'all nobles who have an income of more than three thousand guilders shall become cavalry soldiers, those having less shall become foot-soldiers'? the money-bag decides the question between cavalry and infantry! again, 'every village selects its own trooper, and equips him.' a fine squadron they will make! and to think of sending such a crew into the field against soldiers who have won their epaulets under the baptismal fires of battle! again, to wage war requires money first of all; and this fact has been entirely ignored by the authorities. you have no money, gentlemen; do you propose that the noble militia host shall march only so long as the supply of food in their knapsacks holds out? are they to return home when the provisions shall have given out? never fear, herr vice-palatine! when it becomes necessary to shoulder arms and march against the enemy, i shall be among the first to respond to the first call. but i have no desire to be even a spectator of a comedy, much less take part in one. but let us not discuss this farce any further. i fancy, herr vice-palatine, we may be able to find a more sensible subject for discussion. there is a quiet little nook in this old castle where are to be found some excellent wines, and some of the best latakia you--" "what?" with lively interest interrupted the vice-palatine. "latakia? why, that is tobacco." "certainly--and turkish tobacco, too, at that!" responded count vavel. "come, we will retire to this nook, empty one glass after another, enjoy a smoke, and tell anecdotes without end!" "then you do smoke, herr count?" "certainly; but i never smoke anywhere but in the nook before mentioned, and never in the clothes i wear ordinarily." "aha!--that a certain person may not detect the fumes, eh?" "you have guessed it." "then there is not an atom of truth in the reports malicious tongues have spread abroad about you, for i know very well that a certain lady has not the least objection to tobacco smoke. i do not refer to the herr count's donna who lives here in the castle--you may be sure i shall take good care not to ask any more questions about _her_. no; i am not talking about that one, but about the other one, who has puzzled me a good deal of late. she takes the herr count's part everywhere, and is always ready to defend you. had she not assured me that i might with perfect safety venture to call here again, i should have sent my secretary to you with the _sigillum compulsorium_. i tell you, herr count, ardent partizanship of that sort from the other donna looks a trifle suspicious!" the count laughed, then said: "herr vice-palatine, you remind me of the critic who, at the conclusion of a concert, said to a gentleman near whom he was standing: 'who is that lady who sings so frightfully out of tune?' 'the lady is my wife.' 'ah, i did not mean the one who sang, but the lady who accompanied her on the piano--the one who performs so execrably.' 'that lady is my sister.' 'i beg a thousand pardons! i made a mistake; it is the music, the composition, that is so horrible. i wonder who composed it?' 'i did.'" herr bernat was charmed--completely vanquished. this count not only smoked: he could also relate an anecdote! truly he was a man worth knowing--a gentleman from crown to sole. toward the conclusion of the excellent dinner, to which herr bernat did ample justice, he ventured to propose a toast: "i cannot refrain, herr count, from drinking to the welfare of this castle's mistress; and since i do not know whether there be one or two, i lift a glass in each hand. vivant!" without a word the count likewise raised two glasses, and drained first one, then the other, leaving not enough liquor in either to "wet his finger-nail." by the time the meal was over herr bernat was in a most generous mood; and when he took leave of his agreeable host, he assured him that the occupants of the nameless castle might always depend on the protection and good will of the vice-palatine. count vavel waited until his guest was out of sight; then he changed his clothes, and when the regular dinner-hour arrived joined marie, as usual, in the dining-room, to enjoy with her the delicate snail-soup and other dainties. chapter iii at last war was declared; but it brought only days of increased unhappiness and discontent to the tiger imprisoned in his cage at the nameless castle--as if burning oil were being poured into his open wounds. the snail-like movements of the austrian army had put an end to the appearance of the apocalyptic destroying angel. ludwig vavel waited like the tiger crouched in ambush, ready to spring forth at the sound of his watchword, and heard at last what he had least expected to hear. the single-headed eagle had not hesitated to take possession of that which the double-headed eagle had hesitated to grasp. napoleon had issued his memorable call to the hungarian people to assert their independence and choose their king from among themselves. count ludwig received a copy of this proclamation still damp from the press, and at once decided that the cause to which he had sacrificed his best years was wholly lost. he was acquainted with but a few of the people among whom he dwelt in seclusion, but he believed he knew them well enough to decide that the incendiary proclamation could have no other result than an enthusiastic and far-reaching response. all was at an end, and he might as well go to his rest! in one of his gloomiest, most dissatisfied hours, he heard the sound of a spurred boot in the silent corridor. it was an old acquaintance, the vice-palatine. he did not remove his hat, which was ornamented with an eagle's feather, when he entered the count's study, and ostentatiously clinked the sword in its sheath which hung at his side. a wolfskin was flung with elaborate care over his left shoulder. "well, herr count," he began in a cheery tone, "i come like the gypsy who broke into a house through the oven, and, finding the family assembled in the room, asked if they did not want to buy a flue-cleanser. at last the watchword has arrived: 'to horse, soldier! to cow, farmer.' the militia law is no longer a dead letter. we shall march, _cum gentibus_, to repulse the invading foe. here is the royal order, and here is the call to the nation."[3] [footnote 3: written by alexander kisfalndy, by order of the palatine. a memorable document.] count vavel's face at these words became suddenly transfigured--like the features of a dead man who has been restored to life. his eyes sparkled, his lips parted, his cheeks glowed with color--his whole countenance was eloquent; his tongue alone was silent. he could not speak. he rushed toward his sword, which was hanging on the wall, tore it from its sheath, and pressed his lips to the keen blade. then he laid it on the table, and dashed like a madman from the room--down the corridor to marie's apartment. without knocking, he opened the door, rushed toward the young girl, raised her in his arms as if she were a little child, and, carrying her thus, returned to his guest. "here--here she is!" he cried breathlessly. "behold her! now you may look on her face--now the whole world may behold her countenance and read in it her illustrious descent. this is my idol--my goddess, for whom i have lived, for whom i would die!" he had placed the maid on a sort of throne between the two bookcases, and alternately kissed the hem of her gown and his sword. "can you imagine a more glorious queen?" he demanded, in a transport of ecstasy, flinging one arm over the vice-palatine's shoulder, and pointing with the other toward the confused and blushing girl. "is there anywhere else on earth so much love, so much goodness and purity, a glance so benevolent--all the virtues god bestows upon his favorites? is not this the angel who has been called to destroy the leviathan of the apocalypse?" the vice-palatine gazed in perplexity at the young girl, then said in a low tone: "she is the image of the unfortunate queen, marie antoinette, who looked just like that when she was a bride." involuntarily marie lifted her hands and hid her face behind them. she had grown accustomed to the piercing rays of the sun, but not to the questioning glances from strange eyes. "what--what does--this mean, ludwig?" she stammered, in bewilderment. "i don't understand you." count vavel stepped to the opposite side of the room, where a large map concealed the wall. he drew a cord, and the map rolled up, revealing a long hall-like chamber, which, large as it was, was filled to the ceiling with swords, firearms, saddles, and harness. "i will equip a company of cavalry, and command it myself. the entire equipment, to the last cartridge, is ready here." he conducted the vice-palatine into the arsenal, and exhibited his terrible treasures. "are you satisfied with my preparations for war?" he asked. "i can only reply as did the poor little saros farmer when his neighbor, a wealthy landowner, told him he expected to harvest two thousand yoke of wheat: 'that is not so bad.'" "now _i_ intend to hold a lustration, herr vice-palatine," resumed the count. "here are weapons. are enough men and horses to be had for the asking?" "i might answer as did the gypsy woman when her son asked for a piece of bread: 'you are always wanting what is not to be had.'" "do you mean that there are no men?" "i mean," hastily interposed herr bernat, "that there are enough men, and horses, too; but the treasure-chest is empty, and the _aerar_ has not yet sent the promised subsidy." "what care i about the aerar and its money!" ejaculated count vavel, contemptuously. "_i_ will supply the funds necessary to equip a company--and support them, into the bargain! and if the county needs money, my purse-strings are loose! i give everything that belongs to me--and myself, too--to this cause!" he opened, as he spoke, a large iron chest that was fastened with iron bolts to the floor. "here, help yourself, herr vice-palatine!" he added, waving his hand toward the contents of the chest. it was a more wonderful sight than the arsenal itself. rolls of gold coin, sacks of silver, filled the chest to the brim. herr bernat could only stare in speechless amazement. he made no move to obey the behest to "help himself," whereupon count vavel himself thrust his hands into the chest, lifted what he could hold between them of gold and silver, and filled the vice-palatine's hat, which that worthy was holding in his hand. "but--pray--i beg of you--" remonstrated herr bernat, "at least, let us count it." "you can count it when you get home," interrupted count vavel. "but i must give you a receipt for it." "a receipt?" repeated his host. "a receipt between gentlemen? a receipt for money which is given for the defense of the fatherland?" "but i certainly cannot take all this money without something to show from whom i received it, and for what purpose. give me at least a few words with your signature, herr count." "that i will gladly do," responded the count, turning toward his desk, and coming face to face with marie, who had descended from her throne. "what are you going to do?" she asked, laying her hand on his arm. "write." "are you going to let strangers see your writing, and perhaps betray who you are?" "in a week the strokes from my hand will tell who i am," he replied, with double meaning. "oh, you are terrible!" murmured marie, turning her face away. "i am so for your sake, marie." "for my sake?" echoed the young girl, sorrowfully. "for my sake? do you imagine that _i_ shall take pleasure in seeing you go into battle? suppose you should fall?" "have no fear on that score, marie," returned the young man, confidently. "i shall have a guiding star to watch over me; and if there be a god in heaven--" "then may he take me to himself!" interposed the young girl in a fervent tone, lifting a transfigured glance toward heaven. "and may he grant that there be not on earth one other frenchwoman who is forced to pray for the defeat of her own nation! may he grant that there be not another woman in the world who is waiting until a pedestal is formed of her countrymen's and kinsmen's skeletons, that she may be elevated to it as an idol from which many, many of her brothers will turn with a curse! may god take me to himself now--now, while yet my two hands are white, while yet i cherish toward my nation nothing but love and tenderness, now when i forgive and forget everything, and desire none of this world's splendor for myself!" ludwig vavel was filled with admiration by this outburst from the innocent girl heart. "your words, marie, only increase the brilliancy of the halo which encircles your head. they legalize the rights of my sword. i, too, adore my native land--no one more than i! i, too, bow before the infinite judge and submit my case to his wise decision. o god, thou who protecteth france, look down and behold him who rides yonder, his horse ankle-deep in the blood of his countrymen, who looks without pity on the dying legions and says, 'it is well!' then, o god, look thou upon this saint here, who prays for her persecutors, and pass judgment between the two: which of the two is thy image on earth?" "oh, pray understand me," in a pleading voice interposed marie, passing her trembling fingers over ludwig's cheek. "not one drop of heroic blood flows in my veins. i am not the offspring of those great women who crowned with their own hands their knights to send them into battle. i dread to lose you, ludwig; i have no one in this wide world but you. on this whole earth there is not another orphan so desolate as i am! when you go to war, and i am left here all alone, what will become of me? who will care for me and love me then?" vavel gently drew the young girl to his breast. "marie, you said once to me: 'give me a mother--a woman whom i can love, one that will love me.' when i leave you, marie, i shall not leave you here without some one to care for you. i will give you a mother--a woman you will love, and who will love you in return." a gleam of sunshine brightened the young girl's face; she flung her arms around ludwig's neck, and laughed for very joy. "you will really, really do this, ludwig?" she cried happily. "you will really bring her here? or shall i go to her? oh, i shall be so happy if you will do this for me!" "i am in earnest," returned ludwig, seriously. "this is no time for jesting. my superior here"--turning toward the vice-palatine--"will see that i keep the promise i made in his presence." "that he will!" promptly assented herr bernat. "i am not only the vice-palatine of your county: i am also the colonel of your regiment." "and i want you to add still another office to the two you fill so admirably: that of matrimonial emissary!" added count vavel. "in this patriarchal land i find that the custom still obtains of sending an emissary to the lady one desires to marry. will you, herr vice-palatine and colonel, undertake this mission for me?" "of all my missions this will be the most agreeable!" heartily responded herr bernat. "you know to whom i would have you go," resumed the count. "it is not far from here. you know who the lady is without my repeating her name. go to her, tell her what you have seen and heard here,--i send her my secret as a betrothal gift,--and then ask her to send me an answer to the words she heard me speak on a certain eventful occasion." "you may trust me!" with alacrity responded herr bernat. "within half an hour i shall return with a reply: _veni, vidi, vici!_" after he had shaken hands with his client, the worthy emissary remembered that it was becoming for even so important a personage as a hungarian vice-palatine to show some respect to the distinguished young lady under count vavel's protection. he therefore turned toward her, brought his spurred heels together, and was on the point of making a suitable speech, accompanying it with a deep bow, when the young lady frustrated his ceremonious design by coming quickly toward him and saying in her frank, girlish manner: "he who goes on a matrimonial mission must wear a nosegay." with these words she drew the violets from her corsage, and fastened them in herr bernat's buttonhole. hereupon the gallant vice-palatine forgot his ceremonious intentions. he seized the maid's hand, pressed it against his stiffly waxed mustache, and muttered, with a wary glance toward count vavel: "i am sorry this pretty little hand belongs to those messieurs frenchmen!" then he quitted the room, and in descending the stairs had all he could do to transfer without dropping them the coins from his hat to the pockets of his dolman. marie skipped, singing joyously, into the dining-room, where the windows faced toward the neighboring manor. she did not ask if she might do so, but flung open the sash, leaned far out, and waved her handkerchief to the vice-palatine, who was driving swiftly across the causeway. chapter iv when herr bernat görömbölyi, in his character of emissary, arrived at the manor, he proceeded at once to state his errand: "my lovely sister katinka, i am come a-wooing--as this nosegay on my breast indicates. i ask your hand for a brave, handsome, and young cavalier." "thank you very much for the honor, my dear bernat bácsi, but i intend to remain faithful to my vow never to marry." "then you send me out of your house with a mitten, katinka hugom?" "i should prefer to detain you as a welcome guest." "thanks; but i cannot stop to-day. i am invited to a betrothal feast over at the nameless castle. the count intends to wed in a few weeks." he had been watching, while speaking, the effect of this announcement on the lovely face before him. baroness katharina, however, acted as if nothing interested her so much as the letter she was embroidering with gold thread on a red streamer for a militia flag. "the count is in a hurry," continued herr bernat, "for he may have to ride at the head of a company of militia to the war in less than three weeks." here the cruel needle thrust its point into the fair worker's rosy finger. herr bernat smiled roguishly; and said: "would n't you like to hear the name of the bride, my pretty sister katinka?" "if it is no secret," was the indifferent response. "it is no secret for me, and i am allowed to repeat it. the charming lady count vavel intends to wed is--katharina landsknechtsschild!" the baroness suddenly dropped her embroidery, sprang to her feet, and surveyed the smiling emissary with her brows drawn into a frown. "it is quite true," continued herr bernat. "count vavel sent me here to beg you to answer the words he spoke to you on an eventful occasion. do you remember them?" the lady's countenance did not brighten as she replied: "yes, i remember the words; but between them and my reply there is a veil that separates the two." "the veil has been removed." "ah! then you saw the lady of the castle without her veil? is she pretty?" "more than pretty!" "and who is she? what is she to count vavel?" "she is not your rival, my pretty sister katinka; she is neither wife nor betrothed to count vavel--nor yet his secret love." "then she must be his sister--or daughter." "no; she is neither sister nor daughter." "then what is she? not a servant?" "no; she is his mistress." "his mistress?" "yes, his mistress--as my queen is my mistress." "ah!" there was a peculiar gleam in the lovely baroness's eyes. then she came nearer to herr bernat, and asked with womanly shyness: "and you believe the count--loves _me_?" "that i do not know, baroness, for he did not tell me; but i think you know that he loves you. that he deserves your love i can swear! no one can become thoroughly acquainted with count vavel and not love him. i went to the castle to ask him to join the noble militia, and he let me see the lady about whom so much has been said. she had excellent reasons, baroness, for veiling her lovely face, for whoever had seen her mother's pictures would have recognized her at once. when count vavel goes into battle to help defend our fatherland, he must leave the royal maid in a mother's hands. will you fill that office? will you take the desolate maid to your heart? and now, katinka hugom, give me your answer to the count's words." with sudden impulsiveness the baroness extended both hands to herr bernat, and said earnestly: "with all my heart i consent to be count vavel's betrothed wife!" "and i may fly to him with this answer?" "yes--on condition that you take me with you." "what, baroness? you wish to go to the castle--now?" "yes, now--this very moment--in these clothes! i have no one to ask what i should or should not do, and--_he_ needs me." when his emissary had departed, count vavel began to reflect whether he had not been rather hasty. had he done right in giving to the world his zealously guarded secret? but there lay the royal manifesto on the table; there was no doubting that. the venture must be made now or never. if only d'avoncourt were free! how well he would know what to do in this emergency! he seated himself at the table to write to his friends abroad; but he could accomplish nothing; his hand trembled so that he could hardly guide the pen. and why should he tremble? was he afraid to hear katharina's answer? it is by no means a wise move for a man to make on the same day a declaration of war and one of love. his meditations were interrupted by marie, who came running into his study, laughing and clapping her hands. she snatched the pen from his fingers, and flung it on the floor. "she is coming! she is coming!" she cried in jubilant tones. "who is coming?" asked ludwig, surveying the young girl in surprise. "who? why, the lady who is to be my mother--the beautiful lady from the manor." "what nonsense, marie! how can you give voice to such impossible nonsense?" "but the vice-palatine would not be returning to the castle in _two_ carriages!" persisted the maid. "come and see them for yourself!" she drew him from his chair to the window in the dining-room, where his own eyes convinced him of the truth of marie's announcement. already the two vehicles were crossing the causeway, and the baroness's rose-colored parasol gleamed among the trees. deeply agitated, count vavel hastened to meet her. "may i come with you?" shyly begged marie, following him. "i beg that you will come," was the reply; and the two, guardian and ward, hand in hand, descended to the entrance-hall. baroness katharina's countenance beamed with a magical charm--the result of the union of opposite emotions; as when shame and courage, timidity and daring, love and heroism, meet and are blended together in a wonderful harmony--a miracle seen only in the magic mirror of a woman's face. while yet several paces distant, she held out her hand toward count vavel, and, with a charming mixture of embarrassment and candor, said: "yes, i am." this was her confirmation of the words vavel had spoken in the forest in the presence of the three dragoon officers: "she is my betrothed." vavel lifted the white hand to his lips. then katharina quickly passed onward toward marie, who had timidly held back. the baroness grasped the young girl's hands in both her own, and looked long and earnestly into the fair face lifted shyly toward her. then she said: "it was not for his sake i came so precipitately. he could have waited. they told me your heart yearned for a mother's care, and it must not be kept waiting." after this speech the two young women embraced. which was the first to sob, which kiss was the warmer, cannot be known; but that marie was the happier was certain. for the first time in years she was permitted to embrace a woman and tell her she loved her. ludwig vavel looked with delight on the meeting between the two, and gratefully pressed the hand of his successful emissary. when the two young women had sobbed out their hearts to each other, they began to laugh and jest. was not the mother still a girl, like the daughter? "you must come with me to the manor?" said katharina, as, with arms entwined about each other, they entered the castle. "i shall not allow you to stop longer in this lonely place." "i wish you would take me with you," responded marie. "i shall be very obedient and dutiful. if i do anything that displeases you, you must scold me, and praise me when i do what is right." "and i am not to be asked if i consent to this abduction of my ward?" here smilingly interposed count vavel. "why can't you come with us?" innocently inquired marie. the other young woman laughed merrily. "he may come for a brief visit; later we will let him come to stay always." then she added in a more serious tone: "count vavel, you may rest perfectly content that your treasure will be safe with me. my house is prepared for assault. my people are brave and well armed. there is no possible chance of another attack from robbers like that from which you delivered me." "ludwig delivered you from robbers?" repeated marie, in astonishment. "when? how?" "then he did not tell you about his adventure? what a singular man!" here the vice-palatine interposed with: "what is this i hear? robbers? i heard nothing about robbers." "the baroness herself asked me not to speak of the affair," explained the count. "yes, but i did not forbid you to tell marie, herr count," responded katharina. "'baroness'--'herr count'?" repeated marie, turning questioningly from her guardian to their fair neighbor. "why don't you call each other by your christian names?" they were spared an explanation by herr bernat, who again observed: "robbers? i confess i should like to hear about this robbery?" "i will tell you all about it," returned the baroness; "but first, i must beg the vice-palatine not to make any arrests. for," she added, with an enchanting smile, "had it not been for those valiant knights of the road i should not have become acquainted with my brave ludwig." "that is better!" applauded marie, hurrying her "little mother" into the reception-room, where the wonderful story of the robbery was repeated. and what an attentive listener was the fair young girl! her lips were pressed tightly together; her eyes were opened to their widest extent--like those of a child who hears a wonderful fairy tale. even the vice-palatine from time to time ejaculated: "_darvalia_!" "_beste karaffia_!"--which, doubtless, were the proper terms to apply to marauding rascals. but when the baroness came to that part of her story where count vavel, with his walking-stick, put to flight the four robbers, marie's face glowed with pride. surely there was not another brave man like her ludwig in the whole world! "that was our first meeting," concluded katharina laughingly, laying her hand on that of her betrothed husband, who was leaning against the arm of her chair. "i should like to know why you both thought it best to keep this robbery a secret?" remarked herr bernat. "the real reason," explained count vavel, "was because the baroness did not want her protégé, satan laczi's wife, persecuted." "hum! if everybody was as generous as you two, then robbery would become a lucrative business!" "you must remember," katharina made haste to protest, "that all this has been told to the matrimonial emissary, and not to the vice-palatine. on no account are any arrests to be made!" "i will suggest a plan to the herr vice-palatine," said count vavel. "grant an amnesty to the robbers; not to the four who broke into the manor,--for they are merely common thieves,--but to satan laczi and his comrades, who will cheerfully exchange their nefarious calling for the purifying fire of the battle-field. i myself will undertake to form them into a company of foot-soldiers." "but how do you know that satan laczi and his comrades will join the army?" inquired herr bernat. "satan laczi told me so himself--one night here in the castle. he opened all the doors and cupboards, while i was in the observatory, and waited for me in my study." it was the ladies' turn now to exhibit the liveliest interest. each seized a hand of the speaker, and listened attentively to his description of the robber's midnight visit to the castle. "good!" was herr bernat's comment, when the count had concluded. "an amnesty shall be granted to satan laczi and his crew if they will submit themselves to the herr count's military discipline." chapter v the little servant, satan laczi, junior, interrupted the conversation. he came to announce dinner. lisette had not needed any instructions. she knew what was expected of her when a visitor happened to be at the castle at meal-times. besides, she wanted to show the lady from the manor what she could do. not since the count's arrival at the nameless castle had there been so cheerful a meal as to-day. marie sparkled with delight; the baroness was wit personified; and the vice-palatine bubbled over with anecdotes. when the roast appeared he raised his glass for a serious toast: "to our beloved fatherland. vivat! to our revered king. vivat! to our adored queen. vivat!" count vavel promptly responded, as did also the ladies. then the count refilled the glasses, and, raising his own above his head, cried: "and now, another vivat to _my_ queen! long may she reign, and gloriously! and," he added, with sudden fierceness, "may all who are her enemies perish miserably!" "ludwig, for heaven's sake!" ejaculated marie, in terror. "look at katharina; she is ill." and, indeed, the baroness's lovely face was pallid as that of a corpse. her eyes were closed; her head had fallen back against her chair. ludwig and marie sprang to her side, the young girl exclaiming reproachfully: "see how you have terrified her." "don't be frightened," returned ludwig, assuringly; "it is only a passing illness, and will soon be over." he had restored the fair woman to consciousness on another occasion; he knew, therefore, what to do now. after a few minutes the baroness opened her eyes again. she forced a smile to her lips, shivered once or twice, then whispered to ludwig, who was bending over her with a glass of water: "i don't need any water. we were going to drink a toast; wine is required for that ceremony." she extended her trembling hand, clasped the stem of her glass, and, raising it, continued: "i drink to your toast, count vavel! and here is to my dear little daughter, my good little marie. may god preserve her from all harm!" "you may safely drink to ludwig's toast," gaily assented marie, "safely wish that the enemies of your marie may 'perish miserably,' for she has no enemies." "no; she has no enemies," repeated the baroness in a low tone, as she pressed the young girl closely to her breast. a few minutes later, when katharina had regained her usual self-command, she said: "marie, my dear little daughter, i know that our friend ludwig is eager to discuss war plans with his emissary. let us, therefore, give him the opportunity to do so, while we make our plans for quite a different sort of war!" "what!" jestingly exclaimed count vavel, "my lovely betrothed speaks thus of her preparations for our wedding?" "the task is not so easy as you imagine," retorted katharina. "there will be a great deal to do, and i mean to take marie with me." "to-day?" "certainly; is she not my daughter? but seriously, ludwig, marie must not remain here if the recruiting-flag is to wave from the tower, and if the castle is to be open to every notorious bully in the county. you gentlemen may attend to your recruits here, while marie and i, over at the manor, arrange a fitting ensign for your company. before we bid adieu to the castle, however, we must pay a visit to the cook. if her mistress leaves here i fancy she will not want to stop." "lisette was very fond of me once," observed marie; "and there was a time when she did everything for me." "then she must come with us to the manor to a well-deserved rest. i can send one of my servants over here to attend to the wants of the gentlemen." the two ladies now took leave of count vavel and his visitor. marie led the way to her own apartments, where she introduced the cats and dogs to katharina. then she drew her into the alcove, and secretly pulled the cord at the head of the bed. "now you are my prisoner," she said to the baroness, who was looking about her in a startled manner. "were i your enemy--your rival--i should not need to do anything to gratify my enmity but refuse to reveal the secret of this screen, and you would have to die here alone with me." "good heavens, marie! how can you frighten me so?" exclaimed katharina, in alarm. "ha, ha!" merrily laughed the young girl, "then i have really frightened you? but don't be alarmed; directly some one will come who will not let you 'perish miserably.'" the baroness's face grew suddenly pallid; but she quickly recovered herself as count vavel came hastily into the outer room. "did you summon me, marie?" he called, when he saw that the screen was down. "yes, i summoned you," replied marie. "i want you to repeat the good-night wish you give me every night." "but it is not night." "no; but you will not see me again to-day, so you must wish me good night now." ludwig came near to the screen, and said in a low, earnest tone: "may god give you a good night, marie! may angels watch over you! may heaven receive your prayers, and may you dream of happiness and freedom. good night!" then he turned and walked out of the room. "that is his daily custom," whispered marie. then she pressed her foot on the spring in the floor, and the screen was lifted. chapter vi lisette had finished her tasks in the kitchen when the two ladies came to pay her a visit. she was sitting in a low, stoutly made chair which had been fashioned expressly for her huge frame, and was shuffling a pack of cards when the ladies entered. she did not lay the cards to one side, nor did she rise from her chair when the baroness came toward her and said in a friendly tone: "well, lisette, i dare say you do not know that i am your neighbor from the manor?" "oh, yes, i do. i used often to hear my poor old man talk about the beautiful lady over yonder, and of course you must be she." "and do you know that i expect to be count vavel's wife?" "i did not know it, your ladyship, but it is natural. a gallant gentleman and a beautiful lady--if they are thrown together then there follows either marriage or danger. a marriage is better than a danger." "this time, lisette, marriage and danger go hand in hand. the count is preparing for the war." this announcement had no other effect on the impassive mountain of flesh than to make her shuffle her cards more rapidly. "then it is come at last!" she muttered, cutting the cards, and glancing at the under one. it was only a knave, not the queen! "yes," continued the baroness; "the recruiting-flag already floats from the tower of the castle, and to-morrow volunteers will begin to enroll their names." "god help them!" again muttered the woman. "i am going to take your young mistress home with me, lisette," again remarked the baroness. "it would not be well to leave her here, amid the turmoil of recruiting and the clashing of weapons, would it?" "i can't say. my business is in the kitchen; i don't know anything about matters out of it," replied lisette, still shuffling her cards. "but i intend to take you out of the kitchen, lisette," returned the baroness. "i don't intend to let you work any more. you shall live with us over at the manor, in a room of your own, and, if you wish, have a little kitchen all to yourself, and a little maid to wait on you. you will come with us, will you not?" "i thank your ladyship; but i had rather stay where i am." "but why?" "because i should be a trouble to everybody over yonder. i am a person that suits only herself. i don't know how to win the good will of other people. i don't keep a cat or a dog, because i don't want to love anything. besides, i have many disagreeable habits. i use snuff, and i can't agree with anybody. i am best left to myself, your ladyship." "but what will become of you when both your master and mistress are gone from the castle?" "i shall do what i have always done, your ladyship. the herr count promised that i should never want for anything to cook so long as i lived." "don't misunderstand me, lisette. i did not ask how you intended to live. what i meant was, how are you going to get on when you do not see or hear any one--when you are all alone here?" "i am not afraid to be alone. i have no money, and i don't think anybody would undertake to carry _me_ off! i am never lonely. i can't read,--for which i thank god!--so that never bothers me. i don't like to knit; for ever since i saw those terrible women sitting around the guillotine and knitting, knitting, knitting all day long, i can't bear to see the motion of five needles. so i just amuse myself with these cards; and i don't need anything else." "but surely your heart will grow sore when you do not see your little mistress daily?" "daily--daily, your ladyship? this is the second time i have laid eyes on her face in six years! there was a time when i saw her daily, hourly--when she needed me all the time. is not that so, my little mistress? don't you remember how i had a little son, and how he called me _chère maman_, and i called him _mon petit garçon_?" as she spoke, she laid the cards one by one on her snowy apron. she looked intently at them for several moments, then continued: "no; i don't need to know anything, only that she is safe. _she_ will always be carefully guarded from all harm, and my cards will always tell me all i need know about _mon petit garçon_. no, your ladyship; i shall not go with you; i cannot leave the place where my poor henry died." "poor lisette! what a tender heart is yours!" "mine?" suddenly and with unusual energy interrupted lisette. "mine a tender heart? ask this little lady here--who cannot tell a lie--if i am not the woman who has the hardest, the most unfeeling heart in all the world. ask her that, your ladyship. tell her, _mon petit garçon_," she added, turning to marie,--"tell the lady it is as i say." "lisette--dear lisette," remonstrated marie. "have you ever seen me weep?" demanded the woman. "no, lisette; but--" "did i ever sigh," interrupted lisette, "or moan, or grieve, that time when we spent many days and nights together in one room?" "no, no; never, lisette." the woman turned in her chair to a chest that stood by her side, opened it, and took out a package carefully wrapped first in paper, then in a linen cloth. when she had removed the wrappings, she held up in her hands a child's chemise and petticoat. "what is needed to complete these, your ladyship?" she asked. "a dear little child, i should say," answered katharina, indulgently. "you are right--a dear little child." "where is the child, lisette?" "that i don't know--do you understand? _i--don't--know._ and i don't inquire, either. now, will you still imagine that i have a tender heart? it is years since i looked on these little garments. what did i do with the child that wore them? whose business is it what i did with her? she was _my_ child, and i had a right to do as i pleased with her. i was paid enough for it--an enormous price! you don't understand what i am talking about, your ladyship. go; take _mon petit garçon_ with you; and may god do so to you as you deal with him. take care of him. my cards will tell me everything, and sometime, when i have turned into a hideous hobgoblin, those whom i shall haunt will remember me! and now, _mon petit garçon_"--turning again to marie,--"let me kiss your hand for the last time." marie came close to the singular woman, bent over her, and pressed a kiss on the fat cheeks, then held her own for a return caress. this action of the young girl seemed to please the woman. she struggled to her feet, muttering: "she is still the same. may god guard her from all harm!" then she waddled toward katharina, took her slender hand in her own broad palm, and added: "take good care of my treasure, your ladyship. up to now, i have taken the broomstick every evening, before going to bed, and thrust it under all the furniture, to see if there might not be a thief hidden somewhere. you will have to do that now. a great treasure, great care! and, your ladyship, when you shall have in your house such a little chemise and petticoat, with the little child in them, trotting after you, chattering and laughing, clasping her arms round you and kissing you, and if some one should say to you, as they said to me, 'how great a treasure would induce you to exchange this little somebody in the red petticoat for it?' and if you should say, 'i will give up the child for so much,' then, your ladyship, you too may say, as i say, that your heart is a heart of stone." katharina's face had grown very white. she staggered toward marie, caught her arm, and drew her toward the door, gasping: "come--come--let us go. the steam--the heat of--the kitchen makes--me faint." the fresh air of the court soon revived her. "let us play a trick on ludwig," she suggested. "we will take his canoe, and cross the cove to the manor. we can send it back with a servant." she ordered her coachman to take the carriage home; then she took marie's hand and led her down to the lake. they were soon in the boat. marie, who had learned to row from ludwig, sent the little craft gliding over the water, while katharina held the rudder. very soon they were in the park belonging to the manor; and how delighted marie was to see everything! a herd of deer crossed their path, summoned to the feeding-place by a blast from the game-keeper's horn. the graceful animals were so tame that a hind stopped in front of the two ladies, and allowed them to rub her head and neck. oh, how much there was to see and enjoy over here! katharina could hardly keep pace with the eager young girl, who would have liked to examine the entire park at once. what a number of questions she asked! and how astonished she was when katharina told her the large birds in the farm-yard were hens and turkeys. she had never dreamed that these creatures could be so pretty. she had never seen them before--not even a whole one served on the table, only the slices of white meat which lisette had always cut off for her. but what delighted her more than anything else was that she might meet people, look fearlessly at them, and be stared at in return, and cordially return their friendly "god give you a good day!" what a pleasure it was to stop the women and children, with all sorts and shapes of burdens on their heads or in their arms, and ask what they were carrying in the heavy hampers; to call to the peasant girls who were singing merrily, and ask where they had learned the pretty songs. "oh, how delightful it is here!" she exclaimed, flinging her arms around the baroness. "i should like to dig and work in the garden all day long with these merry girls. how happy i shall be here!" "to-morrow we will visit the fields," said katharina "can you ride?" "ride?" echoed marie, in smiling surprise. "yes--on a rocking-horse." "then you will very soon learn to sit on a living horse." "do you really believe i shall?" breathlessly exclaimed marie. "yes; i have a very gentle horse which you shall have for your own." "one of those dear, tiny little horses from which one could not fall? i have seen them in picture-books." "he is not so very small; but you will not be afraid of falling off when you have learned to ride. then, when you can manage your horse, we will ride after the hounds--" "no, no," hastily interposed the young girl; "i shall never do that. i could not bear to see an animal hurt or killed." "you will have to accustom yourself to seeing such sights, my dear little daughter. riding and hunting are necessary accomplishments; besides, they strengthen the nerves." "have not the peasant women got strong nerves, little mama?" "yes; but they strengthen them by hard work, such as washing clothes." "then let us wash clothes, too." katharina smiled indulgently on the innocent maid, and the two now entered the manor, where marie made the acquaintance of fräulein lotti, the baroness's companion. marie's attention was attracted by the number of books she saw everywhere; and they were all new to her. ludwig had never brought anything like them to the castle. there were poems, histories, romances, fables. ah, how she would enjoy reading every one of them! "oh, who is doing this?" she exclaimed, when her eyes fell on an easel on which was a half-finished painting--a study head. her admiration for the baroness increased when that lady told her the picture was the work of her own hand. "how very clever you must be, little mama! i wonder if you could paint my portrait?" "i will try it to-morrow," smilingly replied the baroness. "and what is this--this great monster with so many teeth?" she asked, running to the piano. katharina told her the name of the "monster," and, seating herself in front of the "teeth," began to play. marie was in an ecstasy of delight. "how happy you ought to be, little mama, to be able to make such beautiful music!" she cried, when katharina turned again toward her. "you shall learn to play, too; fräulein lotti will teach you." for this promise marie ran to fräulein lotti and embraced her. while at dinner marie suddenly remembered that she had not yet seen the little water-monster, and inquired about him. the baroness told her that the boy had gone back to his fish companions in the lake; then asked: "but where did you ever see the creature?" marie hesitated a moment before replying; a natural modesty forbade her from confessing to ludwig's betrothed wife that he had taught her how to swim, and had always accompanied her on her swimming excursions in his canoe. "i saw him once with you in the park, when i was looking through the telescope," she answered, with some confusion. "ah! then you also have been spying upon me?" jestingly exclaimed the baroness. "how else could i have learned that you are so good and beautiful?" frankly returned the young girl. "ah, i have an idea," suddenly observed the baroness. "that spy-glass is here now. the surveyor to whom ludwig gave it sent it to me when he had done with it. come, we will pay herr ludwig back in his own coin! we will spy out what the gentlemen are doing over at the castle." marie was charmed with this suggestion, and willingly accompanied her "little mama" to the veranda, where the familiar telescope greeted her sight. two of the windows in that side of the nameless castle which faced the manor were lighted. "that is the dining-room; they are at dinner," explained marie, adjusting the glass--a task of which the baroness was ignorant. when she had arranged the proper focus, she made room for katharina, who had a better right than she had to watch ludwig. "what do you see?" she asked, when katharina began to smile. "i see ludwig and the vice-palatine; they are leaning out of the window, and smoking--" "smoking?" interposed marie. "ludwig never smokes." "see for yourself!" katharina stepped back, and marie placed her eye to the glass. yes; there, plainly enough, she beheld the remarkable sight: ludwig, with evident enjoyment, drawing great clouds of smoke from a long-stemmed pipe. the two men were talking animatedly; but even while they were speaking, the pipes were not removed from their lips--ludwig, indeed, at times vanished entirely behind the dense cloud of smoke. "for six whole years he never once let me see him smoking a pipe!" murmured marie to herself. "how much he enjoys it! do you"--turning abruptly toward the baroness, who was smilingly watching her young guest--"do you object to tobacco smoke?" she seemed relieved when the baroness assured her that tobacco smoke was not in the least objectionable. some time later, when reminded that it was time for little girls to be in bed, marie protested stoutly that she was not sleepy. "pray, little mama," she begged, "let us look a little longer through the telescope; it is so interesting." but even while she was giving voice to her petition the windows in the dining-room over at the castle became darkened. the gentlemen evidently had retired to their rooms for the night. "oh, ah-h," yawned marie, "i am sleepy, after all! come, little mama, we will go to bed." katharina herself conducted the young girl to her room. marie exclaimed with surprise and delight when, on entering the room adjoining the baroness's own sleeping-chamber, she beheld her own furniture--the canopy-bed, the book-shelves, toys, card-table, everything. even hitz, mitz, pani, and miura sat in a row on the sofa, and phryxus and helle came waddling toward her, and sat up on their hind legs. the things had been brought over from the castle while the baroness and marie were in the park. "you will feel more at home with your belongings about you," said katharina, as she returned the grateful girl's good-night kiss. part vii the hungarian militia chapter i when count vavel and the vice-palatine disappeared from the window of the dining-room, they did not retire to their pillows. they went to ludwig's study, where they refilled their pipes for another smoke. "but tell me, herr vice-palatine," said the count, continuing the conversation which had begun at the dining-table, "why is it that six months have been allowed to pass since the diet passed the militia law without anything having been accomplished?" "well, you must know that there are three essential parts among the works of a clock," returned herr bernat, complacently puffing away at his pipe. "there is the spring, the pendulum, and the escapement. the wheels are the subordinates. the spring is the law passed by the diet. the pendulum is the palatine office, which has to set the law in motion; the escapement is the imperial counselor of war. the wheels are the people. we will keep to the technical terms, if you please. when the spring was wound up, the pendulum began to set the wheels going. they turned, and the loyal nobles of the country began to enroll their names--" "how many do you suppose enrolled their names?" interrupted the count. "thirty thousand cavalry and forty thousand infantry--which are not all the able-bodied men, as only one member from each family is required to join the army. after the names had been entered came the question of uniforms, arms, officering, drilling, provisions. you must admit that a clock cannot strike until the hands have made their regular passage through all the minutes and seconds that make up the hour!" "for heaven's sake! what a preamble!" ejaculated the count. "but go on. the first minute?" "yes; the first minute a stoppage occurred caused by the escapement objecting to furnish canteens; if the militiamen wanted canteens they must provide them themselves." "i trust the clock was not allowed to stop for want of a few canteens," ironically observed count vavel. "moreover," continued the vice-palatine, not heeding the interruption, "the escapement gave them to understand that brass drums could not be furnished--only wooden ones--" "they will do their duty, too, if properly handled," again interpolated vavel. "a more disastrous check, however, was the decision of the _komitate_ that the uniform was to consist of red trousers and light-blue dolman--" "a picturesque uniform, at any rate!" "there was a good deal of argument about it; but at last it was decided that the companies from the danube should adopt light-blue dolmans, and those from the theiss dark-blue." "thank heaven something was decided!" "don't be too premature with your thanks, herr count! the escapement would not consent to the red trousers; red dye-stuff was not to be had, because of the continental embargo. the militia must content itself with trousers made of the coarse white cloth of which peasants' cloaks are made. you can imagine what a tempest that raised in the various counties! to offer hungarian nobles trousers made of such stuff! at last the matter was arranged: trousers and dolman were to be made of the same material. the komitate were satisfied with this. but the escapement then said there were not enough tailors to make so many uniforms. the government would supply the cloth, and have it cut, and the militiamen could have it made up at home." "that certainly would make the uniform of more value to the wearer!" "_would have made_, herr count; would have made! the escapement suddenly announced that the cloth could not be purchased; for, while the dispute about the colors of the uniform had been going on, the greedy merchants had advanced the price of all cloths to such an exorbitant figure that the government could n't afford to buy it." "to the cuckoo with your escapement! the men have got to have uniforms!" "beg pardon; don't begin yet to waste expletives, else you will not have any left at the end of the hour! the counties then agreed to pay the sum advanced on the original price of the cloth, whereupon the escapement said the money would have to be forthcoming at once, as the cloth could not be bought on credit." "well, is there no treasury which could supply enough funds for this worthy object?" asked the count. "yes; there is the public treasury for current expenses. but the treasurer will not give any money to the militia until they are mounted and equipped; the escapement will not furnish the cloth for the uniforms without the money; and the treasury will not give any money until the militia has its uniforms!" "well, a man can fight without a uniform. if only these men have horses under them and weapons in their hands--" "two of these requisites we already have; but the escapement announces that arms of the latest improvements cannot be furnished, because the government has not got them." "well, the old ones will answer." "they _would_ if we had enough flints; but they are not to be had, because the insurrectionary poles have captured the flint depot in lemberg." "each man certainly could get a flint for himself." "even then there are only enough guns for about one half of the men. the escapement suggested that to those who had no arms it would furnish--halberds!" "what? halberds!" cried vavel, losing all patience. "halberds against bonaparte? halberds against the legions who have broken a path from one end of europe to the other with their bayonets, and with them carved their triumphs on the pyramids? halberds against them? do you take me to be a fool, herr vice-palatine?" he sprang to his feet and began to pace the floor excitedly, his guest meanwhile eying him with a roguish glance. "there!" at last exclaimed herr bernat, "i will not tease you any longer. fortunately, there is a clock-repairer who, so soon as he perceived how tardily the hands performed their task, with his finger twirled them around the entire dial, whereupon the clock struck the hour. this able repairer is our king, who at once advanced from his own exchequer enough money to equip the militia companies, distributed six thousand first-class cavalry sabers and sixteen cannon, and loaned the entire hungarian life-guard to drill the newly formed regiments. and now, i will wager that our noble militia host will be ready for the field in less than thirty days, and that they will fight as well as the good lord permitted them to learn how!" "why in the world did you not tell me this at once?" demanded count vavel. "because it is not customary to put the fire underneath the tobacco in the pipe! the king's example inspired our magnates. those whom the law compelled to equip ten horsemen sent out whole companies, and placed themselves in command." "as i shall do!" appended count vavel. "i hope, herr vice-palatine, that you will not forget the amnesty for satan laczi and his men. they will be of special value as spies." "i have a knot in my handkerchief for that, herr count, and shall be sure to remember. the company to be commanded by count ludwig fertöszeg will be complete in a week." "why do you call me fertöszeg?" "because a hungarian name is better for your ensign than your own foreign one. our people have an antipathy to everything foreign--and we have cause to complain of the frenchmen who served in our army. most of them were spies--tools of napoleon's. generals moiselle and lefebre surrendered fortified laibach, together with its entire brigade, without discharging a gun. and even our quondam friend, the gallant colonel barthelmy, has taken dutch leave and gone back to the enemy." "what? gone back to the enemy!" repeated ludwig, springing from his chair, and laughing delightedly. "the news seems to rejoice you," observed herr bernat. "i shout for very joy! the thought that we might have to fight side by side annoyed me. now, however, we shall be adversaries, and when we meet, the man who did not steal ange barthelmy will send her husband to the devil! and now, herr vice-palatine, i think it is time to say good night. it will be the first night in six years that i shall sleep quietly." they shook hands, and separated for the night. chapter ii from early morning until evening the enrolment of names went on at the nameless castle, while from time to time a squad of volunteers, accompanied by count vavel himself, would depart amid the blare of trumpets for the drill-ground. the count made a fine-looking officer, with the crimson shako on his head, his mantle flung over one shoulder, his saber in his hand. when he saluted the ladies on their balconies, his spirited horse would rear and dance proudly. his company, the "volons," had selected black and crimson as the colors for their uniform. the shako was ornamented in front with a white death's-head, and one would not have believed that a skull could be so ornamental. the volons' ensign was not yet finished, but pretty white hands were embroidering gold letters on the silken streamers; lead would very soon add further ornamentation! when ludwig vavel opened the door of his castle to the public, he very soon became acquainted with a very different life from that of the past six years. for six years he had dwelt among a people whom he imagined he had learned to know and understand through his telescope, and from the letters he had received from a clergyman and a young law student. the reality was quite different. every man that was enrolled in his volunteer corps count vavel made an object of special study. he found among them many interesting characters, who would have deserved perpetuation, and made of all of them excellent soldiers. the men very soon became devoted to their leader. when the troop was complete--three hundred horsemen in handsome uniforms, on spirited horses--their ensign was ready for them. marie thought it would have been only proper for katharina, the betrothed of the leader, to present the flag; but count vavel insisted that marie must perform the duty. the flag was hers; it would wave over the men who were going to fight for her cause. it was an inspiriting sight--three hundred horsemen, every one of noble hungarian blood. there were among them fathers of families, and brothers; and all of them soldiers of their own free will. of such material was the troop of volons, commanded by "count vavel von fertöszeg." count vavel had a second volunteer company, composed of satan laczi and his comrades. this company, however, had been formed and drilled in secret, as the noble volons would not have tolerated such vagabonds in their ranks. there were only twenty-four men in satan laczi's squad, and they were expected to undertake only the most hazardous missions of the campaign. ah, how marie's hand trembled when she knotted the gay streamers to the flag ludwig held in his hands! she whispered, in a tone so low that only he could hear what she said: "don't go away, ludwig! stay here with us. don't waste your precious blood for me, but let us three fly far away from here." those standing apart from the count and his fair ward fancied that the whispered words were a blessing on the ensign. she did not bless it in words, but when she saw that ludwig would not renounce his undertaking, she pressed her lips to the standard which bore the _patrona hungaria_. that was her blessing! then she turned and flung herself into katharina's arms, sobbing, while hearty cheers rose from the volons: "why don't _you_ try to prevent him from going away from us? why don't you say to him, 'to-morrow we are to be wedded. why not wait until then?'" but there was no time now to think of marriage. there was one who was in greater haste than any bridegroom or bride. the great leader of armies was striding onward, whole kingdoms between his paces. from the slaughter at ebersburg he passed at once to the walls of vienna, to the square in front of the cathedral of st. stephen. from the south, also, came job's messengers, thick and fast. archduke john had retreated from italy back into hungary, the viceroy eugene following on his heels. general chasteler had become alarmed at napoleon's proclamation threatening him with death, and had removed his entire army from the tyrol. his divisions were surrendering, one after another, to the pursuing foe. thus the border on the south and west was open to the enemy; and to augment the peril which threatened hungary, poland menaced her from the north, from the carpathians; and russia at the same time sent out declarations of war. the countries which had been on friendly terms with one another suddenly became enemies--poland against hungary, russia against austria. prussia waited. england hastened to seize an island from holland. the patriotic calls of gentz and schlegel failed to inspire germany. the heroic attempts of kalt, dörnberg, schill, and lützow fell resultless on the indifference of the people. only turkey remained a faithful ally, and the assurance that the mussulman would protect hungary in the rear against an invasion on the part of moldavia was the only ray of light amid the darkness of those days. then came a fresh job's messenger. general jelachich, with his five thousand men, had laid down his arms in the open field before the enemy. now, indeed, it might be said: "the time is come to be up and doing, hungary!" he who had neglected to celebrate his nuptials yesterday would have no time for marriage feasts to-morrow. hannibal was at the gates! the noble militia host was set in motion. the veszprime and pest regiments moved toward the marczal to join archduke john's forces. the primatial troops joined the main body of the army on the banks of the march, and what there was of soldiery on the farther side of the danube hastened to concentrate in the neighborhood of the raab--only half equipped, muskets without flints, without cartridges, without saddles, with halters in lieu of bridles! under such circumstances a fully equipped troop like that commanded by "count fertöszeg," with sabers, pistols, carbines, and a leader trained in the battle-field, was of some value. the days which followed the flag presentation were certainly not calculated to whispers of happy love, while the nights were illumined only by the light of watch-fires, and the glare over against the horizon of cannonading. count ludwig had so many demands on his time that he rarely found a few minutes free to visit his dear ones at the manor. sometimes he came unexpectedly early in the morning, and sometimes late in the evening. and always, when he came, like the insurgent who dashes unceremoniously into your door, there was a confusion and a bustling to conceal what he was not yet to see--marie's first attempts at drawing, her piano practices, or the miniature portrait katharina was painting of her. sometimes, too, he came when they were at a meal; and then, despite his protests that he had already dined or supped in camp, he would be compelled to take his seat between the two ladies at the table. hardly would he have taken up his fork, however, when a messenger would arrive in great haste to summon him for something or other--some question he alone could decide; then all attempts to detain him would prove futile. the day he received his orders to march, he was forced to take enough time to speak on some very important matters to his betrothed wife. he delivered into her hands the steel casket, of which so much has been written. when he entered the room where the two ladies were sitting, marie discreetly rose and left the lovers alone; but she did not go very far: she knew that she would be sent for very soon. why should she stop to hear the exchange of lovers' confidences, hear the mutual confessions which made _them_ so happy? she did not want to see the tears which _he_ would kiss away. "may god protect you," sobbed katharina, reflecting at the same moment that it would be a great pity were a bullet to strike the spot on the noble brow where she pressed her farewell kiss. "you will guard my treasure, katharina? take good care of my palladium and of yourself. before i go, let me show you what this casket which you must guard with unceasing care contains." he drew the steel ring from his thumb, and pushed to one side the crown which formed the seal, whereupon a tiny key was revealed. with it he unlocked the casket. on top lay a packet of english bank-notes of ten thousand pounds each. "this sum," explained ludwig, "will defray the expenses of our undertaking. when i shall have attained my object, i shall be just so much the poorer. i am not a rich man, katharina; i must tell you this before our marriage." "i should love you even were you a beggar," was the sincere response. a kiss was her reward. underneath the bank-notes were several articles of child's clothing, such as little girls wear. "her mother embroidered the three lilies on these with her own hands," said ludwig, laying the little garments to one side. then he took from the casket several time-stained documents, and added: "these are the certificate of baptism, the last lines from the mother to her daughter, and the deposition of the two men who witnessed the exchange of the children. this," taking up a miniature-case, "contains a likeness of marie, and one of the other little girl who exchanged destinies with her. the marquis d'avoncourt, who is now a prisoner in the castle of ham,--if he is still alive!--is the only one besides ourselves who knows of the existence of these things. and now, katharina, let me beg of you to take good care of them; no matter what happens, do not lose sight of this casket." he locked the casket, and returned the ring to his thumb. the baroness placed the treasure intrusted to her care in a secret cupboard in the wall of her own room. and now, one more kiss! the girl waiting in the adjoining room was doubtless getting weary. suddenly ludwig heard the tones of a piano. some one was playing, in the timid, uncertain manner of a new beginner, miska's martial song. ludwig listened, and turned questioningly toward his betrothed. katharina did not speak; she merely smiled, and walked toward the door of the adjoining room, which she opened. marie sprang from the piano toward ludwig, who caught her in his arms and rewarded her for the surprise. and thus it happened that marie, after all, was the one to receive ludwig's last kiss of farewell. chapter iii the camp on the bank of the rabcza was shared by the troop from fertöszeg and by a militia company of infantry from wieselburg. the parole had been given out for the night. count vavel had completed his round of the outposts, and had returned to the officers' tent. here he found awaiting him two old acquaintances--the vice-palatine and the young attorney from pest, each of them wearing the light-blue dolman. the youthful attorney, whose letters to the count had voiced the national discontent, had at once girded on his sword when the call to arms had sounded throughout the land, and was now of one mind with his quondam patron: if he got near enough to a frenchman to strike him, the result would certainly be disastrous--for the frenchman. bernat bácsi also found himself at last in his element, with ample time and opportunity for anecdotes. seated on a clump of sod the root side up, with both hands clasping the hilt of his sword, the point of which rested on the ground, he repeated what he had heard from the palatine's own lips, while dining with that exalted personage in the camp by the raab. at a very interesting point in his recital he was unceremoniously interrupted by the challenging call of the outposts: "halt! who comes there?" vavel hastened from the tent, flung himself on his horse, and galloped in the direction of the call. the patrol had stopped an armed man who would not give the password, but insisted that he had a right to enter the camp. vavel recognized satan laczi, and said to the guard: "release him; he is a friend of mine." then to the ex-robber: "come with me." he led the way to his own private tent, where he bade his companion rest himself on a pallet of straw. "i dare say you are tired, my good fellow." "not very," was the reply. "i have come only from kapuvar to-day." "on foot?" "part of the way, and part of the way swimming." "what news do you bring?" "we captured a french courier in the marshes near vitnyed just as he was about to ride into the stream." "where is he?" "well, you see, one of my fellows happened to grasp him a little too tightly by the collar, because he resisted so obstinately--and, besides, it must have been a very weak cord that fastened his soul to his body." "you have not done well, satan laczi," reproved the count. "another time you must bring the prisoner to me alive, for i may learn something of importance from him. did not i tell you that i would pay a reward for a living captive?" "yes, your lordship, and we shall lose our reward this time. but we did n't capture the fellow for nothing, after all. we searched his pockets, and found this sealed letter addressed to a general in the enemy's army." vavel took the letter, and said: "rest here until i return. you will find something to eat and drink in the corner there. i may want you to ride farther to-night." "if i am to go on a horse, that will rest me sufficiently," was the response. vavel quitted the tent to read the letter by the nearest watch-fire. it was addressed to "general guillaume." that the general commanded a brigade of the viceroy of italy's troops, vavel knew. the letter was a long one--four closely written pages. before reading it vavel glanced at the signature: "marquis de fervlans." the name seemed familiar, but he could not remember where he had heard it. he was fully informed when he read the contents: "m. general: the intrigue has been successfully carried out. themire has found the fugitives! they are hidden in a secluded nook on the shore of lake neusiedl in hungary, where their extreme caution has attracted much attention. themire's first move was to take up her abode in the same neighborhood, which she did in a masterly manner. the estate she bought belonged to a viennese baron who had ruined himself by extravagance. themire bought the property, paying one hundred thousand guilders for it, on condition that she might also assume the baron's name; such transfers are possible, i believe, in austria. in this wise themire became the baroness katharina landsknechtsschild, and, as she thoroughly understands the art of transformation, became a perfect german woman before she took possession of her purchase. in order not to arouse suspicion on the part of the fugitives, she carefully avoided meeting either of them, and played to perfection the rôle of a lady that had been jilted by her lover. "themire learned that our fugitive owned a powerful telescope with which he kept himself informed of everything that happened in the neighborhood, and this prompted her to adopt a very amusing plan of action. _i_ wanted to put an end at once to the matter, and had gone to vienna for the purpose of so doing. i entered the austrian army as count leon barthelmy, in order to be near my chosen emissary. but my scheme was without result. i had planned that a notorious robber of that region should steal the girl and the documents from the nameless castle,--as the abode of the fugitives is called,--but my robber proved unequal to the task. consequently i was forced to accept themire's more tedious but successful plan. the difficulty was for themire to become acquainted with our fugitive without arousing his suspicions. an opportunity offered. one night, when we knew to a certainty that the hermit in the nameless castle would be in his observatory because of an eclipse of the moon, themire put her plan into operation. the hermit, who is only a man, after all, found a lovely woman more attractive than all the planets in the universe; he was captured in the net laid for him! when the moon entered the shadow, four masked robbers (jocrisse was their leader!) climbed into the baroness landsknechtsschild's windows. the hermit in his observatory beheld this incursion, and, being a knight as well as a recluse, what else could he do but rush to the rescue of his fair neighbor? his telescope had told him she was fair. jocrisse played his part admirably. at the approach of the deliverer the "robbers" took to their heels, and the brave knight unbound the fettered and charming lady he had delivered from the ruffians. as themire had prepared herself for the meeting, you may guess the result: the hermit was captured!" oh, how every drop of blood in vavel's veins boiled and seethed! his face was crimsoned with shame and rage. he read further: "themire was perfectly certain that the mysterious hermit of the nameless castle had fallen in love with her; and _i_ am not so sure but themire has ended by falling in love with the knight! women's hearts are so impressionable. "i managed to have my regiment sent to her neighborhood, and took up my quarters in her house. i sought by every means to lure the hermit from his den; but he is a cunning fox, is this protector of fair ladies! i could not get a sight of him. i decided at last to waylay him (when he would be out driving with the veiled lady), to pretend that i was a betrayed husband in search of his errant wife, and ask to see the face of his veiled companion. this, naturally, he would refuse. a duel would be the result; and as he has not for years had a weapon in his hand, and as i am a dead shot, you can guess the result--a hermit against a spadassin! with a bullet in his brain, the mysterious maid would become my property." here an icy chill shook vavel's frame. he read on: "that was my intention. but something on which i had not counted prevented me from carrying it out. when i insisted on seeing the face of the veiled lady, after telling him i believed her to be my wife, ange barthelmy (i need not tell you that that entire story was an invention of my own; i published it in a provincial newspaper, whence it spread all over europe), my brave hermit showed a very bold front, and we were on the point of exchanging blows, when the lady suddenly flung back her veil and revealed the face of--themire! you may believe that i was dumfounded for an instant; then i began to believe that my faith in this woman had been misplaced. could it be possible that she had been caught in her own trap--that she had found this vavel's eyes more alluring than the fortune we promised her, and that instead of betraying him to us she would do the very opposite--betray us to him? it may be that she has woven a more delicate web than i can detect with which to entangle her romantic victim the more securely. at all events, when i asked vavel what relation the lady at his side bore to him, he replied: 'she is my betrothed wife.' "i confess i am puzzled. but i have the means of compelling themire to keep her promise. her daughter is in my power!" ("her daughter?" gasped vavel. "her daughter? then katharina is a married woman!") "but," he continued to read, "it might happen that a woman who is in love would sacrifice her child. so soon as this war broke out, vavel threw off his hermit's mask, and is now leading a company of troopers--which he equipped at his own expense--against us. "from jocrisse's letters i learn that vavel's treasures are now in themire's hands. that which our fair emissary was commissioned to find is in her possession. now, however, the question is, what will she do with it? "jocrisse also informs me that themire is quite bewitched with the amiability of the maid who has been intrusted to her care. if this be true, then matters are in a bad way. if this is not another of themire's schemes, but actual sympathy, if this girl, whose remarkable loveliness of character (even jocrisse is compelled to praise her) has won the piquant little amélie's place in her mother's heart, then it will be more difficult to separate themire from the girl than to win her from her lover." this was a solitary ray of sunshine amid the threatening clouds which enveloped ludwig. he continued to read with rapidly beating heart: "i must know to a certainty what themire proposes to do. to-day i sent her a message by a trusty courier, informing her that i should be at a certain place at an appointed time--that i wanted her to meet me and deliver into my hands the treasures she now holds. she will have an excellent excuse for leaving the manor. our troops are approaching steiermark, and have already crossed the hungarian border. thus it will seem as if she fell by accident into the hands of the enemy. vavel's heart almost ceased to beat. the letter shook in his trembling hands. "i shall not, however," he continued to read, "depend on the fickle mood of a woman, who may be swayed by a tear or a love-letter. if themire does not appear with the maid and the documents at the designated spot to-morrow evening, then i shall ride with my troop to the manor. my troop, as you know, belongs to the 'legion of demons,' and they do not know the definition of the word 'impossible'! if themire of her own free will delivers the treasures into my hands, i shall thank her becomingly. if, however, she fails to meet me, i shall take the maid and the documents by force." vavel did not notice that the firelight by which he was reading the letter had begun to grow dim; he believed the characters on the page before him were swimming in a blood-red mist. "and now," the letter went on, "i come to my instructions to you, general. you will move with your division toward the southern shore of lake neusiedl, and cut off the way of our fugitives toward the tyrol. there is also another task which you must undertake. the mysterious maid, once she is in our hands, must be treated with the utmost courtesy and respect. a remarkable destiny awaits her. you know the emperor is going to separate from josephine. a new palace will be built for the new empress. who is the fortunate lady? as yet, no one can tell. a royal maid who can bring as her dowry the crown of a sovereign. a marriage that would unite the imperial crown with the crown of hugo capet would firmly establish napoleon's throne. the legitimate dynasty would then be satisfied with the sovereign chosen by the people. this fugitive maid is, i hear, lovely, amiable, generous, pure, as only the ideal of a sovereign can be." vavel stamped his foot in a paroxysm of fury. had this miscreant written that marie was to be imprisoned in a convent, he could have borne it. but to suggest that his idol, his pure, adored image of a saint, might become the consort of the man on whom all the savage hatred of his nature was concentrated--this was more horrible than all the torments of hell. but he must calm himself and read the letter to the end. "with this probability in view, i request that you send your wife and daughter, with a proper escort, of course, to meet me in one of the border cities, say friedberg, where the ladies will be prepared to take charge of the maid. you will understand that a lady of her exalted position must travel only in company with distinguished persons. countess themire dealba's rôle is concluded. she must not be allowed, in any character, to accompany our presumptive sovereign to paris. she will receive her five millions of francs, as promised, and that will conclude our business transactions with her. pray communicate my desire to your wife and daughter, and bid them prepare for the journey. "very truly, "marquis de fervlans." not for one instant did ludwig vavel deliberate as to his course of action. he could not leave his post. for a soldier to quit his post before the enemy is treason. he hurried back to his tent. satan laczi was stretched on the bare ground, sleeping soundly. ludwig shook him vigorously. "awake--awake! you must depart at once." satan laczi sprang to his feet. "take my own horse, and ride for your life the shortest way to fertöszeg." "and what am i to do there?" "do you remember that an officer once asked you to steal the treasure i kept concealed in the nameless castle?" "yes; but i did n't do it." "well, i want you to do it now for me." "which do you want, the maid or the casket?" "both, if possible; the maid in any case. but you must be sure that she is alone when you approach her. then say merely the name 'sophie botta,' and she will listen quietly to what you have to say. then show her this ring,--here, put it on your left thumb"--he drew the steel ring from his own thumb and slipped it on to satan laczi's,--"and say, 'the person who wears this ring sent me to fetch you away from here. you are to come with me at once.'" "and where am i to take her?" "you will have a carriage with four swift horses at the park gate nearest the cemetery, and must drive with the maid to raab.--don't stop on any account until you get there. in raab you will inquire for the house of dr. tromfszky, who is our army physician. he will have been advised of your coming, and will take charge of the maid. then you will return to me here, and report what you have done. here is a passport; if you are stopped at our lines show it to the guard. and here is a purse; don't spare the contents. and do not speak to a living soul about your mission." "your orders shall be obeyed," responded satan laczi, as he turned to leave the tent. vavel did not go back to the officers' tent. he went out into the night, and stood with folded arms, gazing with unseeing eyes into the darkness. part viii katharina or themire? chapter i it was a delightful may evening. marie was practising diligently her piano lesson, in order to surprise ludwig with her progress when he should return from the war. that he would return marie was quite certain. katharina had gone into the park for a solitary promenade. she had complained all day of a headache--a headache that began to trouble her after she had read the letter she had received that morning from the marquis de fervlans. she held the letter in her hand now, and read it again for the hundredth time. yes, she had accomplished her mission successfully; the fugitive maid and the important documents were in her possession; and yet her trembling hand refused to grasp the promised reward. a fortune awaited her for the comedy she had played with such success--a comedy in which she had acted the part of the charitable lady of the manor. and what if there had been something of reality in the farce? suppose her heart had learned to thrill with emotions hitherto unknown to it? suppose it had learned to know the true meaning of gratitude--of love? but five millions of francs! if she were alone in the world! but there was amélie, her dear little daughter, who was now almost fifteen years old--almost a young lady. should she leave amélie in her present disagreeable position, a member of "cythera's brigade," or should she send for her, and confess to the man whose respect she desired to retain that the child was her daughter, and that she was a widow? could she tell him what she had once been? would he continue to respect, to love her? five millions of francs! it was an enormous sum, and would become hers if she should order the carriage, and, taking marie and the casket with her, drive leisurely along the highway until stopped by a troop of soldiers that would suddenly surround the carriage. a politely smiling face would then appear at the window of the carriage, and a courteous voice would say: "don't be alarmed, ladies. you are with friends. we are frenchmen." but to renounce the love and respect so hardly won! ah, how very dearly she loved the man to whom she had betrothed herself in jest! in jest? no, no; it was not a jest! but five millions of francs! would all the millions in the world buy one faithful heart? katharina was suffering for her transgressions. she had intended to play with the heart of another, and had lost her own. besides, she could not bear to think of betraying the innocent girl who loved and trusted her and called her "mother." but time pressed. three times already jocrisse had interrupted her meditations to inquire if her answer to the marquis's letter was ready. and still she struggled with herself. when jocrisse appeared again, she said to him: "my letter is of such importance that i cannot think of intrusting it to the hands of a stranger. you yourself, jocrisse, must take it to the marquis." "i am ready to depart at once, madame." katharina wrote her reply, sealed it carefully, and gave it to jocrisse, who set out at once on his errand. in the letter he carried were but three words: "_io non posso_" ("i cannot"). katharina locked herself in the pavilion in the park, and gave orders to the servants not to admit any visitors, whether acquaintances or strangers. an hour or more had passed when she heard a timid knock at the door, and an apologetic voice said: "a strange gentleman is here. i told him your ladyship would see no one; then he bade me give your ladyship this, which he said he had brought from paris." katharina opened the door wide enough to receive the object. it was a small ivory locket, yellow with age. katharina's hand shook violently as she pressed the spring to open it. she cast a hasty glance at the miniature,--the likeness of her daughter amélie,--then said in a faltering voice: "you may tell the gentleman i will see him." in a few minutes the visitor entered the pavilion. "m. cambray!" exclaimed the baroness. "yes, madame; i am cambray, with my other name, marquis richard d'avoncourt. i am he to whom you once said: 'i shall be grateful to you so long as i live.'" "how--how came you here?" gasped the baroness. "i managed to escape from my prison at ham, went to paris, where i saw your daughter--" "you saw my daughter?" interrupted the baroness, excitedly. "did you speak to her? oh, tell me--tell me what you know about her." "you shall hear all directly, madame. i told the countess that i intended to search for her mother, and asked if she had any message to send to her." "did she send a letter with you?" again interrupted the baroness. "she did, madame. but before i give it to you i should like to have a shovel of hot coals and a bit of camphor." "but why--why?" demanded the baroness. "i will tell you. do you know what napoleon brought home with him from the bloody battle of eilau?" "i have not heard." "the 'influenza.' i dare say you have never even heard the name; but you will very soon hear it often enough! it is a pestilential disease that is rather harmless where it originated, but when it takes hold of a strange region it becomes a deadly pestilence--as in paris, where a special hospital has been established for patients with the disease. it was in this hospital i found your daughter as a nurse." "_jesu maria!_" shrieked the mother, in a tone of agony. "a nurse in that pest-house?" "yes," nodded the marquis. then he took from his pocket a letter, and added: "she wrote this to you from there." the baroness eagerly extended her hand to take the letter. "would it not be better to fumigate it first?" said the marquis. "no, no; i am not afraid! give it to me, i beg of you!" she caught the letter from his hand, tore it open, and read: "dear little mama: what sort of a life are you leading out yonder in that strange land? do you never get weary or feel bored? have you anything to amuse you? _i_ have become satiated with my life--lying, cheating, deceiving every day in order to live! while i was a little girl i was proud of the praises heaped upon me for my cleverness. but a day came when everything disgusted me. it is an infamous trade, this of ours, little mama, and i have given it up. i have begun to lead a different life--one with which i am satisfied; and if you will take the advice of one who wishes you well, you, too, will quit the old ways. you can embroider beautifully and play the piano like a master. you could earn a livelihood giving lessons in either. do not trouble any further about me, for i can take care of myself. if only you knew how much happier i am now, you would rejoice, i know! let me beg you to become honest and truthful, and think often of your old friend and little daughter, "amélie (now soeuér agnes)." katharina's nerveless hands dropped to her lap. this sharp rebuke from her only child was deserved. then she sprang suddenly toward her visitor, grasped his arm, and cried: "tell me--tell me about my daughter, my little amélie! how does she look now? is she much changed? has she grown? oh, m. cambray! in pity tell me--tell me about her!" "i have brought you a portrait of her as she looked when i saw her last." he drew from his pocket a small case, and, opening it, disclosed a pallid face with closed eyes. a wreath of myrtle encircled the head, which rested on the pillow of a coffin. "she is dead!" screamed the horror-stricken mother, staring with wild eyes at the sorrowful picture. "yes, madame, she is dead," assented the marquis. "this portrait is sent by your daughter as a remembrance to the mother who exposed her on the streets, one stormy winter night, in order that she might spy upon another little child--a persecuted and homeless little child." the baroness cowered beneath the merciless words as beneath a stinging lash: but the man knew no pity; he would not spare the heartbroken woman. "and now, madame," he continued in a sharp tone, "you can go back to your home and take possession of your reward. you have worked hard to earn the blood-money." here the baroness sat suddenly upright, tore from her bosom a small gold note-case, in which was the order for the five millions of francs. she opened the case, took out the order, and tore it into tiny bits. then she flung them from her, crying savagely: "curse him who brought me to this! god's curse be upon him who brought this on me!" "madame," calmly interposed the marquis, "you have not yet completed the task you were set to do." "no, no; i have not--i have not," was the excited response, "and i never will. come--come with me! the maid and what belongs to her are here--safe, unharmed. take her--fly with her and hers whithersoever you choose to go; i shall not hinder you." "that i cannot do, madame. i am a stranger in a strange land. i know not who is my friend or who is my foe. _you_ must save the maid. if atonement is possible for you, that is the way you may win it. you know best where the maid will be safe from her persecutors. save her, and atone for your transgression against her. ludwig vavel gave you his love and, more than that, his respect. would you retain both, or will you tear them to tatters, as you have the order for the five million francs? will you let me advise you?" he asked, suddenly. "advise me, and i will follow it to the letter!" "then disguise yourself as a peasant, hide the steel casket in a hamper, and take it to ludwig vavel, wherever he may be." "and marie?" "you cannot with safety take her with you. the maid and the casket must not remain together. you must conceal marie somewhere until you return from the camp." "will you not stay here and keep watch over her until i return?" "i thank you, madame, for your hospitality, but i must not accept it. i come direct from the influenza hospital. i feel that the disease has laid hold of me. i have comfortable quarters at the nameless castle, where my old friend lisette will take care of me. don't let marie come to see me; and if i should not recover from this illness, which i feel will be a severe one, let me be buried down yonder on the shore of the lake." when the marquis d'avoncourt left the pavilion he was shaking with a violent chill, and as he took his way with tottering steps toward the nameless castle, katharina, broken-hearted and filled with anguish, wept out her heart in bitter tears. chapter ii marie had finished practising her lesson, and hastened to join katharina in the park. she found her in the pavilion, and was filled with alarm when she saw her "little mama" kneeling among the fragments of her fortune. katharina's tear-stained eyes, swollen face, and drawn lips betrayed how terribly she was suffering. "my dearest little mama!" exclaimed marie, hastening toward the kneeling woman, and trying to lift her from the floor, "what is the matter? what has happened?" "don't touch me," moaned the baroness. "don't come near me. i am a murderess. i murdered her who called me mother." she held the ivory locket toward marie, and added: "see, this is what she was like when i deserted her--my little daughter amélie!" "your daughter?" repeated marie, wonderingly. "you have been married? are you a widow?" "i am." katharina now held toward the young girl the portrait m. cambray had given her. "and this," she explained in a hollow tone, "is what she is like now--now, when i wanted her to come to me." "good heaven!" ejaculated marie, gazing in terror at the miniature, "she is dead?" "yes--murdered--as you, too, will be if you stay with me! you must fly--fly at once!" "katharina!" interposed the young girl, "why do you speak so?" "i say that you must leave me. go--go at once! go down to the parsonage, and ask herr mercatoris to give you shelter. tell him to clothe you in rags; and when you hear the tramp of horses, hide yourself, and don't venture from your concealment until they are gone. i, too, am going away from here." "but why may not i come with you?" asked marie, in a troubled tone. "where i go you cannot accompany me. i am going to steal through the lines of ludwig's camp." "you are going to ludwig?" interrupted the young girl. "yes, to deliver into his hands the casket containing your belongings. after that i--i don't know what will become of me." "katharina! don't frighten me so! do you imagine that ludwig will cease to love you when he learns you are a widow, and that you had a daughter?" "oh, no; he will not hate me because i had a daughter," returned katharina, shaking her head sadly, "but because my wickedness destroyed her." "don't talk so, katharina," again expostulated marie. "why, don't you see that she is dead? look at these closed eyes, the white face! ask these closed lips to open and tell you that i did not murder her!" "katharina, this is not true! your enemies have told you this to grieve you. look at these two pictures! there is not the least resemblance between them. this pale one is not your daughter. he who told you so lied cruelly." katharina sighed mournfully. "he who told me so does not lie. it was your old friend cambray." "cambray?" echoed marie, with mingled delight and astonishment. "cambray is here? my deliverer, my second father! where is he?" "he is gone. he accomplished that for which he came,--to crush me to the earth, and to serve you,--and has gone away again." "gone away?" repeated marie, incredulously. "gone away? impossible! cambray would not go away without seeing me! which way did he go? i will run after him and overtake him." "no; stay where you are!" commanded katharina, seizing her arm. "you must not follow him." "why not?" "listen, and i will tell you. cambray brought these pictures and this letter from paris. the letter was written by my daughter in the hospital, where she caught the dreadful disease which caused her death. she had been nursing the sick, like a heroine, and died like a saint. it is well with her now, for she is in heaven. if i weep, it is not for her, but for myself. the deadly disease amélie died of has seized upon your friend cambray; and the noble old man is unselfish even in dying. he does not want you to come near him, lest you, too, become affected by the pestilence. he is gone to the nameless castle, where lisette will take care of him--" "lisette?" interrupted marie, excitedly. "lisette, who was afraid to go near her own husband when he lay dying!" "well, what would you? shall i send some one to nurse him?" "no--no. _i_ am the one to take care of him! he was a father to me. for my sake he was imprisoned, persecuted, buried alive all these years! and i am to let him die over yonder--alone, without a friend near him! no; i am going to him. that which your other daughter had the courage to do, this one also will do!" "marie! think of ludwig! do you wish to drive him to despair?" "god watches over us. he will do what is well for all of us!" "marie"--katharina made a last effort to detain the young girl--"marie, do you wish to go to cambray to learn from him that i am the curse-laden creature who was sent after you to capture you and deliver you into the hands of your enemies?" marie turned at these desperate words, held out her hand, and said gently: "and if he were to tell me that, katharina, i should say to him that, instead of destroying me you liberated me, and instead of hating me you love me as i love you." she made as if she would kiss katharina; but the excited woman turned away her face, and held toward marie the letter cambray had given her. "read this, and learn to know me as i am," she said in a choking voice. while marie was reading the letter, katharina covered her burning face with both hands; but they were gently drawn away and held in the young girl's warm clasp, while she spoke: "a reply must be sent to this letter, little mother. i shall say to her, through the soul now on the eve of departure to the better land where she dwells: 'little sister, your mother will wear the pure white garment, as you desired, in mourning for you. instead of you, she will have me, and will love me, as i shall love her, in your stead. bless us both, and be happy.' shall i not send this message to your amélie with my good friend cambray?" "go, then; go--go," convulsively sobbed katharina, and fell upon her face on the floor as marie hastened from the pavilion. chapter iii when her grief had exhausted itself, katharina stole back to the manor, where she removed the steel casket from its hiding-place, wrapped it in her shawl, and, passing noiselessly and unseen down a staircase that was rarely used, crossed the park to the farmer's cottage. here she told the farmer's wife that she was going to play a trick on her betrothed, that she wanted to borrow a gown and a kerchief. she bade the farmer saddle the mule which his wife rode when she went to the village, and to hang the hampers, as usual, from the pommel. in one of these she placed the steel casket, in the other a pistol, and filled them both with all sorts of provisions. thus disguised, she mounted the quadruped, and set out alone on her way toward the camp. almost at the same moment that ludwig vavel had learned of the deceit of the woman he loved, he became convinced that his ambitious designs had come to naught. the rising of the german patriots against napoleon had ended in their defeat, and not a trace was left of the uprising among the french people themselves. it was the third day after the battle of aspern when master matyas entered count vavel's tent. the jack of all trades had proved himself a useful member of the army--not, indeed, where there was any fighting, for he much preferred looking on, when a battle was in progress, to taking an active part in the fray. but as a spy he was invaluable. "i have seen everything," he announced. "i saw the balloon in which a french engineer made an ascent to the clouds, to reconnoiter the austrian camp. he went up as high as a kite, and they held on to the rope below, down which he sent his messages--observations of the austrians' movements. i saw the bridge, which is two hundred and forty fathoms long, which can be transported from place to place, and reaches from one bank of the danube to the other. and i saw that demi-god flying on his white horse. he was pale, and trembled." "and how came you to see all these sights, master matyas?" interrupted vavel. "i allowed the frenchmen to capture me; then i was set to work in the intrenchments with the other prisoners." "and did you manage to deliver my letter?" "oh, yes. the philadelphians are easily recognized from the silver arrow they wear in their ears. when i whispered the password to one of them, he gave it back to me, whereupon i handed him your letter. i came away as soon as he brought me the answer. here it is." this letter by no means lightened vavel's gloomy mood. colonel oudet, the secret chief of the philadelphians in the french army, heartily thanked count vavel for his offer of assistance to overthrow napoleon; but he also gave the count to understand that, were bonaparte defeated, the republic would be restored to france. in this case, what would become of vavel's cherished plans? it was after midnight. the pole of "charles's wain" in the heavens stood upward. ludwig approached the watch-fire, and told the lieutenant on guard that he might go to his tent, that he, vavel, would take his place for the remainder of the night. then he let the reins drop on the neck of his horse, and while the beast grazed on the luxuriant grass, his rider, with his carbine resting in the hollow of his arm, continued the night watch. the night was very still; the air was filled with odorous exhalations, which rose from the earth after the shower in the early part of the evening. from time to time a shooting star sped on its course across the sky. one after the other, ludwig vavel read the two letters he carried in his breast. he did not need to take them from their hiding-place in order to read them. he knew the contents by heart--every word. one of them was a love-letter he had received from his betrothed; the other was the judas message of his enemy and marie's. at one time he would read the love-letter first; then that of the arch-plotter. again, he would change the order of perusal, and test the different sensations--the bitter after the sweet, the sweet after the bitter. suddenly, through the silence of the night, he heard the distant tinkle of a mule-bell. it came nearer and nearer. he heard the outpost's "halt! who comes there?" and heard the pleasant-voiced response: "good evening, friend. god bless you." "ah!" muttered ludwig, with a scornful smile, "my beautiful bride is sending another supply of dainties. how much she thinks of me!" the mule-bell came nearer and nearer. by the light of the watch-fire vavel could see the familiar red kerchief the farmer's wife from the manor was wont to wear over her head. the mule came directly toward the watch-fire, and stopped when close to vavel's horse. the woman riding the beast slipped quickly to the ground, emptied the provisions from the hampers, then, lifting the object which had been concealed in the bottom of one of them, came around to vavel's side, saying: "it is i. i have come to seek you." "who is it?" he demanded sternly, recognizing the voice; "katharina or themire?" "katharina--katharina; it is katharina," stammered the trembling woman, looking pleadingly up into his forbidding face. "and why have you come here?" "i came to bring you this," she replied, holding toward him the steel casket. "where is marie?" "she is safe--with the marquis d'avoncourt." "what?" exclaimed vavel, in amazement, flinging his carbine on the ground. "cambray--d'avoncourt--_here_?" "yes; he is at the nameless castle, and marie is with him." "after all, there is a god in heaven!" with deep-toned thankfulness ejaculated ludwig. then he added: "oh, katharina, how i have suffered because of--themire!" "themire is dead!" solemnly returned the baroness. "let us not speak of her. here, take these treasures into your own keeping; they are no longer safe with me. open the casket and convince yourself that everything is there." "i cannot open it; i have not got the key." "have you lost your ring?" "no. i have trusted the most notorious thief in the country with it. i have sent him with the ring to marie. i bade him show it to her, and tell her that she was to follow him wherever he might lead her. satan laczi has the ring." katharina covered her eyes with her hand, and stood with drooping head before her lover. "i have deserved this," she murmured brokenly. vavel passed his hand over his face, and sighed. "it was all a dream! it was madness to expect impossibilities," he murmured. "i am familiar enough with the stars to have known that there are constellations which never descend to the horizon. the 'crown' is one of them! of what use are these rags now?" he exclaimed, with sudden vehemence, pointing to the casket, which katharina still held on her arm. "whom can they serve? they have brought only sorrow to him who has guarded them, and to her to whom they belong. i cannot open the casket; but i need not do that to destroy the contents. pray throw it into the fire yonder." katharina obeyed without an instant's hesitation. after a while the metal casket began to glow in the midst of the flames. it became red, then a pale rose-color, while a thin cord of vapor trailed through the keyhole. "the little garments are burning," whispered vavel, "and the documents, and the portraits, and the heap of worthless money. from to-day," he added, in a louder tone, "i begin to learn what it is to be a poor man." "i have already learned what poverty means," said katharina. "look at these clothes! i have no others, and even these are borrowed." "i love you in them," involuntarily exclaimed vavel, extending his hand toward her. "what? you offer me your hand? do you believe that i am katharina--only katharina?" "that i may wholly and entirely believe that you are katharina, and not themire, answer one question. a creature who calls himself the marquis de fervlans and leon barthelmy is lying in ambush somewhere in this neighborhood, waiting for you to settle an old account with him. if you are the same to me that you once were, and if i am the same to you that i was once, tell me where i shall find de fervlans, for it will be _my_ duty then to settle with him." katharina's face suddenly blazed with eager excitement. she flung back her head with a proud gesture. "i will lead you to the place. together we will seek him!" she cried, with animation in every feature. "then give me your hand. you _are_ katharina--_my_ katharina!" he bent toward her, and the two hands met in a close clasp. * * * * * count fertöszeg ordered the drums to beat a reveille; then he selected from his troop one hundred trusty men, and galloped with them in the direction of neusiedl lake. katharina on her mule, without the tinkling bell, trotted soberly by his side. part ix satan and demon chapter i there was a notorious troop with napoleon's army, the sixth italian regiment, which was called the "legion of demons." the troop was made up of worthless members of society--idlers, highwaymen, outcasts, and desperate characters, who had lost all sense of respectability and morality. the majority of them had sought the asylum of the battle-field to escape imprisonment or worse. when their commander led his "demons" to an attack, he was wont to urge them thus: "_avanti, avanti, signori briganti! cavalieri ladroni, avanti!_" ("forward, forward, messieurs highwaymen! my chivalrous footpads, forward!") a division of this legion of demons had made its way with the vice-king of italy thus far through the belt-line, and had been intrusted with the mission mentioned in de fervlans's letter to general guillaume. the marquis commanded this body of the demons, he having, as colonel barthelmy in the austrian army, become thoroughly familiar with that part of hungary. * * * * * lisette and satan laczi's little son were living alone at the nameless castle. when marie, who was come in quest of her friend cambray, rang the bell, the door was opened by the lad. "is there a strange gentleman here?" she asked. "i don't know. he went to see lisette, and i did not see him come away," was the reply. "then let me come in," said the young girl. "i want to speak to lisette, too." "she will beat me if i let you come in," returned the boy, opening the door after a moment's hesitation. the fumes of camphor were perceptible even in the vestibule; and when marie's little conductor knocked at the door of the kitchen, a heaping shovelful of hot and smoking coals was thrust toward him, and a scolding voice demanded irritably: "what do you want again? why do you keep annoying me, you little torment!" "excuse me, lisette," humbly apologized the lad, "but our young mistress from the manor is here." at this announcement lisette hastily shut the door again, and opened a small loophole in an upper panel, through which she spoke in a sharp tone: "why do you come here? has the lord forsaken you over yonder, that you come back to this pest-house? get out of it as quickly as you can. go down and hide yourself in the schmidt's cottage--perhaps they will not betray you. anyway, you can't stop here with us." "that is just what i mean to do, lisette,--stop here with you," smilingly responded marie. "where is my friend cambray?" "how should i know where he is? a pretty question to ask me! he is n't anywhere. he has gone to bed, and you can't see him." "i shall hunt till i find him, lisette." "well, you will do as you like, of course; but you will not find m. cambray, for he does n't want to see you." "very well," returned marie. then to the lad by her side, "come with me, laczko; we will hunt for the gentleman." lisette was beside herself with terror at the danger which threatened marie; but before she could utter another word, the young girl and her little escort had disappeared down the corridor. there was a great change everywhere in the castle. the floors were covered with muddy foot-tracks; huge nails had been driven into the varnished walls, and great heaps of dust, straw, and hay lay about on the inlaid floors of the halls and salon. marie hardly recognized her former immaculate asylum. she called, with her clear, soft-toned voice, into every room, "cambray! father! art thou here?" but received no reply. then she mounted the staircase to her own apartment. the door was open like all the rest, but a first glance told marie that the room had not been used until now. lisette, beyond a doubt, had lodged her respected guest in this only habitable chamber. marie entered and looked about her. the metal screen was down! she hastened toward it. there was a light burning in the alcove, and she could see through the links by placing her eyes close to them. the noble old knight was lying on the bare floor, with his hands forming a pillow for his head. his glassy eyes were fixed and staring, and burning with a startling brightness. his parched lips were half-open, as if he were speaking. "cambray! father!" called marie; in a tone of distress. "who calls? marie?" gasped the fever-stricken man, making a vain attempt to rise. he fell back with a deep groan, but flung out his hand as if to ward off her approach. "let me come in, cambray. it is i, your little marie. please let me come in. there, close to your right hand, is a button in the floor. press it, and this screen will rise." the sick man began to laugh; only his face showed that he was laughing, no sound came from his parched throat. he was laughing because he had prevented his favorite from coming to his pestilential resting-place. marie deliberated a moment, then decided to resort to stratagem: "if you will not let me come in to you, papa cambray," she called, simulating a petulant tone, "i shall go away, and not come back again. if you should want anything there will be a little boy here, outside; you can summon him by pressing that button. good night, dear papa cambray!" the sick man turned his face toward the screen and listened in dreamy ecstasy to the sweet voice. he raised his hand, waved it weakly toward the speaker, then clasped it with the other on his breast, while his lips moved as if in prayer. "go fetch candles, and the tinder-box," whispered marie to the little laczko. "place them here by the sofa, then light the lamp in the corridor." "may i fetch my gun, too?" asked the boy. "your gun? what for?" "i should n't be afraid if i had it with me." "then fetch it; but don't come into the room with it, for i am dreadfully afraid of guns. leave it just outside the door." it was quite dark when laczko returned with the candles and a heavy double-barreled fowling-piece. he carefully placed the latter in the corner, then asked: "shall i light the candles now?" "certainly not. i don't want the gentleman to know that i am here. maybe he may want something, and open the screen. i am going to lie down on this sofa, and you are to stand close by the alcove and watch the gentleman. if he should lift the screen, and i have fallen asleep, you must waken me at once." marie wrapped herself in her shawl, and lay down on the leather couch. laczko took up his station as directed, close by the metal screen, through which he peered from time to time. but there was no danger of marie falling asleep. she could not even keep her eyes closed. every few moments she would sit up and ask in a cautious whisper: "what is he doing now?" "he is tossing from side to side." this reply was repeated several times. at last the answer came that the invalid was perfectly quiet, whereupon marie decided not to inquire again for an hour. suddenly she heard the lad say, in a trembling voice: "i am dreadfully frightened." "what of?" whispered marie. "the gentleman lies so still. he has n't stirred for a long time." "he is asleep, i dare say." "if he were sleeping his breast would rise and fall; but he is perfectly still." marie rose, and hastened to the screen. the smoking wick in the night-lamp near cambray's head illumined his ghastly face. marie had already seen one such pallid countenance--that of the old servant henry when he lay dead on his bier. she shuddered, and retreated with trembling limbs, drawing the lad with her. "you may light the candle now," she whispered; "then we will go back to lisette." laczko lighted the candle, then shouldered his gun, and preceded his young mistress down the staircase to the lower story. they had almost reached the door of lisette's room when marie, who had been peering sharply ahead, stopped abruptly, and exclaimed in a startled tone: "there is a man!" even as she spoke a dark form stepped from a doorway into the corridor in front of them. marie retreated several steps; but her little escort proved that he was made of sterner stuff. he placed himself valiantly in front of his young mistress, laid his gun against his cheek, and aiming directly for the stranger's breast, said, in a brave tone: "halt, or i will shoot you." "that's my brave lad," commented the stranger. "but don't shoot. it is i, your father." "don't come any nearer, i tell you!" responded the lad, threateningly. "why, i am not moving a muscle, lad; don't be foolish." "what do you want here?" demanded laczko. "i will not let you do any harm to my mistress." here marie, who had recovered from her alarm, came forward, and laid her hand over her small defender's eyes. "take down your gun, laczko," she commanded. then turning to the stranger asked: "what do you want, my good man?" for answer the man merely pronounced a name: "sophie botta." without an instant's hesitation, and although she shuddered involuntarily when her eyes fell on the stranger's repulsive countenance, the young girl went close to his side, and said calmly: "what do you wish me to do?" satan laczi held the thumb-ring toward her, and said: "the person who wears this sent me to fetch you away from here. are you ready to come with me at once?" "i am," replied marie, who seemed unable to remove her eyes from the hideously ugly face before her. "my master," continued the ex-robber, "also bade me fetch a little steel casket. do you know where it is hidden?" "the person who had it in her care has already taken it to your master," was marie's response. "ah, she has taken it to him?" repeated satan laczi. "then it is all right. i know now what i have to do. my master bade me convey you to a place of concealment; but my face is not exactly the sort to win anybody's confidence. besides, i know some one who can perform this errand as well as i. the way to raab is clear. instead of taking you there myself, my wife will go with you. i think you would rather have her for a companion?" "yes, i think i would rather go with a woman," diplomatically assented marie. "as an additional protection, take this little lad with you." here the ex-robber laid his hand on his son's shoulder, and looked proudly down on him. "his heart is already in the right place. and then he is not a wicked rascal like his father." he was silent a moment, then added: "but i intend to reform. when my master has spoken with the woman to whom he intrusted his treasures, and if she has not betrayed him, then i know where he will be to-morrow. and satan laczi will be there, too! then i and my comrades will show them what we can do. but come, we must make haste, and get on as far as possible while the moon is shining." "but i am not properly clad for a journey," interposed marie. "my wife brought a nice warm _bunda_ to wrap you in; it is in the carriage out yonder," returned the ex-robber. "one word first: you are acquainted with the man who made the metal screen in my apartments. could you see him?" "he is in count vavel's service, and i can see him when i return to the camp." "then tell him to come to the nameless castle at once. he understands the secret spring of the screen, behind which he will find a dead man. this man was a very good friend, and i want him properly buried." "i will give master matyas your order." marie now took leave of the nameless castle, feeling that she would never again come back to it. but she had not the courage to enter her apartments again. the four-horse coach waited at the park gate. marie entered it, wrapped the warm sheep-skin around her, and tied a cotton kerchief over her head in peasant fashion. satan laczi's wife took a seat by her side; the little laczko climbed to the coachman's box, where he sat with his gun between his knees. then the coachman cracked his whip, and the vehicle rattled down the road amid a cloud of dust. satan laczi looked after the coach until it disappeared around a turn in the road. then he blew a shrill blast on his whistle, whereupon a number of wild-looking men, each armed to the teeth, emerged from the shrubbery and came toward him. whispered orders were given, then the men in a body moved toward the willow-copse on the shore of the lake. here were two flatboats drawn up on the beach. these were pushed into the water; the men entered them, each took an oar, and the unwieldy vessels were propelled along the shore toward the marshes. the marquis de fervlans had camped with his company of demons on the shore of neusiedl lake. the marquis himself had taken quarters at the inn in the nearest village, where, assisted by two companions of questionable respectability but of undoubted valor, he was testing the quality of the fiery wine of the region, when a peasant cart, drawn by three horses, drew up before the inn, and jocrisse, baroness katharina's messenger, alighted. "ah, here comes a sensible fellow," exclaimed the marquis. "i wonder what news he brings." he was very soon enlightened. "hum! '_io non posso!_'" he repeated, after reading the brief message jocrisse delivered to him. "very well, madame, i think i shall know what to do if you 'cannot'! jocrisse, how is the country around odenburg garrisoned?" "a division of militia cavalry occupies every town," "that is exasperating! not that i fear these militiamen might give my demons too much work; but i am afraid i may alarm them; then they will scamper in all directions, and frighten the entire neusiedl region, so that when i arrive at fertöszeg i shall find the birds flown and the nest empty. we must take them by surprise. have you ever before been in this part of the country, jocrisse?" "i accompanied the county surveyor once as far as frauenkirchen." "is the road practicable for wheels?" "to frauenkirchen it is good for wagons; but beyond the city it is in a wretched condition." "very well. you will engage a post-chaise here, and follow us to frauenkirchen, where you will wait for further orders. what time did you leave fertöszeg?" "about noon." "listen. i suspect that your mistress will try to escape with the maid. if that is the case, we must bestir ourselves. but women are afraid to travel by night; and even if they have already left the manor, they cannot have gone very far. the water in the danube was unusually high on the day of the battle at aspern; that would cause the raab to rise, and overflow the bridges crossing it. i shall doubtless overtake the fugitives at vitnyed." "it will be rather risky crossing the hansag at night," observed jocrisse, "and no amount of money would induce one of these natives about here to act as guide. they are a peculiar folk." "yes; but i shall not need a guide. i have an excellent map of the neighborhood, which i used when i was in garrison here. i used to hunt all over this region after wild boars and turkeys, and never had any difficulty finding my way, even at night." de fervlans now sent orders to his troop to break camp at once, with as little stir as possible; and before twilight shadows fell upon the land, the demons were riding toward the hansag. if we assume that marie left the nameless castle in company with the wife of satan laczi at midnight, we can easily see that she would have but a few hours' advantage of the demons, who broke camp at sunset. if the latter met with no hindrance on their way, they would overtake the coach of the fugitives at the crossing of the raab. as it was after midnight when ludwig vavel learned of the danger which threatened marie, he could not, even if he had set out at once, have reached the hansag before noon of the following day, by which time de fervlans and his demons would have accomplished their errand. therefore nothing short of a miracle could save the maid. chapter ii the miracle happened--a true miracle, like the one of the biblical legend, when the red sea obstructed the way of the persecutor pharaoh. those who may doubt this assertion are referred to the "monograph on lake neusiedl," in which may be read a description of the phenomenon. in the last years lake neusiedl had been drained, and where it had joined the lakes of the hansag, a stout dam had been built. when the waters of the hansag chain rose, the muddy undercurrent threw up great mounds of earth, like enormous excrescences on a diseased body. one of these huge mounds burst open at the top and emitted a black, slimy mud that inundated the surrounding morass for a considerable distance. already in the neighborhood of st. andras this slimy ooze was noticeable when the troop of demons galloped over the plantain-covered flats which here and there bent under the weight of the horsemen. as they proceeded, the enormous numbers of frogs became surprising, as if this host of amphibia had leagued against the invading demons. then flocks of water-fowl, with clamorous cries and rustling wings, rose here and there, startled from their quiet nests by the approaching inundation, which by this time had completely hidden what was called in that region the public road. de fervlans, at a loss what to make of this singular freak of nature, sent a horseman to the right, and one to the left, to examine the ground, and learn whence came the sea of slime, and how it might be avoided. each of his messengers returned with the information that the slime was flowing in the direction he had ridden. the source, then, must be near where they had halted. "this is bad," said de fervlans, impatiently. "this eruption of mud will hinder our progress. we can't run a race with it. we must look up another route, and this will delay us perhaps for hours. but we can make that up when on a hard road again." de fervlans, who was familiar with the neighborhood, now led his troop in the direction of the path which ran through the morass toward the village of banfalva, hoping thus to gain the excellent highway of eszterhaza. here and there from the swamp rose slight elevations of dry earth which were overgrown with alders and willows. on one of these "hills" de fervlans concluded to halt for a rest, as both men and horses were weary with the toilsome journey over the wretched roads. very soon enough dry wood was collected for a fire. there was no need to fear that the light might attract attention; the camp was far enough from human habitation, and neither man nor beast ever spent the night in the morass of the hansag. besides, they could have seen, from the top of a tree, if any one were approaching. they could see in the bright moonlight the long poplar avenue which led to eszterhaza; and even a gilded steeple might be seen gleaming in the hungarian versailles, which was perhaps a two hours' ride distant. suddenly the sharp call, "_qui vive?_" was heard. it was answered by a sort of grunt, half-brute, half-human. again the challenging call broke the silence, and was followed in a few seconds by a gunshot. then a wild laugh was heard at some distance from the hill. de fervlans hurried toward the guard. "what was it?" he asked. "i don't know whether it was a wild beast or a devil in human form," was the reply. "it was a strange-looking monster with a large head and pointed ears." "i 'll wager it is my runaway fish-boy!" exclaimed the marquis. "when i challenged the creature he stood up on his feet, and barked, or grunted, or whatever you might call it; and when i called out the second time he seemed to strike fire with something; at any rate, he did not act in the proper manner, so i fired at him. but i did n't hit him." "i should be sorry if you had," responded the marquis. "i am convinced that it was my little monster. i taught him to strike fire; and he was evidently attracted by the light of our camp-fire." perhaps it would have been better had the guard shot the amphibious dwarf. hardly had de fervlans returned to his seat when the adjutant called his attention to a suspicious flashing in the morass a short distance from the hill on which they were resting. suddenly, while they were watching the flashes of light, a column of flame rose toward the sky, then another, and another--the morass was on fire in a dozen places. "hell, and all devils!" shouted de fervlans, springing toward his horse. "the little monster has set the marsh-grass on fire, and it was i who taught the devil's spawn how to use touchwood! give chase to the creature!" but the order for a chase came too late. in ten minutes the reeds growing about the hill were burning, and the demons were compelled to use their spurs in order to speed their horses from the dangerous conflagration. they did not stop until they had reached the valla plain--driven to their mad gallop by the caricature of the "militiaman"! "this is a pretty state of affairs!" grumbled de fervlans. "mire first, then flames, bar our way. _quis quid peccat, in eo punitur_--he who sins will be punished by his sin! i sinned in teaching that monster to strike fire. it has made us lose four more hours." the four hours were of some consequence to the fugitive maid and ludwig vavel. dawn broke before the demons found the road between the groups of hills, and when they reached it, they still had before them that half of the hansag which is formed by a series of small lakes. de fervlans now became anxious to shorten their route. a lakelet of fifty or sixty paces in width is not an impassable hindrance for a horseman. therefore it was not necessary to ride perhaps a thousand paces in making a detour of the lakelets--the demons must ride through them. how often had he, when following a deer, swam with his horse through just such a body of water. only then it was autumn, and now it was spring. the flora of this marsh country has many species which hide underneath the water, and in the springtime send their long stems and tendrils toward the surface. de fervlans was yet to learn that even plants may become foes. those of his demons who were the first to plunge into the water suddenly began to call for help. neither man nor beast can swim through a network of growing plants; at every movement they become entangled among the clinging tendrils and swaying stems, and sink to the bottom unless promptly rescued. the men on shore were obliged to grasp the tails of the struggling horses and draw them back to land. de fervlans, who could not be convinced that it was impossible to swim across the narrow stretch of water, came very near losing his life among the aquatic growths. there was now no likelihood of their reaching the highway before sunrise. there was still another hindrance. the fire in the morass had alarmed the entire neighborhood, and the inhabitants were out, to a man, fighting the flames which threatened their meadows. therefore de fervlans, who wished to avoid attracting attention to his troop, was obliged to make his way through thickets and over rough byways, which was very tedious work. it was noon when they arrived at the bridge which crossed the raab half a mile from pomogy. at the farther end of this bridge was the custom-house, which was also a public inn. "we must rest there," said de fervlans, "or our worn-out beasts will drop under us." just as the troop rode on to the bridge, two men ran swiftly from the custom-house toward the swampy lowland. before they entered the marsh they stopped, and bound long wooden stilts to their feet; and, thus equipped, stepped without difficulty from one earth-clod to another. no horseman could have followed them across the treacherous ground. de fervlans's adjutant became uneasy when he saw these two men, whose actions seemed suspicious to him; but the marquis assured him that they were only shepherds whose herds pastured in the marshes. the troop dismounted at the inn, and demanded of the host whatever he had of victuals and drinks. he could offer them nothing better than sour cider, mead, and wild ducks' eggs. but when a demon is hungry and thirsty, even these will satisfy him. de fervlans, who had not for one instant doubted that his expedition would be successful, spread out his map and planned their further march. general guillaume would have received one of his letters at least,--he had sent two, with two different couriers in different directions,--and would now be waiting at friedberg for the arrival of the demons and their distinguished captive. therefore the most direct route to that point must be selected. it was not likely that any militia troops would be idling about that cart of the country; and if there were, the demons could very easily manage them. chapter iii one of the two men who crossed the morass on stilts was master matyas, whose distance marches during this campaign were something phenomenal. matyas found count vavel with his troop already at eszterhaza, and apprized him at once of de fervlans's arrival at the bridge-inn. the volons had not yet rested, but they had traveled over passable roads, and were not so exhausted. their leader at once gave orders to mount. when ludwig saw that katharina also prepared to accompany the troop, he hurried to her side. "don't come any farther, katharina," he begged. "remain here, where you will be perfectly safe. something might happen to you when we meet the enemy." katharina's smiling reply was: "no, my dear friend. i have paid a very high entrance-fee to see this tragedy, for that you will kill barthelmy fervlans i am as certain as that there is a just god in heaven!" "but _your_ presence will make me fear at a moment when i must not feel afraid--afraid for your safety." "oh, don't trouble about yourself. i know you better. when you come in sight of the enemy you will forget all about _me_. as for me, i am going with you." the troop now set out on the march through the poplar avenue. when they drew near to pomogy, vavel sent a squad in advance to act as skirmishers, while he, with the rest of his men, took possession of a solitary elevation near the road, which was the work of human hands. it was composed of the refuse from a soda-factory, and encircled on three sides a low building. vavel concealed his horsemen behind this artificial hillock, then, accompanied by katharina, he ascended to the top to take a view of the surrounding country. he could see through his field-glass the bridge across the raab and the inn at the farther end. the entire region was nothing but morass. a trench ran from the highway toward lake neusiedl; it could be traced by the dense growth of broom along its edges. "you are my adjutant," jestingly remarked vavel to katharina. "i am going down now; for if i should be seen here it will be known what is behind me. you are a farmer's wife, and will not arouse suspicion; stop here, therefore, and take observations with my glass, and keep me informed of what happens." the marquis de fervlans was enjoying a tankard of foaming mead when his adjutant came hastily into the room with the announcement that some troopers were approaching the bridge on the farther side of the river. de fervlans hurried from the inn and gave orders to mount. as yet only the crimson hats of the troopers could be seen above the tall reeds on the farther shore. "those are vavel's volons," said de fervlans, taking a look through his glass. "i recognize the uniform from jocrisse's description. madame themire has turned traitor, and sent the count to deal with me instead of coming herself. very good! we will show the gentleman that war and star-gazing are different occupations. he was a soldier once; but i don't think he paid much attention to military tactics, else he would not have neglected to occupy yon hill, on which i see a peasant woman with a red kerchief over her head. that is an old soda-factory--i know the place well. i should n't wonder if vavel had concealed some men there after all! that small body coming this way is evidently bent on a skirmishing errand. well, our tactics will be to lure him from his concealment." he held a consultation with his subordinates; after which he turned toward the waiting demons, and called: "signor trentatrante!" the man came forward--a true type of the gladiator of the vatican. "dismount," ordered the marquis. "take thirty men, and proceed on foot to the farther side of yon thicket, where you will lie in ambush until i have begun an assault on the soda-factory over yonder. the men in hiding there will show up when we approach; i shall then pretend to retreat, and lure them toward the thicket. you will know what to do then--fall upon them in the rear. when you have arrived at the thicket let me know. set fire to that tallest clump of reeds near the willow-shrubs." "all right!" returned the signor. then he selected thirty of his companions, who also dismounted, and they started at once to obey the orders of their leader. the "peasant woman with a red kerchief over her head," who was standing on the soda-factory hill, called in a low, clear tone to ludwig: "de fervlans is coming with his troop." "then we must prepare a greeting for him," responded vavel. he ordered his men into their saddles, then sallied forth with them to meet the enemy. the two bodies of soldiers moving toward each other were very nearly alike in numbers. neither seemed to be in a particular hurry to begin an assault. suddenly a column of smoke rose from the thicket near the bridge--it was the signal de fervlans was waiting for. he gave orders to halt. the next instant there was a rattling salute from the demons' carbines. the "peasant woman" on the hill covered her face with both hands and shivered. the messengers of death flew about the head of her lover, but left him unharmed. vavel now moved nearer to the attacking foe, and himself made straight for the leader. one of de fervlans's lieutenants, however, a thick-set, sun-browned sicilian, met the count's assault. there was a little sword-play, then vavel struck his adversary's blade from his hand with a force that sent it whizzing through the air, and with his left hand thrust the sicilian, who was reaching for his pistols, from the saddle. nor had vavel's companions been idle the while. the first assault was a success for the count's troop. de fervlans now ordered a retreat. the death-heads looked upon this as a victory, and eagerly pursued the retreating foe. but the woman on the hill had already perceived that the retreat was but a feint. she saw the demons crouching among the reeds in the thicket, and guessed their intention. "vavel!" she shouted at the top of her voice, "vavel, take care! look to your rear!" she imagined that her lover would hear her amid the tumult of the fight. but vavel had ears and eyes only for what was in front of him. nearer and nearer he approached to the trap de fervlans had laid for him. he was in it! the trench was behind him now, and the demons in ambush were preparing to spring upon their prey. katharina could look no longer. she ran down the hill, sprang on her mule, and galloped after her lover. de fervlans's retreat was conducted in proper order, step by step, from earth-clod to earth-clod. suddenly katharina discovered that a mule was an obstinate beast. the one she was riding stopped abruptly, and would not advance another step. in vain she urged and coaxed. at last she sprang from the saddle, and on foot made her way toward the scene of the fray. at this moment the demons creeping steathily along the trench sprang from their concealment, their bayonets ready for action. they were on the point of firing a volley into the black backs of the volons, when a rattling fire in their own rear brought down half of them dead and wounded. the uninjured on turning found themselves confronted by satan laczi and his comrades, who, black and slimy from their passage through the morass, sprang like tigers upon the foe. "strike for their heads!" commanded satan laczi, as, with sabers drawn, the ex-robbers rushed upon the bewildered demons, who had at last met their match. when de fervlans heard the firing in the neighborhood of the trench, he believed it to come from the muskets of his own men, and quickly sounded an attack. the demons, who had been feigning to retreat, now turned and met their pursuers, and a hand-to-hand conflict began. vavel also had heard the firing behind him, and believed himself surrounded by the enemy. he beckoned to his trumpeter, to whom he wished to give orders to sound a retreat, but the man's horse unfortunately stumbled, and threw his rider to the earth. three demons, at once sprang to capture the fallen trumpeter; but vavel, who knew how necessary the man was to him, hastened to his assistance. de fervlans in amazement watched this unequal encounter. a masterly conflict arouses admiration even in an enemy; and vavel certainly proved himself a master in the art of fighting. he fought in cold blood; he was not in the least excited. he made no unnecessary thrusts, but wounded his three adversaries in the hand, the elbow, the forearm, whereby he rendered them incapable of further combat. de fervlans saw how his skilled demons gave way before vavel's masterly thrusts, while the volons drew their unfortunate trumpeter from beneath his horse, and assisted him to mount again, after they had also helped the horse to his feet. but the trumpet was now useless; it was filled with mud. consequently a signal for retreat could not be sounded. a dense mass of wild-hop vines inclosed the eastern side of the scene of action. de fervlans glanced impatiently toward this green wall. the armed men who should penetrate it would decide the victory. even as the thought flashed through his brain, the tangle of vines began to shake violently; but the first man to appear therefrom was not signor trentatrante, as de fervlans had expected, but satan laczi, with his ferocious followers. the attack from this point was so unexpected that de fervlans for a moment seemed stupefied; then quickly recovering himself, he dashed into the thick of the fight, vavel following his example. by this time the trumpet had been cleansed, but no orders were received for a retreat signal; instead, the sound it shrilled above the fearful turmoil was: "forward! forward!" with the blood pouring from a gaping wound in his head, satan laczi, swinging a saber he had captured from a foe, now rushed to meet de fervlans, who at once recognized the former robber. "ah!" he exclaimed, preparing to meet the furious onslaught, "you have not yet found your way to the gallows!" "no; here in hungary only traitors are hanged," retorted satan laczi, in a loud voice, as, with a mighty leap that would have done credit to a horse, he sprang toward the marquis, caught the reins from his hands, and with true robber-wit called: "surrender, brother-rascal!" de fervlans raised himself in his stirrups and brought his saber savagely down on the robber's head. this was the second serious cut satan laczi had received that day, and was evidently enough to calm his enthusiasm. he staggered to one side, made several vain attempts to straighten himself, then fell suddenly to the earth. his own blade, however, remained in the breast of de fervlans's horse, where he had thrust it to the hilt. the marquis hardly had time to leap from the saddle before the poor beast fell under him. all seemed lost now. his men were confused and thrown into disorder. in desperation he tore his pistols from the saddle of his fallen horse. only a single shrub separated him from his enemy,--twenty paces,--and de fervlans was a celebrated shot. count vavel saw what was coming, and he too drew his pistol. "good night, chevalier vavel!" in a mocking tone called de fervlans, as his finger pressed the trigger. there was a sharp report, the ball whistled through the air--but vavel did not fall. "accept _my_ greeting, marquis!" responded vavel, he raised his pistol, and fired without taking aim. de fervlans fell backward to the ground. chapter iv when de fervlans's men saw that their leader had fallen they retreated toward the bridge, where a portion of the troop alighted and held at bay their pursuers, while the rest tore up and flung into the stream the planks of the bridge. then the men who had prevented the volons from following crossed on foot the narrow lengthwise beam to the opposite shore--a feat impossible for a man on horseback. the spot where the fiercest fighting had occurred was already cleared when katharina arrived upon it. she shuddered with horror, and staggered like one who walks in his sleep as she moved about the desert place. suddenly she came upon a large wild-rose bush covered with bloom. close by it lay a horse with the hilt of a sword protruding from his breast. near the dead animal lay a metal helmet ornamented with the gilded imperial eagle, and a little farther on lay a mud-stained form in a uniform of coarse gray cloth, with a gaping wound in his head; his left hand clutched the rushes among which he had fallen. as katharina, in her peasant gown, moved timidly across the open space, she heard a voice say faintly in hungarian: "for god's sake, good woman, give me a drink of water." without stopping to question whether he was friend or foe, katharina caught up the metal helmet to fetch the water. there was water everywhere about her, but it was the filthy water of the morass. katharina remembered having heard that the shepherds of the hansag, when they were thirsty, cut a reed and thrust it deep into the swampy earth, when clear, drinkable water would rise from the lower soil. she therefore thrust a long cane into the moist earth, then put her lips to it, and sucked up the water. on removing her lips a clear stream shot upward from the cane. she held the helmet under this improvised fountain until it was full, then returned with it to the rose-bush. the wounded man was lying on his back, his bloodstained face upturned toward the sky. katharina knelt by his side, and held the helmet to his lips. "themire!" gasped the wounded man. at sound of the name a sudden fury seemed to seize the woman. "de fervlans!" she cried, in a hoarse voice. "_you!_ you, the accursed destroyer of my daughter! may god refuse to forgive you for making of me the wretched creature i am!" as she spoke she raised the helmet, of water above her head, as if she would dash it upon the dying man's face; but he turned his head away from her furious gaze, and did not stir again. slowly katharina lowered the helmet, and struggled with her excited feelings. she looked about her, and saw another motionless form lying across a clump of turf. perhaps he was still alive. perhaps she might help him. she stepped quickly to his side with the helmet of water and washed the blood and mud-stains from his face. ah, what a hideous face it was! all the same, she carefully washed it, then bathed the gaping wounds in his head. they were horribly deep, and she was almost overcome by the fearful sight. but she looked upward for a moment, and it seemed to her as if she recognized amid the fleecy clouds a snow-white form, and heard an encouraging voice say: "that is right, mother. i, too, performed such work." then she took her handkerchief and bound it around the wounded man's head. while so doing her eyes fell on the steel ring on his thumb. "satan laczi!" she exclaimed. she put her arms around him, and lifted him to a more comfortable position, wondering the while how he came to be there. had he failed to find marie, whom he was to accompany to raab? had cambray, perhaps, prevented her from leaving the castle? she bent over the wounded man and said: "satan laczi, awake! look up--come back to life!" and satan laczi was such an obedient fellow, he opened his eyes and saw the lady kneeling by his side. then he opened his lips, and said in a very weak voice: "i should like a drink of water." katharina made haste to fill the helmet again at her fountain. "thank you, sister." "look at me, laczi bácsi;" commanded katharina, in a cheerful tone. "don't you know me? i am the woman who gave shelter to your wife and child. i am little laczko's foster-mother." the wounded man smiled faintly, and murmured: "yes, yes--laczko--laczko is a fine lad! he came near--shooting me because--because of the maid." "tell me what you know about the maid," eagerly questioned katharina. "where is she?" the wounded man opened his eyes, and seemed to be trying to recall something. after a pause, he said slowly, and with evident difficulty: "you need n't--trouble about the--pretty maid. laczko is a brave lad--and my wife--my wife is--an honest woman." "yes, yes, i know," returned katharina. "a good lad, and an honest woman. but tell me, in heaven's name, where is the maid?" "the maid--sophie botta went with--my wife to raab--they are there now--and laczko too." how gently the lady bathed the wounded man's face and hands! how carefully she renewed the bandages on the horrible wounds! ludwig vavel, who hart approached noiselessly, stood and watched her perform the labor of love. he saw, heard, and admired. then he came close to the kneeling woman, and clasped his arms around her. "my katharina! oh, what a woman art thou!" part x conclusion chapter i when count vavel returned from his skirmish with de fervlans's demons, he sent his betrothed at once to raab, with instructions not to separate herself again from marie. he had not been able to accompany katharina on her journey, as he had received marching orders immediately on his return to camp. on parting with his betrothed, however, he had promised to pay a visit to her and marie at an early day, and to write to both of them daily. the first part of his promise he had not been able to fulfil; his time was too fully occupied with the duties of the field. but he sent frequent messages to his loved ones; while every day, no matter where he might be, he would be sure to receive his letter from raab--one sheet covered to the edges with katharina's writing, and the other with marie's. their letters were always cheerful, and filled with hope and confidence for the future. ludwig fancied he could see the scene as katharina described it, when marie had opened the steel casket. he knew just how delighted the young girl had been when she beheld nothing but ashes instead of the little garments, the documents, the portraits, the bank-notes; and he could hear her joyous laugh on finding herself relieved of the burden of her greatness. but what he could not hear was katharina reciting his brave exploits during the fierce struggle on the hansag, a recital marie insisted on hearing every day. then the two, marie and katharina, would go every morning to church, to pray for ludwig, to ask god to protect him, and bring him safely back to them. this was their daily pleasure and consolation. then came the bloody days of karako, papa, raab, and acs. the militia troops took active part in all these battles, and proved themselves valiant warriors. vavel with his volons had been assigned to mesko's brigade, and had shared its adventurous march from abda, around lake balaton to veszprim. here he found his spy and scout, master matyas, awaiting him. for weeks he had not had a word from his loved ones. when he had sent them to raab he believed he had selected a secure haven for them, but the course which events had taken proved that he had made a mistake in his calculations. katharina and marie were now surrounded on all sides by the enemy. it was while he was oppressed with these gloomy thoughts that his spy and scout suddenly appeared before him. noah in his ark had not looked more longingly for the dove than had he for his brave matyas. "well, master matyas, what news?" "all sorts, herr count." "good or bad?" "well, mixed. both good and bad. i will leave the good till the last. to begin: poor satan laczi was buried yesterday--may god have mercy on his sinful soul! they fired three salvos over his grave, and the primate himself said the prayers for his soul. if satan laczi himself could have seen it all, he could hardly have believed that so much honor would be shown to his dead body. poor laczi! his last words were a greeting to his kind patron." "his life closed well!" observed the count. "he got what he longed for--a soldier's death. but tell me what you know about raab." "i know all about it. i come from there." "ah, did you see them? has not the enemy besieged the city?" "yes; the city as well as the fortress is in the hands of the enemy, and the baroness and the princess are both in it." "who told you to call her a princess?" demanded count vavel, his face darkening. "i will come to that all in good time," composedly replied matyas, who was not to be hurried. "colonel pechy," he went on, "bravely defended the fortress for ten days against the frenchmen; but he had to yield at last--" "where are katharina and marie?" impatiently interrupted vavel. "what became of them when the city capitulated?" "all in good time, herr count, all in good time! i can tell you all about them, for i am just come from them." "were they in any danger?" "danger? no, indeed! when the city surrendered they were concealed in a house where they passed as the nieces of the herr vice-palatine görömbölyi." "is the vice-palatine with them now?" "certainly. he has surrendered, too." "excellent man! who commands the frenchmen at raab?" "general guillaume--" "general guillaume?" excitedly interrupted vavel. "yes, certainly; guillaume--that is his name. and he is a very polite gentleman. he does not ill-treat the citizens; on the contrary, the very next day after he entered the city he gave a ball in the large hotel, and invited all the distinguished citizens with their wives and daughters. the herr count's dear ones also received an invitation." "as the nieces of the vice-palatine, of course?" "not exactly! i saw the invitation-card, and it was to 'madame la comtesse de alba, avec la princesse marie.'" "princess marie?" echoed vavel. "as i tell you; and that is how i come to know she is a princess." vavel's brain seemed paralyzed. he could not even think. "the vice-palatine," nonchalantly continued matyas, "protested that a mistake had been made; but the french general replied that he knew very well who the ladies were, and that he had received instructions how to treat them. from that day, two french grenadiers began to guard the baroness's door, day and night, just exactly as if they were standing guard over a potentate." vavel paced the floor, mute with rage and fear. "why did i desert them!" he exclaimed at last, in desperation. "why did i not do as marie wished--flee with her and katharina into the wide world--we three alone!" "well, you see you did n't, and this is the way matters stand now," responded master matyas. "the general's adjutant visits the house twice every day to inquire after the ladies; then he reports to his superior." "if only cambray had not died!" ejaculated the count. "yes, but i helped to bury him, too," added matyas, shaking his head. "yes, so i was told. how did you manage to get the body from behind the metal screen?" "oh, that was easy enough. you know the spring is connected with the bell in your study; when the screen unrolled, the bell rang. it was only necessary to reverse the operation: by pulling the bell-wire in the herr count's study the screen was rolled up." "a very simple arrangement, indeed," observed count vavel, smiling in spite of his gloom. "ah, master matyas, if only you were clever enough to open for me the locks which now imprison my dear ones! that would be a masterpiece, indeed!" "i can do that easily enough," was the confident rejoinder. "you can? how?" "did n't i say i would leave the good news until the last?" "yes, yes. tell me what you have in view." "i must whisper the secret in your ear; i have often overheard important secrets listening at the keyhole or while hiding under a bed, and what i have done another may be doing." vavel bent his head so that master matyas might whisper the important information in his ear. the words were few, but they served to restore vavel to a cheerful mood. he laughed heartily, slapped master matyas on the shoulder, and exclaimed: "you are truly a wonderful fellow!" then he took a roll of bank-notes from his pocket, and pressed it into matyas's hand. "here--take these, and buy what is necessary. we will make the attempt at once." master matyas thrust the money into his own pocket, and darted from the room as if he had stolen it. ludwig hastened to his general, to beg for leave of absence. chapter ii "everything is ready," said master matyas to vavel, pointing toward three covered luggage-wagons, which the volons had captured from the frenchmen at klein-zell. the "death-head troop," as vavel's volons were designated, marched in the rear of the brigade; consequently they could drop out from it any time without attracting special notice. to-day the brigade marched toward palota, and the volons turned into the road which led to zircz. they seemed, however, to have been swallowed up by the bakonye forest, for nothing was seen again of them after they entered it. the inhabitants of ratota still repeat tales of the handsome troopers--every man of them a true magyar!--who rode through their village to the sound of the trumpet, nodding to the pretty girls, and paying gold coin for their refreshment at the inn. but the dwellers in zircz complained that, instead of magyar troopers, a squad of hostile cavalry passed through their village--frenchmen in blue mantles, with cocks' feathers in their helmets, with a commandant who had given all sorts of orders that no one could understand. luckily, the prior of the premonstrants could speak french, and he acted as interpreter for the french commandant. and everybody felt relieved when he marched farther with his troop. these were the transformed volons. they had exchanged their crimson shakos in the dense forest for the french helmets, and wrapped themselves in the blue mantles taken from the luggage-wagons. no one would have doubted that they were french _chasseurs_--even the trumpeter sounded the calls according to the regulations in the armies of france. master matyas hurried on in advance of the troop to learn if the way was clear. it would have been equally unpleasant to have met either hungarian or french soldiery. they encountered neither, however; and at daybreak on the second day arrived at the village of börcs, on the rabcza, where is an interesting monument of times long past--a redoubt of considerable extent, in the center of which stands the village church. vavel's troop camped within this redoubt, where they could escape attracting attention. the country about them, for a long distance, was occupied by french troops. the highway which led to raab might be seen from the steeple of the church, and here vavel took up his station with a field-glass. he had not been long in his tower of observation when he saw a heavy cloud of dust moving along the highway, and very soon was able to distinguish a body of horsemen. it was a company of cuirassiers, whose polished breastplates glittered in the sunlight like stars. the company was divided into two squads: one rode in front of a four-horse traveling-coach, the other in the rear of it. there were two ladies in the coach. the elder of the two shielded her face from the dust with a heavy veil; the younger lady wore no veil over her pale face, but held in front of it a fan, from behind which she took an occasional look at the variegated plain, where the ripening grain, blended with the green of the meadows, formed a rich, carpet on either side of the road. the young officer riding beside the coach sought to entertain the elder lady with observations on the country through which they were passing, and from time to time exchanged tender glances with the younger. these ladies were the wife and daughter of general guillaume. they were on their way to raab, where they expected an addition to their party in the person of _la princesse marie_, whom they were going to accompany to paris. the troop of cuirassiers was their escort. "there come some _chasseurs_ on a foraging expedition," observed the young officer, pointing toward a body of horsemen that was approaching across the green plain. and, judging from the appearance of the riders, he was right; for the volons, in order to deceive the frenchmen, were bringing with them a couple of loaded hay-wagons, which they were dragging through the middle of the highway. while yet a considerable distance away from the approaching _chasseurs_, the postilions began to blow their horns for a clear way. the hay-wagons were turned, in obedience to the signal, but, in turning, the second one ran into the one in advance with such force that the pole was broken clean off. in front of the barricade thus formed vavel halted his men, and commanded them to throw off their french cloaks and helmets. in a second the order was obeyed; the crimson shakos with their grim death-heads were donned, and the troop dashed forward upon the escort accompanying the coach. the astonished cuirassiers, who were wholly unprepared for the assault, were soon overpowered by the volons, who also outnumbered them. the youthful leader had at once placed himself in front of the coach, ready for combat with the leader of the attacking foe, and vavel was obliged to exercise all his skill to disarm without injuring him. at the moment when the young french champion's sword flew from his hand, the younger lady, forgetting all ceremony, cried in terror: "_oh mon dieu, ne tuez pas arthur!_" ludwig vavel turned toward her, bowed courteously, and said in talma's most exquisite french: "do not be alarmed, ladies. you are perfectly safe. we are hungarian gentlemen!" "but what do you want of us?" demanded the elder lady, haughtily surveying the count. "what business have we with you? we do not belong to the combatants." "i will tell this brave young chevalier what i want," replied vavel, turning toward the youthful leader. "first, let me restore your sword, monsieur. you handle it admirably, only you need to grasp it more firmly. then, let me beg of you to mount your horse--a beautiful animal! and third, i beg you to ride as quickly as possible to raab, and give general guillaume this message: 'i, count vavel de versay, have this day taken captive the wife and daughter of general guillaume. the general holds as prisoners my betrothed wife, countess themire dealba, and my adopted daughter, sophie botta, or, if he prefers, _la princess marie_. i demand my loved ones in exchange for madame and mademoiselle guillaume.' i have no further demands, monsieur, and the sooner you return the better. i shall await you in yonder redoubt, where you see the church-steeple. adieu." the younger lady, with hands clasped pleadingly, mutely besought the youthful officer to assent. as if he would not do everything in his power to urge the general to consent to the exchange! the young frenchman galloped down the road toward raab. count vavel took his place beside the coach, and ordered the postilions to drive to börcs. at first, the general's wife heaped reproaches on her captor. "this is a violation of national courtesies," she exclaimed irately. "it is brigandage, to waylay and take as prisoners two distinguished women." "madame's husband has also detained as prisoners two distinguished women," in a respectful tone responded vavel. "but my daughter is so nervous." "there is not a more timid creature in the world than my poor little marie." "at all events, monsieur, you are a frenchman, and know what is due to ladies of our station." "in that respect, madame, i shall follow general guillaume's example." they were now among the gardens of börcs, where the cherry-trees, heavily laden with fruit, rose above the tall hedges; and very soon they turned into a beautiful street shaded by walnut-trees, which led to the redoubt. the parsonage was the only house of importance in the village. the pastor was standing at his door when vavel ordered the coach to stop. he assisted the ladies to alight, and begged the pastor to grant them the hospitality of his roof. the request was not refused, and the ladies were made as comfortable as possible. "do you care to see the sights of the village, madame?" asked vavel of the mother, after they had partaken of the lunch prepared by the pastor's housekeeper. the young lady, who was exhausted by the journey, had gone to her room. "there is a very old church here which is interesting." "are there any fine pictures in it?" inquired madame. "there is one,--a very touching scene,--'the samaritan.'" "ancient or modern?" queried the lady. "the subject is old--it dates back to the first years of christianity, madame. the execution is modern." "is it the work of a celebrated artist?" "no; it is the work of our clerical host." the lady shook her head; she was uncertain whether count vavel was making sport of her or of the pastor. but she understood him when she entered the church. the house consecrated to the service of god had become a hospital, and was crowded with wounded french soldiers. the women of the village, as volunteer nurses, were taking care of them, and performed the task as faithfully as if the invalids were their own sons and brothers. the pastor himself supplied the necessary medicines from his own cupboard; for no army surgeon came here at a time when twenty thousand wounded frenchmen lay at aspern, and twenty-two thousand at wagram. "is it not an affecting tableau, madame?" said count vavel. "it would be a suitable altar-piece for notre dame--and the name of its creator deserves perpetuation!" chapter iii monsieur le capitaine descourcelles rode an excellent horse, was a capital rider, and was plainly very much in love. these three circumstances combined brought back the gallant soldier from raab by five o'clock in the afternoon. the captain of the cuirassiers was not a little surprised to find the general's wife playing cards with the hostile leader. "general guillaume agrees to everything," he announced immediately, on entering the room. "he will release the ladies he has been holding as prisoners." vavel hastened to shake hands with the bearer of these glad tidings, who was, however, more eager to kiss the hand of vavel's partner, and to inquire: "i hope i find the ladies perfectly comfortable?" "very comfortable indeed," replied madame. "_messieurs les cannibales_ are very polite, and _leur catzique_ plays an excellent hand at piquet." "and where is mademoiselle? i trust she is not suffering from the fatigue of the journey?" "oh, no; she is very well. she is making her toilet, and will soon join us. i hope we shall leave here very soon." madame now rose, and left the two soldiers alone in the room. "here," observed the french captain, handing vavel a paper, "is the _sauf conduit_." the pass contained the information that "vavel de versay, expatriated french nobleman and magnate of hungary, together with the countess themire dealba (alias baroness katharina landsknechtsschild) and sophie botta (pretended princess marie charlotte capet), with attendants, were to be allowed to travel unmolested by any french troops they might chance to meet." ludwig vavel looked at this document a long time. "do you doubt the assurance of a french officer, monsieur?" asked the captain. "no; i was just unable to understand why a word had been used here. i dare say it is a mistake. but no matter. i am greatly obliged to you." "pray don't speak of it," responded the frenchman, cordially shaking the hand vavel extended toward him. "i must not forget to tell you that a four weeks' armistice was agreed upon to-day." the ladies now entered the room, prepared to continue their journey. the face of the younger one wore a more cheerful expression than on her arrival at the parsonage. madame thanked vavel for his courtesy, then, with her daughter, entered the carriage and drove away. madame guillaume was forgetful: she neglected to take leave of her host the pastor, and of her wounded countrymen in the church. vavel communicated the news of the armistice to his adjutant, and commanded him to return at once with the volons to fertöszeg, there to quarter themselves in the nameless castle, and await further orders. then he mounted his horse, and, accompanied by master matyas, galloped out of the village. twilight had deepened into night when the two men arrived at raab. the clocks were striking eight, and the french trumpets were sounding the retreat at every gate. vavel, therefore, would not be allowed to enter the city until the next morning; but master matyas, who did not stop to inquire which was the proper way when he wanted to go anywhere, knew of a little garden that belonged to a certain tanner, and very soon found an entrance along a rather circuitous route among the tan-vats. vavel had already seen battered walls, and dwellings ruined by bombs and flames, yet the thought that he should find his loved ones amid these smoke-blackened ruins oppressed his heart. the two men attracted no attention. in the last days there had been many strangers in the city, deputations from the militia camps, to assist in establishing the line of demarcation. master matyas, without difficulty, led the way among the ruins to the neat little abode where the worthy vice-palatine had established his protégés. when they came within sight of the house matyas observed: "the two frenchmen with their bearskin caps are not on guard to-day. the vice-palatine's servant seems to be doing sentry-duty." vavel applied his spurs and cantered briskly toward the house, but moderated his speed when he came nearer. he remembered how easily marie was frightened by the clatter of horse-hoofs. at the corner of the street he alighted, and cautioning matyas to exercise slowly the fatigued horses, proceeded on foot to the house. the servant on guard at the door saluted in military fashion with drawn sword. ludwig hurried into the house. in the hall he encountered the little laczko, who, at sight of the visitor, dropped the boot and brush he held in his hands, and disappeared through a door at the end of the hall. vavel followed him, and found himself in the kitchen, where the widow of satan laczi also dropped to the floor the cooking-utensil she had in her hand. the count did not stop to question her, but went on into the adjoining room, whence proceeded the sound of voices, and here he found three acquaintances--the vice-palatine, dr. tromfszky, and the surveyor, herr doboka. the three started in alarm when they beheld vavel. the doctor even made as if he would rush from the room--as when in the nameless castle the furious invalid had seized his groom by the throat. the expressions on the three startled countenances brought a sudden fear to ludwig's heart. "is any one ill here?" he asked. the vice-palatine and the doctor looked at each other, but did not speak; the surveyor began to stammer: "i say--i say that--" "is marie ill?" interrupted vavel, excitedly. herr bernat silently nodded assent, and pointed toward the door leading into the next room. vavel did not stop to inquire further, but strode into the adjoining chamber. what a familiar little room it was, another fairy-like retreat like that of the nameless castle! here were marie's toys, her furniture; the four cats were purring in the window-seat, and the two pugs lay dozing on the sofa. a canopy-bed stood in the alcove, and among the pillows lay marie. katharina was sitting by the bedside. "oh, god!" cried vavel, in a tone so full of anguish that every one who heard it, man, woman, and child, burst into tears. the invalid among the pillows alone laughed--laughed aloud for joy. and had she not cause to rejoice? ludwig--_her_ ludwig--did not hasten first to embrace and kiss his betrothed wife. no, _she_, his little marie, was the first! he flung himself on his knees by the bed and covered the pale face with kisses and tears. "oh, my dearest! my adored saint! my idol!" he sobbed, while marie's face glowed with the purest earthly happiness. she pressed ludwig's head to her breast and whispered soothingly: "don't grieve, ludwig; i am not going to die. i have not got that horrid influenza poor papa cambray brought with him from paris. i took a little cold the night we ran away from the bombs; but i shall soon be well again, now that you are come. i want to live, ludwig, and you, who rescued me from death once before, will know how to do it again." katharina laid her hand tenderly on the maid's head, and said gently: "don't talk any more now, dearest; you know you must not excite yourself." marie grasped the white hand and drew it down to ludwig's lips. "kiss it, liadwig; kiss this dear, good hand. oh, she has been a good little mother to me! she has wept so much because of me. if only you knew what she had planned to do when they were going to tear me away from her! but that danger is past, and now that you are come everything will be well. we have been reading about you, ludwig. what a hero you are--our knight, st. george! i have n't been really ill, you know, ludwig; it was only anxiety about you. i shall soon be well again. please tell the doctor i don't need any more medicine. i want to get up--i feel strong already. i want to put on my gown; then i will take your arm and katharina's, and we three will promenade to the window. i want to see the evening star. please send frau satan to me; she can lift me more easily than katharina, for i am very heavy. ludwig, take katharina into the next room while i am dressing. i know you have much to say to each other." frau satan now entered in answer to the summons. the doctor had ordered that the invalid's wishes must be obeyed. ludwig and katharina went into the next room. they looked long into each other's eyes, and in the gaze lay many of the thoughts which, if they cannot be told to the one person on earth, are never heard by any one else. suddenly katharina, without word of warning, dropped on her knees at her lover's feet, seized his hand, and laid her face against it. "you are my guardian angel," she whispered (the invalid in the next room must not be disturbed by the sound of voices); "you have rescued that saint from her enemies and saved me from perdition. oh, ludwig, if only you knew what i have suffered! marie's every sigh, the feverish words uttered in her delirium, have been so many accusations oppressing my heart. these have been terrible days! to be compelled hourly to dread either of two horrible blows, and to have to pray to god that, if both could not be averted, to let the milder one fall! death would have been welcome, indeed, compared to the other one. to listen tremblingly, hour after hour, for the knock at the door which would announce the messenger sent to bear marie to paris, or death with his scythe to bear her to the grave! and then to have to look on her sufferings, and hear her pray for her betrayer! oh, it was terrible, terrible! ludwig, you are just--as god is just. i have suffered as any woman in the bible suffered. you have taken my load of sorrow from me, have released my heart from the tortures of perdition. all the evil i have done, you have made good. therefore, do you pronounce judgment on me. condemn me or forgive me. i deserve both; i will accept either at your hands." without a word ludwig vavel raised the woman to her feet, clasped her in his arms, and pressed his lips to hers in a long, long kiss. in it were forgiveness, love, union. * * * * * from the adjoining room came the sounds of a piano. some one was playing the hymn of the hungarian militia. ludwig and katharina hurried into the room. marie was seated at the piano, arrayed in her favorite blue gown. her transparent hands hovered over the ivory keys, and lured from them the melancholy air, to which she sang, in a voice that seemed to come from the distant clouds: "was kleinliche bosheit ausgedacht, hat unserer liebe ein ende gemacht." at the last word her arms sank to her sides; the exertion had completely exhausted her. but she struggled bravely to overcome her weakness. she smiled brightly at ludwig and katharina, and said: "this melancholy song was not intended for you two. it was only to show ludwig how i have improved. you two will love each other very dearly, won't you? and you will go far, far away from here, and leave 'marie' buried in her tomb. i don't mean myself; i mean the troublesome girl who has made so much ill feeling in the world, because of whom so many people have suffered; the girl whose ashes rest there in the steel casket, and whose life was so sad that she had no desire to live longer. but 'sophie' is going with you out into the world. she will see how happy you two can be. and now, help me to the window; i want to look at the evening star," they rolled her arm-chair to the window, and vavel opened the sash to admit the fresh air from the garden. marie clasped ludwig's and katharina's hands in both her own, and whispered in a faint voice: "you will forget the past, will you not? or think of it only as a dream--a disagreeable dream. and don't go back to the nameless castle. the veiled woman, the locked doors, the silent man, the telescope, the lonely promenades in the garden--all, all were dreams. don't think of them! forget them all! the clanking swords, the thunder of cannons--all these were not. we only dreamed it. we never lived under the shadow of a throne. who was marie? a sovereign of cats, and crown princess in the realm of little dogs and birds--a nursery tale to tell naughty little children who will not go to sleep! but sophie botta will be here to-morrow, and the next day, and always; she will be with you, the silly, stupid little maid, who can do nothing but obey those whom she loves with all her heart." vavel with difficulty refrained from giving voice to his overwhelming grief. "just see," marie continued in a gay tone, "how much better i am! heretofore, when the hour came for the evening star to appear, the fever would come too, and to-day it has failed to come with the star. joy has cured me. don't take your hands away from me, ludwig--katharina. they will--hold me--hold me--fast." but they did not "hold her fast." and why should such a being remain on this earth--a being that could do naught else but love and renounce, adoring her nation even when it persecuted her? * * * * * a dark thunder-cloud rose above the horizon out over the hansag. the sky looked like a vaulted ceiling hung with mourning draperies. from time to time a distant flash of lightning illumined the cloud-curtain, then would be heard the rumbling of thunder, like the deep tones of a distant organ. under the threatening sky lay the glittering lake. its surface of quicksilver was streaked here and there with black shadows--the track of the wind-gusts racing across it. the trees were rustling in the wind, making a sound like a distant choral. on the shore of lake neusiedl stood the volons in rank and file. they were waiting for something that was coming from the farther shore of the little cove. presently the glistening surface of the water was ruffled by a black object that pushed out from the shore. it was a boat. six men were rowing, a seventh held the rudder. there was a coffin in the boat, covered with a simple pall. no ostentatious trappings ornamented the coffin; only a myrtle wreath lay on it. a woman, sat at the head of it, another at the foot--the former a lady, the latter a peasant wife. the six men, with even and powerful strokes, sent the craft through the ripples which occasionally leaped into the boat, as if they would salute her who had so often toyed with them. at the moment the boat touched the shore the storm burst. vivid lightning illumined the heavy downpour of rain, and it seemed as if the black-robed forms bore the coffin to its grave amid a flood of harpstrings that reached from heaven to earth. the two weeping women followed the coffin; at a little distance they seemed two shadows. the helmsmen of the funeral boat now stepped to the head of the grave and opened his lips to speak, but a heavy peal of thunder drowned his voice. when it had ceased he said: "my brave comrades, you are here to pay a last honor to your patroness. there is nothing left for us to fight for. peace has been proclaimed. the conqueror takes from you a plot of ground twenty-four hundred square miles in extent. the one lying here takes from you only six feet of earth. to you remain your tattered flag and your wounds. return to your homes. my sword has finished its work, and will accompany the saint for whom it was drawn!" as he spoke he broke the keen blade in twain and cast the pieces into the grave, adding impressively, "may god give us forgetfulness, and may we be forgotten!" the volons fired three salvos over the grave, the reverberating thunder and the flashing lightning mingling with the noise of the muskets. when the storm had passed the moon rose in a cloudless sky. only the waves, which had been stirred by the tempest, continued to murmur to their favorite who was sleeping peacefully in her grave on the shore. marie had asked to be buried on the grassy slope by the side of her old friend the marquis d'avoncourt, and that no other monument should mark her resting-place save the imperishable tree which turns to stone after it dies. and what could have been graven on her tomb? a name that was not hers? a history that was not true? or would it have been well to carve on the marble her true life-history, that those who would not believe it might wage a lawsuit against an epitaph? no; it was better so. no one would ever learn what had become of her. vavel had prayed for forgetfulness--that he might be forgotten. his prayer was granted. for a few years afterward tales were repeated about sophie botta, and some of her kinsfolk came from a distance to claim the sum of money vavel had placed in the hands of the authorities for the young girl's heirs. but none of the claimants could produce satisfactory proofs of kinship, and after a while sophie botta was forgotten by all the world, as were count vavel and katharina. the nameless castle as well vanished from the face of the earth, as have entire villages which once stood on the treacherous shores of lake neusiedl. gradually, imperceptibly, the castle disappeared; gradually, imperceptibly, bastion after bastion vanished, until not even the stone hand which held aloft the sword in the noble escutcheon, or the towering weathervane, could be seen above the placid waters of the lake. select speeches of kossuth. condensed and abridged, _with kossuth's express sanction_, by francis w. newman. preface to kossuth's speeches. nothing appears in history similar to the enthusiasm roused by kossuth in nations foreign to him, except perhaps the kindling for the first crusade by the voice of peter the hermit. then bishops, princes, and people alike understood the danger which overshadowed europe from the mohammedan powers; and by soundly directed, though fanatical instinct, all christendom rushed eastward, till the chivalry of the seljuk turks was crippled on the fields of palestine. now also the multitudes of europe, uncorrupted by ambition, envy, or filthy lucre, forebode the deadly struggle impending over us all from the conspiracy of crowned heads. seeing the apathy of their own rulers, and knowing, perhaps by dim report, the deeds of kossuth, they look to him as the great prophet and leader, by whom policy is at length to be moulded into justice; and are ready to catch his inspiration before he has uttered a word. kossuth undoubtedly is a mighty orator; but no one is better aware than he, that the cogency of his arguments is due to the atrocity of our common enemies, and the enthusiasm which he kindles to the preparations of the people's heart. his orations are a tropical forest, full of strength and majesty, tangled in luxuriance, a wilderness of self-repetition. utterly unsuited to form a book without immense abridgment, they contain materials adapted equally for immediate political service and for permanence as a work of wisdom and of genius. to prepare them for the press is an arduous and responsible duty: the best excuse which i can give for having assumed it, is, that it has been to me a labour of love. my task i have felt to be that of a judicious reporter, who cuts short what is of temporary interest, condenses what is too amplified for his limits and for written style, severely prunes down the repetitions which are inevitable where numerous[*] audiences are addressed by the same man on the same subject, yet amid all these necessary liberties retains not only the true sentiments and arguments of the speaker, but his forms of thought and all that is characteristic of his genius. such an operation, rightly performed, may, like a diminishing mirror, concentrate the brilliancy of diffuse orations, and assist their efficacy on minds which would faint under the effort of grasping the original. [footnote *: the number of speeches, great and small, spoken in his american half-year, is reckoned to be above 500.] it is true, the exuberance of kossuth is often too asiatic for english taste, and that excision of words, which needful abridgment suggests, will often seem to us a gain. moreover, remembering that he is a foreigner, and though marvellous in his mastery of our language, still naturally often unable to seize the word, or select the construction which he desired, i have not thought i should show honour to him by retaining anything verbally unskilful. to a certain cautious extent, i account myself to be a _translator_, as well as a _reporter_, and in undertaking so delicate a duty, i am happy to announce that i have received kossuth's written approval and thanks. mere quaintness of expression i have by no means desired entirely to remove, where it involved nothing grotesque, obscure, or monotonous. in several passages where i imperfectly understood the thought, i have had the advantage of kossuth's personal explanations, which have enabled me to clear up the defective report, or real obscurities of his words. nevertheless i have to confess my conviction, that nothing can wholly compensate for the want of systematic revision by the author himself; which his great occupations have made impossible. the mistakes in the reports of the speeches are sometimes rather subtle, and have not roused my suspicion. of this i have been, made disagreeably sensible, by several errata communicated to me by kossuth in the first great speech at new york, here marked as no. vii. (which have been corrected in this edition.) nearly all the points on which attempts have been made to misrepresent in england the cause of hungary are cleared up in these speeches. on two subjects only does it seem needful here to make any remark: _first_, on the republicanism of kossuth; _secondly_, on the hungarian levies against italy in the year 1848. 1. kossuth is attacked by his countrymen on opposite grounds: szemerè despises him for not becoming a republican early enough, count casimir bathyanyi reproves him for becoming a republican at all. the facts are these. kossuth, like all english statesmen, was a historical royalist, not a doctrinaire. when the existing reign had become treacherous and lawless, he was willing to change the line of succession, and make the archduke stephen king. when the dynasty had become universally detested and actually expelled, he approved most heartily[*] the deposition of the hapsburgs; but still held himself in suspense as to the future of the constitution. by his influence instructions were sent to his representative in england, which were equivalent to soliciting a dynasty from the british government. meanwhile szemerè, his home secretary, took on himself to avow in the diet that the government was republican, and no voice of protest was raised in either house. indeed, mr. vucovics, who was minister of justice under kossuth, states (see appendix i.) that the government and both houses responded unanimously to the republican avowal, and that the government removed the symbol of the crown from the public arms and seal. the press of all shades assented. after this, it was clear (i presume) to kossuth, or at least it soon became so, that all sympathy with royal power was gone out of the nation's heart. hungarians may settle that amongst themselves: but as for englishmen,--when for seven or eight months together the english ministry and english peerage would not stir, or speak, or whisper, to save constitutional royalty and ancient peerage for hungary and for europe while it was yet possible; with what face, with what decency, can englishmen censure kossuth for despairing of a cause, which was abandoned to ruin by ourselves, the greatest power interested to maintain it,--which the monarchs have waded through blood and perjury to destroy,-and which the millions of hungary will not (in his belief) peril life and fortune to restore? [footnote *: how unanimous was the whole country, is clear by the facts stated. how spontaneous was the movement, and free from all government intrigue, see in appendix i. this is entirely confirmed by our envoy, mr. blackwell: blue book, march--ap. 1848.] 2. the ministry of louis bathyanyi and kossuth have been attacked on opposite grounds,--because they _did_, and because they did _not_, attempt to subdue the italians by force of arms. the facts are rather complicated, but deserve here to be stated concisely. when the ministry was appointed, there were _already_ hungarians in italy with radetzki, and austrian soldiers in hungary. the viennese ministry promised to exchange them, as fast as could be done without encountering great expense or dislocating the regiments and making them inefficient. with this promise the hungarian ministry was forced to content itself at the time. at a later period, when it discovered that the austrian commanders in hungary had secret orders not to fight against the serbian marauders, and that the austrian troops could not be trusted, the hungarian ministry _desired_ to get back their men from italy for their own defence; which desire proved ineffectual, yet has been severely blamed by some of our monarchists. but meanwhile the viennese ministry, as early as june, 1848, endeavoured to buy of the hungarian ministry an increased grant of troops against italy, by conceding a most energetic "king's speech" against the serbs, with which the archduke palatine was to open, and did open, the diet on july 2d. a part of this speech is quoted in appendix ii., and indeed it is a loathsome exhibition of austrian treachery. the hungarian ministry were pressed by the arguments, that since austria was attacked in italy by the king of sardinia, the war was not merely against the lombards; and that the pragmatic sanction bound hungary to defend the empire if assailed from without. this led them to acknowledge the _principle_, that they were bound to assist, if able; but they replied that hungary itself must first be secured against marauders, and no troops could be spared until the serbs were subdued. at the same time orders were sent to radetzki from vienna to offer independence to the lombards, and constitutional nationality under the austrian crown to the venetians: hence the hungarian ministry for a time fancied that they would not be fighting against the italians, as they expected the terms to be accepted by them. when it was farther represented that the italians had rejected them,--(for radetzki, acting probably by secret orders, suppressed the despatches, and never offered independence to lombardy, though the austrian ministers made diplomatic capital of their liberality,)--then the hungarian ministry began to think the italians unreasonable; yet they did not go beyond their abstract principle, that hungary ought to grant troops for austrian defence in italy, provided, 1st, that rebellion in hungary itself were repressed; 2d, that the troops should not act against the italians, unless the italians had rejected the offer of national liberties and a constitution coordinate to those of hungary, under the austrian crown. the protocol on this subject was drawn on july 5th; the public speech of kossuth concerning it was not until july 22d; and in this short interval the treachery of the dynasty had been so displayed, that kossuth could no longer speak in the same tone as a few weeks earlier. for a fuller development of this, i refer the reader to appendix iii. the real object of the austrian ministry, was, to ruin the popularity of bathyanyi and kossuth, if they could induce them to sacrifice italian freedom; or else, to accuse them to all the european diplomatists as conspirators against the integrity of the austrian empire, if they refused to oppress the liberties of italy. finally, the reader has even here proof enough how false is the statement which has been current in english newspapers, that kossuth's visit to america was "a failure." this was an attempt to practise on our prevalent disgraceful tendency to judge of a cause by its success. however, the end is not yet seen: america has still to act decisively, if she would win the lasting glory which we have despised, of rescuing law and right from lawless force, and establishing the future of europe. contents. 1. secrecy of diplomacy london, oct. 30th, 1851. 2. monarchy and republicanism copenhagen house, london, nov. 3d. 3. communism and the sibylline books manchester, nov. 12th. 4. legitimacy of hungarian independence staten island, dec. 5th, 1851. declaration of independence by the hungarian nation 5. statement of principles and aims new york, dec. 6th. 6. reply to the baltimore address dec. 10th. 7. hereditary policy of america new york, to the corporation, dec. 11th. 8. on nationalities new york, to the press. 9. on military institutions new york, to the militia, dec. 16th. 10. conditions essential for democracy and peace new york, tammany hall, dec. 17th. 11. hungary and austria in religious contrast in a brooklyn church, new york, dec. 18th. 12. public piracy of russia new york, to the bar, dec. 19th. 13. claims of hungary on the female sex new york, to the ladies, dec. 21st. 14. results of the overthrow of the french republic philadelphia, dec. 26th. 15. interest of america in hungarian liberty baltimore, dec. 27th. 16. novelties in american republicanism washington, legislative banquet, jan. 15th, 1852. 17. on the merits of turkey 18. aspects of america toward england washington, jan. 8th, day of battle of new orleans. 19. meaning of recognizing hungarian independence washington, last speech. 20. contrast of the american to the hungarian crisis annapolis, maryland, jan. 13th, to the senate. 21. thanks for his great success harrisburg, pennsylvania, jan. 14th, to the legislature. 22. on the present weakness of despotism harrisburg, legislative banquet. 23. agencies of russian ascendancy and supremacy pittsburg, pennsylvania, jan. 26th. 24. reply to the pittsburg clergy jan. 26th. 25. hungarian loan cleveland, ohio, feb. 3d. address to kossuth from the state committee of ohio 26. panegyric of ohio columbus, ohio, feb. 5th. 27. democracy the spirit of the age columbus, feb. 6th, to the legislature. 28. the miseries and the strength of hungary columbus, feb. 7th. 29. ohio and france contrasted as republics cincinnati, ohio. 30. war a providential necessity against oppression cincinnati. 31. on washington's policy cincinnati, washington's birthday, feb. 24th. 32. kossuth's credentials cincinnati, feb. 25th. 33. harmony of the executive and of the people in america indianapolis, at the state house, feb 27th. 34. importance of foreign policy and of strengthening england louisville, march 6th, at the court house. 35. catholicism _versus_ jesuitism st. louis, missouri. 36. the ides of march st. louis, march 15th. 37. history of kossuth's liberation jackson, mississippi, april 1st, address to the governor. 38. pronouncement of the south mobile, alabama, april 3d. 39. kossuth's defence against certain mean imputations jersey city, april 20th. 40. the brotherhood of nations newark, new jersey, april 22d. 41. the history and heart of massachusetts worcester, massachusetts, april 25th. 42. panegyric of massachusetts faneuil hall, boston, april 29th. 43. self-government of hungary faneuil hall, legislative banquet. april 30th. 44. russia the antagonist of the u. s. salem, may 6th. 45. the martyrs of the american revolution lexington, may 11th. 46. condition of europe faneuil hall, boston, may 14th. 47. pronouncement of all the states albany, may 20th. 48. sound and unsound commerce buffalo, may 27th. 49. russia and the balance of power syracuse, june 4th. 50. retrospect and prospect utica, june 9th. 51. the triple bond new york, june 22d. 52. the future of nations new york. appendices kossuth's speeches. [the speeches of kossuth in england, though masterly in themselves, are in great measure superseded by those which he delivered in america, where the same subjects were treated at far greater length, and viewed from many different aspects. from the speeches in england i here present only three topics, in a rather fragmentary form.] i.--secrecy of diplomacy. [_first extract: from kossuth's speech at the guildhall, london, oct. 30th_, 1851.] the time draws near, when a radical change must take place for the whole world in the management of diplomacy. its basis has been secrecy: therein is the triumph of absolutism, and the misfortune of a free people. this has won its way not in england only, but throughout the whole world, even where not a penny of the national property can be disposed of without public consent. it surely is dangerous to the interests of the country and to constitutional liberty, to allow such a secrecy, that the people not only should not know how its interests are being dealt with, but that after the crisis is passed, the minister should inform them: "the dinner has been prepared,--and eaten; and the people has nothing to do, but digest the consequences." what is the principle of all evil in europe? the encroaching spirit of russia.--and by what power has russia become so mighty? by its arms?--no: the arms of russia are below those of many powers. it has become almost omnipotent,--at least very dangerous to liberty,--by diplomatic intrigues. now against the secret intrigues of diplomacy there is no surer safeguard, or more powerful counteraction, than public discussion. this must be opposed to intrigues, and intrigues are then of no weight in the destinies of humanity. * * * * * [_second extract from a short speech in london, may 25th, 1858_.] i must ask leave to make a remark on the system pursued by your government in their foreign relations. you consider yourselves a constitutional nation: i fear that in some respects you are not so. there is a latin proverb [current in hungary], _nil de nobis sine nobis_,--"nothing that concerns us, without us." this in many things you make your maxim. you say that none of your money shall be spent without your knowledge and approval; and in your internal affairs you carry this out; but i think that the secrecy in which the transactions of your diplomacy are involved is hardly constitutional. of that most important portion of your affairs which concerns your country in its relations with the rest of europe, what knowledge have you? if any interpellation is made about any affair not yet concluded, my lord the secretary of the foreign office will reply that _he cannot give any answer, for the negotiations are still pending_. a little later he will be able to answer, that _as all is now concluded, all comment will be superfluous_. one little fact i will just mention. by the last treaty with denmark, to which you became a party, the crown of that kingdom was so settled that only three lives stand between it and the czar of russia. three lives! but a fragile barrier, when high political aims are concerned. it is therefore an allowed fact, that the country which commands entrance to the baltic, and which, in the hands of an unfriendly power, would effectually exclude your commerce from that sea, may pass into the hands of russia, whose pretensions in the south of europe you take so much pains to check. this your government have done quietly. how many are there of your people that know and approve it? i hope you will not be offended, if i say, that i cannot understand how yours can be called in this respect a constitutional country. * * * * * ii.--monarchy and republicanism. [_from kossuth's speech at copenhagen house, nov. 3d, 1851_.] in my opinion, the form of government may be different in different countries, according to their circumstances, their wishes, their wants. england loves her queen, and has full motive to do so. england feels great, glorious and free, and has full reason to feel so. but the fact of england being a monarchy cannot be sufficient reason for her to hate and discredit republican forms of government in other countries differing in circumstances, in wishes, and in wants. on the other side, to the united states of america, which under republican government are likewise great, glorious, and free, their republicanism gives no sufficient reason to hate and discredit monarchical government in england. it entirely belongs to the right of every nation to dispose of its domestic concerns. therefore i claim for my own country also, that england, seeing from our past that our cause is just, should profess the sovereign right of every nation to dispose of itself, and should allow no power whatever to interfere with our domestic matters. since i thus regard the internal affairs of every nation to be its own separate concern, i did not think it became me here in england to speak about the future organization of our country. but my behavior has not been everywhere appreciated as i hoped. i have met in certain quarters the remark that i "am slippery, and evade the question." now on the point of sincerity i am particularly susceptible. i have the sentiment of being a straightforward man, and i would not be charged with having stolen into the sympathies of england without displaying my true colours. therefore i must clearly state, that in our past struggle it was not _we_ who made a revolution. we began peacefully and legislatively to transform the monarchico-aristocratical constitution of hungary into a monarchico-democratical constitution. we preserved our municipal institutions, as our most valuable treasure; but to them, as well as to the legislative power, we gave, as basis, the common liberty of the people, instead of the class-privileges of old. moreover, in place of the old board of council,--which, being a corporate body, was of course a mockery in regard to that responsibility of the executive, which was our chartered right on paper,--we established the real and personal responsibility of ministers. in this, we merely[*] upheld what was due to us by constitution, by treaties, by the coronation-oath of every king,--the right to be "governed as a self-consistent, independent country, by our native institutions, according to our own laws." this and all our other reforms we effected peacefully by careful legislation, which the king sanctioned and swore to maintain. [footnote *: many englishmen have unjustly accused the hungarians as having by the laws of march, 1848, effected a separation of hungary from austria. _even if this were true_, it could not justify the cause of the hapsburgs. the dynasty yielded, under the pressure of circumstances (as alone will dynasties ever yield), while hungary did but petition legally, and was in fact unarmed. the dynasty swore to the new laws; and then conspired with croatians, serbians, and russians to overthrow the laws by marauding and force of arms. in fact, if in january, 1849, austria would have negotiated, instead of arresting all hungarian ambassadors, hungary would have consented to modify the laws of march: but the austrians had already in october ordered the overthrow of the whole hungarian constitution, and had no wish to do anything by legal methods. at the same time, the original objection is fundamentally _false_. no separation of the two countries was effected by the laws of march, 1848; for no legal union ever existed. only the crowns were united, not the countries. kossuth rightly compares the union to that which was between england and hanover. at any time in the past, hungary might have made _peace_ with a power with which austria was at _war_, if the kings had not falsified their oath by not assembling the diet: for the diet always had the lawful right of war and peace. any mode whatsoever of enforcing the coronation oath, might, according to this logic, be condemned as a "separating" of austria and hungary.] nevertheless, this very dynasty, in the most perjurious manner, attacked these laws, this freedom, this constitution, by arms. we defended ourselves by arms victoriously. when upon this the perjurious dynasty called in the russian armies to beat us down, we of course declared the hapsburgs to be no longer our sovereigns. we avowed ourselves to be a free and independent nation, but fixed as yet no definite form of government,--neither monarchical nor republican. these are plain facts. hungary is not now under lawful government, but is being trampled down by a foreign intruder who is _not_ king of hungary, being _neither acknowledged by the nation, nor sanctioned by law_. hungary is, in a word, in a state of war against the hapsburg dynasty, a war of legitimate defence, by which alone it can ever regain independence and freedom. by such war alone has any nation ever won its freedom from oppressors; as you see in switzerland, belgium, spain, portugal, france, sweden, norway, greece, the united states, and england itself. i can state it, as known to me, with the certainty of matter of fact, that hungary will never accept the hapsburgs as legitimate sovereigns in the future, nor ever enter into any new moral relations with that perjurious family. nor only so; but their perjury has so entirely plucked out of my nation's heart all faith in monarchy and all attachment to it, that there is no power on earth to knit the broken tie again: and therefore hungary wishes and wills to be a free and independent republic,--a republic founded on the rule of law, securing social order, guaranteeing person, property, the moral development as well as material welfare of the people,--in a word, a republic like that of the united states, founded on institutions inherited from england itself. this is the conviction of my people, which i share in the very heart of my heart. * * * * * iii.--communism and the sibylline books. [_from kossuth's second speech at manchester, nov. 12th_, 1851.] i can understand communism, but not socialism. i have read many books on the subject, i have consulted many doctors; but they differ so much that i never could understand what they really mean. however, the only sense which i can see in socialism, is inconsistent with social order and the security of property. now since france has three times in sixty years failed to obtain practical results from political revolutions, all europe is apt to press forward into new social doctrine to regulate the future. believing then, that,--not from my merit, but from the state of my country,--i may be able somewhat to influence the course of the next european revolution, i think it right plainly to declare beforehand my allegiance to the great principle of security for personal property. nevertheless, to give success to my endeavours in this direction, the rational expectations of the nations of europe must speedily be fulfilled; else neither i, nor more important men, can avail to stay revolutionary movement. the danger of the case may be illustrated by the ancient story of the sibylline books. take hungary as an instance. three years ago we should have been extremely well contented with the laws as made by our parliament in 1848, _which laws did not break the tie between us and the house of hapsburg_. but then austria assailed us with arms, and it became impossible for us to go on with that constitution; indeed she herself proclaimed it to be dissolved. we defeated her, and next she called in the russian armies. hungary was then under the necessity of _casting off the hapsburg monarchy_; and only the third sibylline book remained. yet hungary did not even then renounce monarchy, but gave instructions to her representative in england to say to the government of this country, that _if they wished to see monarchy established in hungary, we would accept any dynasty they proposed_: but it was not-listened to. then came the horrors of arad,[*] and destroyed all our faith in monarchy. so the last of the three books was burned. [footnote *: in arad the hungarian generals, who surrendered by görgy's persuasion, were hanged or shot; and simultaneously bathyanyi, who had been arrested when he came as an ambassador of peace, was judged anew and murdered by a second court-martial.] and so, wherever men's reasonable expectations are not fulfilled, it cannot be known where their fluctuations will end. every man who is anxious for the preservation of person and property should help the world in obtaining rational freedom: if it be not obtained, mankind will search after other forms of action, totally subversive of all existing social order; and where the excitement will subside, i do not know. men like me, who merely wish to establish political freedom, will in such circumstances lose all their influence, and others will get influence who may become dangerous to all established interests whatsoever. * * * * * iv.--legitimacy of hungarian independence. [when kossuth had landed at staten island, thus for the first time setting his foot on american soil, he was met by a deputation, which made an address to him. he replied as follows (dec. 5th, 1851)]:-ladies and gentlemen: the twelve hours that i have had the happiness to stand on your shores, give me augury that, during my stay in the united states, i shall have a pleasant duty to perform, in answering the generous spirit of your people. i hope, however, that you will consider that i am in the first moments of a hard task,--to address your intelligent people in a tongue foreign to me. you will not expect from me an elaborate speech, but will be contented with a few warmly-felt words. citizens, accept my fervent thanks for your generous welcome, and my blessing upon your sanction of my hopes. you have most truly stated what they are, when you announce the destiny of your glorious country, and tell me that from it the spirit of liberty will go forth and achieve the freedom of the world. yes, citizens, these are the hopes which have induced me, in a most eventful period, to cross the atlantic. i confidently hope, that as you have anticipated my wishes by the expression of your generous sentiments, so you will agree with me, that the spirit of liberty has to go forth, not only spiritually, but materially, from your glorious country. that spirit is a power for deeds, but is yet no _deed_ in itself. despotism and oppression never yet were beaten except by heroic resistance. that is a sad necessity,--but it is a necessity nevertheless. i have so learned it out of the great book of history. i hope the people of the united states will remember, that in the hour of _their_ nation's struggle, it received from europe _more_ than kind wishes. it received material aid from others in times past, and it will, doubtless, now impart its mighty agency to achieve the liberty of other lands. citizens, i thank you for having addressed me, not in the language of party, but in the language of liberty, which is that of the united states. i come hither, in the name of hungary, to entreat, not from any _party_ among you, but from your _whole nation_, a generous protection for my country. and for that very reason, neither will i intermeddle with any of your party questions. in england i often avowed this principle; inasmuch as the very mission on which i come, is to ask that the right of every nation to arrange its domestic concerns may be respected. notwithstanding this, i am sorry to see, that, before my arrival, i have been charged with intermeddling with your presidential election, because in one of my addresses in england i mentioned the name of your fellow-citizen, mr. walker, as one of the candidates for the presidency. i confess with warm gratitude, that mr. walker uttered such sentiments in england, as, if happily they are also those of the united states, will enable me to declare, that hungary and europe are free. therefore i feel deeply indebted to him. but in no respect did i mix myself up with your elections. i consider no man honest who does not observe towards other nations the principles which he desires to be observed towards his own: and therefore i will not interfere in your domestic questions. allow me, citizens, to advert to one expression of your kind address, personal to myself. you named me "kossuth, governor of hungary." my nomination to be governor was not to gratify ambition. never, perhaps, did i feel sadder, than at the moment when that title was conferred upon me; for i compared my feeble faculties and its high responsibilities. it is therefore not from ambition that i thank you for the title, but because the title rests upon our declaration of independence; and by acknowledging it as mine, you recognize the rightfulness and validity of that declaration. and, gentlemen i frankly declare that your whole people are bound in honour and duty to recognize it. at this moment there is no other legitimate existing law in hungary. it was not the proclamation of a man or of a party. it was the solemn declaration of the whole nation in _congress_ assembled. it was sanctioned by _every village_, and by _every municipality_. no counter-proclamation has gone forth from hungary. it has been overturned solely by the invasion of an ambitious _foreign_ power, the czar of russia; who can no more legitimately make or unmake a governor of hungary, than general santa anna, if in your late war he had forced his way to washington, could have unmade president taylor. none of you will admit that violence can destroy righteousness: it can but establish unlawful, unrightful _fact_. if so,--if your own people, and not foreign invaders, are the source of rightful law to _you_,--you must in consistency recognize _our_ independence as legitimate, and its declaration as our still rightful law. as to the praises which you were so kind as to bestow upon me, it is no affectation in me when i declare that i am not conscious of having any other merit than that of being a plain, straightforward man, a faithful friend of freedom, a good patriot. and these qualities, gentlemen, are so natural to _every_ honest man, that it is scarcely worth while to speak of them; for i cannot conceive how a man with understanding and with a sound heart, can be anything else than a good patriot and a lover of freedom. yet my humble capacity has not preserved me from calumnies. scarcely had i arrived here, when i learned that i had been charged in the united states with being an _irreligious man_. so long as despots exist, and have the means to pay, they will find men to calumniate those who are opposed to tyranny. but, suppose i were the most dishonest creature in the world; in the name of all that is sacred, _what would that matter in respect to the cause of hungary?_ would that cause become less just, less righteous, less worthy of your sympathy, because i, for instance, am a bad man? no! i believe you. it is not a question in regard to any individual here. it is a question with regard to a just cause, the cause of a country worthy to take its place in the great family of the free nations of the world. until i learn that you refuse to recognize nations, whenever their governors fall short of religious perfection, i need not care much about attacks on my mere personality. but one thing i can scarcely comprehend,--that the press--that mighty vehicle of justice and champion of human rights--could have found an organ, and that, in the united states, which (to say nothing of personal calumnies) should degrade itself to assert that it was not the people of hungary, it was not myself and my coadjutors, that contended for liberty; but it was the emperor of austria who was the champion of liberty. do not give it groans, gentlemen, but rather thank it; for there can be no better service to any cause, than for its opponents to manifest that they have nothing to say but what is ridiculous. that _must_ have been a sacred and just cause, whose detractors need to assert that the emperor of austria is the champion of freedom throughout his own dominions and throughout the european continent. i thank you that you have given me full proof that all these calumnies have affected neither your judgment nor your heart. as this will be the place whence i shall start back for europe, i shall once more have the happiness of addressing you publicly and bidding you an affectionate adieu:--hoping then to be able to thank you for _acts_, as i now thank you for _sentiments_. * * * * * declaration of independence by the hungarian nation. [the reader may be glad to possess the most important portions of this celebrated document. the opponents of kossuth have of late pretended, that the deposition of the hapsburgs _caused_ the overthrow of hungary. but the deposition was not carried until austria was thoroughly beaten, and russia _had engaged_ to give her utmost aid. this finally united all hungary. at no earlier period would hungary have acted with full unanimity in so decisive a step. to have delayed it longer would not have averted russian invasion, and would have caused deep discontent in hungary. nothing but the wilful disobedience of görgey, who wasted a month at buda at this very crisis, saved the hapsburgs from being conquered in vienna, before the russian armies could possibly come up.] we, the legally-constituted representatives of the hungarian nation assembled in diet, do by these presents solemnly proclaim, in maintenance of the inalienable natural rights of hungary, with all its appurtenances and dependencies, to occupy the position of an independent european state; that the house of lorraine-hapsburg, as perjured in the sight of god and man, has forfeited its right to the hungarian throne. at the same time, we feel ourselves bound in duty to make known the motives and reasons which have impelled us to this decision, that the civilized world may learn we have not taken this step out of overweening confidence in our own wisdom, or out of revolutionary excitement, but that it is an act of the last necessity, adopted to preserve from utter destruction a nation persecuted to the limit of the most enduring patience. three hundred years have passed since the hungarian nation, by free election, placed the house of austria upon its throne, in accordance with stipulations made on both sides, and ratified by treaty. these three hundred years have been, for the country, a period of uninterrupted suffering. the creator has blessed this country with all the elements of wealth and happiness. its area of one hundred and ten thousand square miles presents, in varied profusion, innumerable sources of prosperity. its population, numbering nearly fifteen millions, feels the glow of youthful strength within its veins, and has shown temper and docility which warrant its proving at once the main organ of civilization in eastern europe, and the guardian of that civilization when attacked. never was a more grateful task appointed to a reigning dynasty by the dispensation of providence than that which devolved upon the house of lorraine-hapsburg. it would have sufficed, to do nothing to impede the development of the country. had this been the rule observed, hungary would now rank among the most prosperous nations. it was only necessary that it should not envy the hungarians the moderate share of constitutional liberty which they timidly maintained during the difficulties of a thousand years with rare fidelity to their sovereigns, and the house of hapsburg might long have counted this nation among the most faithful adherents of the throne. this dynasty, however, which can at no epoch point to a ruler who based his power on the freedom of the people, adopted a course towards this nation, from father to son, which deserves the appellation of perjury. the house of austria has publicly used every effort to deprive the country of its legitimate independence and constitution, designing to reduce it to a level with the other provinces long since deprived of all freedom, and to unite all in a common sink of slavery. foiled in this effort by the untiring vigilance of the nation, it directed its endeavour to lame the power, to check the progress of hungary, causing it to minister to the gain of the provinces of austria, but only to the extent which enabled those provinces to bear the load of taxation with which the prodigality of the imperial house weighed them down; having first deprived those provinces of all constitutional means of remonstrating against a policy which was not based upon the welfare of the subject, but solely tended to maintain despotism and crush liberty in every country of europe. it has frequently happened that the hungarian nation, in despite of this systematized tyranny, has been obliged to take up arms in self-defence. although constantly victorious in these constitutional struggles, yet so moderate has the nation ever been in its use of the victory, so strongly has it confided in the king's plighted word, that it has ever laid down arms as soon as the king, by new compacts and fresh oaths, has guaranteed the duration of its rights and liberty. but every new compact was as futile as those which preceded it; each oath which fell from the royal lips was but a renewal of previous perjuries. the policy of the house of austria, which aimed at destroying the independence of hungary as a state, has been pursued unaltered for three hundred years. it was in vain that the hungarian nation shed its blood for the deliverance of austria whenever it was in danger; vain were all the sacrifices which it made to serve the interests of the reigning house; in vain did it, on the renewal of the royal promises, forget the wounds which the past had inflicted; vain was the fidelity cherished by the hungarians for their king, and which, in moments of danger, assumed a character of devotion; they were in vain, since the history of the government of that dynasty in hungary presents but an unbroken series of perjured deeds from generation to generation. in spite of such treatment, the hungarian nation has all along respected the tie by which it was united to this dynasty; and in now decreeing its expulsion from the throne, it acts under the natural law of self-preservation, being driven to pronounce this sentence by the full conviction that the house of lorraine-hapsburg is compassing the destruction of hungary as an independent state: so that this dynasty has been the first to tear the bands by which it was united to the hungarian nation, and to confess that it had torn them in the face of europe. for many causes a nation is justified, before god and man, in expelling a reigning dynasty. among such are the following: 1. when the dynasty forms alliances with the enemies of the country, with robbers, or partizan chieftains to oppress the nation: 2. when it attempts to annihilate the independence of the country and its constitution, supported on oaths, by attacking with an armed force the people who have committed no act of revolt: 3. when the integrity of a country, which the sovereign has sworn to maintain, is violated, and its resources cut away: 4. when foreign armies are employed to murder the people, and to oppress their liberties. each of the grounds here enumerated would justify the exclusion of a dynasty from the throne. but the house of lorraine-hapsburg is unexampled in the compass of its perjuries, and has committed every one of these crimes against the nation.*** in former times, a governing council, under the name of the royal hungarian stadtholdership, the president of which was the palatine, held its seat at buda, whose sacred duty it was to watch over the integrity of the state, the inviolability of the constitution, and the sanctity of the laws; but this _collegiate_ authority not presenting any element of _personal_ responsibility, the vienna cabinet gradually degraded this council to the position of an administrative organ of court absolutism. in this manner, while hungary had ostensibly an independent government, the despotic vienna cabinet disposed at will of the money and blood of the people for foreign purposes, postponing our commercial interests to the success of courtly cabals, injurious to the welfare of the people, so that we were excluded from all connection with the other countries of the world, and were degraded to the position of a colony. the mode of governing by a ministry was intended to put a stop to these proceedings, which caused the rights of the country to moulder uselessly in its parchments; by the change,[*] these rights and the royal oath were both to become a reality. it was the apprehension of this, and especially the fear of losing its control over the money and blood of the country, which caused the house of austria to resolve on involving hungary, by the foulest intrigues, in the horrors of fire and slaughter, that, having plunged the country in a civil war, it might seize the opportunity to dismember the kingdom, and to blot out the name of hungary from the list of independent nations, and unite its plundered and bleeding limbs with the austrian monarchy. [footnote *: the change was solemnly enacted in the parliamentary laws of march, 1848, which king ferdinand v. sanctioned by his public oath in april, 1848.] the beginning of this course was, (after a ministry had been called into existence), by ordering an austrian general [jellachich] to rise in rebellion against the laws of the country and nominating him ban of croatia, a kingdom belonging to the kingdom of hungary.*** the ban revolted therefore in the name of the emperor, and rebelled openly against the king of hungary, who is however one and the same person; and he went so far as to decree the separation of croatia and slavonia from _hungary_, with which they had been united for eight hundred years, as well as to incorporate them with the _austrian_ empire. public opinion and undoubted facts threw the blame of these proceedings on the archduke louis, uncle to the emperor, on his brother, the archduke francis charles, and especially on the consort of the last-named prince, the archduchess sophia; and since the ban, in this act of rebellion, openly alleged that he acted as a faithful subject of the emperor, the ministry of hungary requested their sovereign, by a public declaration, to wipe off the stigma which these proceedings threw upon the family. at that moment affairs were not prosperous for austria in italy; the emperor therefore did proclaim that the ban and his associates were guilty of high treason, and of exciting to rebellion. but while publishing this edict, the ban and his accomplices were covered with favours at court, and supplied for their enterprise with money, arms, and ammunition. the hungarians, confiding in the royal proclamation, and not wishing to provoke a civil conflict, did not hunt out those proscribed traitors in their lair, and only adopted measures for checking any extension of the rebellion. but soon afterward the inhabitants of south hungary, of servian race, were excited to rebellion by precisely the same means. these were also declared by the king to be rebels, but were nevertheless, like the others, supplied with money, arms, and ammunition. the king's commissioned officers and civil servants enlisted bands of robbers in the principality of servia to strengthen the rebels, and aid them in massacring the peaceable hungarian and german inhabitants of the banat. the command of these rebellious bodies was further entrusted to the rebel leaders of the croatians. during this rebellion of the hungarian servians, scenes of cruelty were witnessed at which the heart shudders; the peaceable inhabitants were tortured with a cruelty which makes the hair stand on end. whole towns and villages, once flourishing, were laid waste. hungarians fleeing before these murderers were reduced to the condition of vagrants and beggars in their own country; the most lovely districts were converted into a wilderness.*** the greater part of the hungarian regiments were, according to the old system of government, scattered through the other provinces of the empire. in hungary itself, the troops quartered were mostly austrian; and they afforded more protection to the rebels than to the laws, or to the internal peace of the country. the withdrawal of these troops, and the return of the national militia, was demanded of the government, but was either refused, or its fulfilment delayed; and when our brave comrades, on hearing the distress of the country, returned in masses, they were persecuted, and such as were obliged to yield to superior force were disarmed, and sentenced to death for having defended their country against rebels. the hungarian ministry begged the king earnestly to issue orders to all troops and commanders of fortresses in hungary, enjoining fidelity to the constitution, and obedience to the ministers of hungary. such a proclamation was sent to the palatine, the viceroy of hungary, archduke stephen, at buda. the necessary letters were written and sent to the post-office. but this nephew of the king, the archduke palatine, shamelessly caused these letters to be smuggled back from the post-office, although they had been countersigned by the responsible ministers; and they were afterward found among his papers when he treacherously departed from the country. the rebel ban menaced the hungarian coast with an attack, and the government, with the king's consent, ordered an armed corps to march into styria for the defence of fiume; but this whole force received orders to march into italy.*** the rebel force occupied fiume, and disunited it from the kingdom of hungary, and this hateful deception was disavowed by the vienna cabinet as having been a _misunderstanding_; the furnishing of arms, ammunition, and money to the rebels of croatia was also declared to have been a misunderstanding. finally, instructions were issued to the effect that, until special orders were given, the army and the commanders of fortresses were not to follow the orders of the hungarian ministers, but were to execute those of the austrian cabinet.*** the king from that moment began to address the man whom he himself had branded as a rebel, as "dear and loyal" (lieber getreuer); he praised him for having revolted, and encouraged him to proceed in the path he had entered upon. he expressed a like sympathy for the servian rebels, whose hands yet reeked from the massacres they had perpetrated. it was under this command that the ban of croatia, after being proclaimed as a rebel, assembled an army, and announced his commission from the king to carry fire and sword into hungary, upon which the austrian troops stationed in the country united with him.*** even then the diet did not give up all confidence in the power of the royal oath, and the king was once more requested to order the rebels to quit the country. the answer given was a reference to a manifesto of the austrian ministry, declaring it to be their determination to deprive the hungarian nation of the independent management of their financial, commercial, and war affairs. the king at the same time refused his assent to the bills submitted for approval respecting troops and the subsidy for covering the expenditure. upon this the hungarian ministers resigned, but the names submitted by the president of the council, at the demand of the king, were not approved of for successors. the diet then, bound by its duty to secure the safety of the country, voted the supplies, and ordered the troops to be levied. the nation obeyed the summons with readiness. the representatives of the people then summoned the nephew of the emperor to join the camp, and as palatine[*] to lead the troops against the rebels. he not only obeyed the summons, but made public professions of his devotion to the cause. as soon, however, as an engagement threatened, he fled secretly from the camp and the country, like a coward traitor. among his papers a plan, formed by him some time previously, was found, according to which hungary was to be simultaneously attacked on nine sides at once--from styria, austria, moravia, silesia, galicia, and transylvania. [footnote *: the palatine was a high officer elected by the diet, as its organ, and the defender of its constitution. in fact, they always elected a prince of the blood royal. he was virtually a viceroy.] from a correspondence with the minister of war, seized at the same time, it was discovered that the commanding generals in the military frontier and the austrian provinces adjoining hungary had received orders to enter hungary, and support the rebels with their united forces. this attack from nine points at once really began. the most painful aggression took place in transylvania; for the traitorous commander in that district did not content himself with the practices considered lawful in war by disciplined troops. he stirred up the wallachian peasants to take up arms against their own constitutional rights, and, aided by the rebellious servian hordes, commenced a course of vandalism and extinction, sparing neither women, children, nor aged men; murdering and torturing the defenceless hungarian inhabitants; burning the most flourishing villages and towns, among which, nagy-igmand, the seat of learning for transylvania, was reduced to a heap of ruins. but the hungarian nation, although taken by surprise, unarmed and unprepared, did not abandon its future prospects in any agony of despair. measures were immediately taken to increase the small standing army by volunteers and the levy of the people. these troops, supplying the want of experience by the enthusiasm arising from the feeling that they had right on their side, defeated the croatian armaments, and drove them out of the country.*** the defeated army fled in the direction of vienna, where the emperor continued his demoralizing policy, and nominated the beaten and flying rebel as his plenipotentiary and substitute in hungary, suspending by this act the constitution and institutions of the country, all its authorities, courts of justice, and tribunals, laying the kingdom under martial law, and placing in the hand of, and under the unlimited authority of, a rebel, the honour, the property and the lives of the people; in the hand of a man who, with armed bands, had braved the laws, and attacked the constitution of the country. but the house of austria was not contented with the unjustifiable violation of oaths taken by its head. the rebellious ban was taken under the protection of the troops stationed near vienna, and commanded by prince windischgrätz. these troops, after taking vienna by storm, were led as an imperial austrian army to conquer hungary. but the hungarian nation, persisting in its loyalty, sent an envoy to the advancing enemy. this envoy, coming under a flag of truce, was treated as a prisoner, and thrown into prison. no heed was paid to the remonstrances and the demands of the hungarian nation for justice. the threat of the gallows was, on the contrary, thundered against all who had taken arms in defence of a wretched and oppressed country. but before the army had time to enter hungary, a family revolution in the tyrannical reigning house was perpetrated at olmütz. ferdinand v. was forced to resign a throne which had been polluted with so much blood and perjury, and the son of francis charles, (who also abdicated his claim to the inheritance,) the youthful archduke francis joseph, caused himself to be proclaimed emperor of austria and king of hungary. but no one can by any family compact dispose of the constitutional throne without the hungarian nation. at this critical moment the hungarian nation demanded nothing more than the maintenance of its laws and institutions, and peace guaranteed by their integrity. had the assent of the nation to this change in the occupant of the throne been asked in a legal manner, and the young prince offered to take the customary oath that he would preserve the constitution, the hungarian nation would not have refused to elect him king in accordance with the treaties extant, and to crown him with st. stephen's crown, before he had dipped his hand in the blood of the people. he, however, refusing to perform an act so sacred in the eyes of god and man, and in strange contrast to the innocence natural to youthful breasts, declared in his first words his intention of conquering hungary, (which he dared to call a rebellious country, whereas it was he himself that raised rebellion there,) and of depriving it of that independence which it had maintained for a thousand years, to incorporate it into the austrian monarchy.*** but even then an attempt was made to bring about a peaceful arrangement, and a deputation was sent to the generals of the perjured dynasty. this house in its blind self-confidence, refused to enter into any negotiation, and dared to demand an unconditional submission from the nation. the deputation was further detained, and one of the number, the former president[*] of the ministry, was even thrown into prison. our deserted capital was occupied, and was turned into a place of execution; a part of the prisoners of war were there consigned to the axe, another part were thrown into dungeons, while the remainder were exposed to fearful sufferings from hunger, and were thus forced to enter the ranks of the army in italy. [footnote *: louis bathyanyi. see note to p. 6.] [**]finally, to reap the fruit of so much perfidy, the emperor francis joseph dared to call himself king of hungary, in the manifesto of the 9th of march [1849], wherein he openly declares that he erases the hungarian nation from the list of the independent nations of europe, and that he divides its territory into five parts, cutting off transylvania, croatia, slavonia, and fiume from hungary, creating at the same time a principality (vayvodeschaft) for the servian rebels, and, having paralyzed the political existence of the country, declares it incorporated into the austrian monarchy. [footnote **: this paragraph, omitted above, is inserted here, where the reader will better understand it.] the measure of the crimes of the austrian house was, however, filled up, when, after[*] its defeat, it applied for help to the emperor of russia; and, in spite of the remonstrances and protestations of the porte, and of the consuls of the european powers at bucharest, in defiance of international rights, and to the endangering of the balance of power in europe, caused the russian troops, stationed at wallachia, to be led into transylvania, for the destruction of the hungarian nation. [footnote *: the russian army entered transylvania on january 3d, 1849; this is the army which was driven out again. but the main russian armies were only on the move in april, and took two months longer to enter hungary. these were applied for late in march.] three months ago we were driven back upon the theiss; our just arms have already recovered all transylvania; klausenburg, hermanstadt, and kronstadt are taken; one portion of the troops of austria is driven into bukowina; another, together with the russian force sent to aid them, is totally defeated, and to the last man obliged to evacuate transylvania, and to flee into wallachia. upper hungary is cleared of foes. the servian rebellion is further suppressed; the forts of st. thomas and the roman intrenchment have been taken by storm, and the whole country between the danube and the theiss, including the country of bacs, has been recovered for the nation. the commander-in-chief of the perjured house of austria has himself been defeated in five consecutive battles, and has with his whole army been driven back upon and even over the danube. founding a line of conduct upon all these occurrences, and confiding in the justice of an eternal god, we in the face of the civilized world, in reliance upon the natural rights of the hungarian nation, and upon the power it has developed to maintain them, further impelled by that sense of duty which urges every nation to defend its existence, do hereby declare and proclaim in the name of the nation regally represented by us, the following:-1st. hungary, with transylvania, as legally united with it, and the possessions and dependencies, are hereby declared to constitute a free, independent, sovereign state. the territorial unity of this state is declared to be inviolable, and its territory to be indivisible. 2d. the house of hapsburg-lorraine--having by treachery, perjury, and levying of war against the hungarian nation, as well as by its outrageous violation of all compacts, in breaking up the integral territory of the kingdom, in the separation of transylvania, croatia, slavonia, fiume, and its districts, from hungary--further, by compassing the destruction of the independence of the country by arms, and by calling in the disciplined army of a foreign power, for the purpose of annihilating its nationality, by violation both of the pragmatic sanction and of treaties concluded between austria and hungary, on which the alliance between the two countries depended--is, as treacherous and perjured, for ever excluded from the throne of the united states of hungary and transylvania, and all their possessions and dependencies, and are hereby deprived of the style and title, as well as of the armorial bearings belonging to the crown of hungary, and declared to be banished for ever from the united countries and their dependencies and possessions. they are therefore declared to be deposed, degraded, and banished for ever from the hungarian territory. 3d. the hungarian nation, in the exercise of its rights and sovereign will, being determined to assume the position of a free and independent state among the nations of europe, declares it to be its intention to establish and maintain friendly and neighbourly relations with those states with which it was formerly united under the same sovereign, as well as to contract alliances with all other nations. 4th. the form of government to be adopted for the future will be fixed by the diet of the nation. but until this point shall be decided, on the basis of the foregoing and received principles which have been recognized for ages, the government of the united countries, their possessions and dependencies, shall be conducted on personal responsibility, and under the obligation to render an account of all acts, by louis kossuth, who has by acclamation, and with the unanimous approbation of the diet of the nation, been named governing president (gubernator), and the ministers whom he shall appoint. and this resolution of ours we proclaim for the knowledge of all nations of the civilized world, with the conviction that the hungarian nation will be received by them among the free and independent nations of the world, with the same friendship and free acknowledgment of its rights which the hungarians proffer to other countries. we also hereby proclaim and make known to all the inhabitants of the united states of hungary and transylvania, their possessions and dependencies, that all authorities, communes, towns, and the civil officers, both in the counties and cities, are completely set free and released from all the obligations under which they stood, by oath or otherwise, to the said house of hapsburg; and that any individual daring to contravene this decree, and by word or deed in any way to aid or abet any one violating it, shall be treated and punished as guilty of high treason. and by the publication of this decree, we hereby bind and oblige all the inhabitants of these countries to obedience to the government, now instituted formally, and endowed with all necessary legal powers. _debreczin, april_ 14, 1849. * * * * * v.--statement of principles and aims. [_castle garden, new york, dec. 6th_.] after apologies for his weakness through the effects of the sea, kossuth continued:-citizens! much as i want some hours of rest, much as i need to become acquainted with my ground, before i enter publicly on matters of business, i yet took it for a duty of honour to respond at once to your generous welcome. i have to thank the people, the congress, and the government of the united states for my liberation. i must not try to express what i felt, when i,--a wanderer,--but not the less the legitimate official chief of hungary,--first saw the glorious flag of the stripes and stars fluttering over my head--when i saw around me the gallant officers and the crew of the _mississippi_ frigate--most of them worthy representatives of true american principles, american greatness, american generosity. it was not a mere chance which cast the star-spangled banner around me; it was your protecting will. the united states of america, conscious of their glorious calling as well as of their power, declared by this unparalleled act their resolve to become the protectors of human rights. to see a powerful vessel of america, coming to far asia, in order to break the chains by which the mightiest despots of europe fettered the activity of an exiled magyar, whose name disturbed their sleep--to be restored by such a protection to freedom and activity--you may well conceive, was intensely felt by me; as indeed i still feel it. others _spoke_--you _acted_; and i was free! you acted; and at this act of yours tyrants trembled; humanity shouted out with joy; the magyar nation, crushed, but not broken, raised its head with resolution and with hope; and the brilliancy of your stars was greeted by europe's oppressed millions as the morning star of liberty. now, gentlemen, you must be aware how great my gratitude must be. you have restored me to life--in restoring me to activity; and should my life, by the blessing of the almighty, still prove useful to my fatherland and to humanity, it will be your merit--it will be your work. may you and your country be blessed for it! your generous part in my liberation is taken by the world for the revelation of the fact, that the united states are resolved not to allow the despots of the world to trample on oppressed humanity. that is why my liberation was cheered from sweden to portugal as a ray of hope. even those nations which most desire my presence in europe now, have said to me, "hasten on, hasten on, to the great, free, rich, and powerful people of the united states, and bring over its brotherly aid to the cause of your country, so intimately connected with european liberty;" and here i stand to plead the cause of common human rights before your great republic. humble as i am, god the almighty has selected me to represent the cause of humanity before you. my warrant hereto is written in the sympathy and confidence of all who are oppressed, and of all who, as your elder sister the british nation, sympathize with the oppressed. it is written in the hopes and expectations you have entitled the world to entertain, by liberating me out of my prison. but it has pleased the almighty to make out of my humble self yet another opportunity for a thing which may prove a happy turning-point in the destinies of the world. i bring you a brotherly greeting from the people of great britain. i speak not in an official character, imparted by diplomacy whose secrecy is the curse of the world, but i am the harbinger of the public spirit of the people, which i witnessed pronouncing itself in the most decided manner, openly--that the people of england, united to you with enlightened brotherly love, as it is united in blood--conscious of your strength as it is conscious of its own, has for ever abandoned every sentiment of irritation and rivalry, and desires the brotherly alliance of the united states to secure to every nation the sovereign right to dispose of itself, and to protect that right against encroaching arrogance. it desires to league with you against the league of despots, and with you to stand sponsor at the approaching baptism of european liberty. now, gentlemen, i have stated my position. i am a straightforward man. i am a republican. i have avowed it openly in monarchical but free england; and am happy to state that i have lost nothing by this avowal there. i hope i shall not lose here, in republican america, by that frankness, which must be one of the chief qualities of every republican. so i beg leave openly to state the following points: first that i take it to be duty of honour and principle not to meddle with any party-question of your own domestic affairs. secondly, i profess my admiration for the glorious principle of union, on which stands the mighty pyramid of your greatness. taking my ground on this constitutional fact, it is not to a party, but to your united people that i will confidently address my humble requests. within the limits of your laws i will use every honest exertion to gain your effectual sympathy, and your financial material and political aid for my country's freedom and independence, and entreat the realization of the hopes which your generosity has raised. and, therefore, thirdly, i frankly state that my aim is to restore my fatherland to the full enjoyment of her own independence, which has been legitimately declared, and cannot have lost its rightfulness by the violent invasion of foreign russian arms. what can be opposed to it? the frown of mr. hulsemann--the anger of that satellite of the czar, called francis-joseph of austria! and the immense danger (with which some european and american papers threaten you), lest your minister at vienna receive his passports, and mr. hulsemann leave washington, should i be received in my official capacity? now, as to your minister at vienna, how you can reconcile the letting him stay there with your opinion of the cause of hungary, i do not know; for the present absolutist atmosphere of europe is not very propitious to american principles. but as to mr. hulsemann, do not believe that he would be so ready to leave washington. he has extremely well digested the caustic words which mr. webster has administered to him so gloriously. i know that your public spirit would never allow any responsible depository of the executive power to be regulated in its policy by all the hulsemanns or all the francis-josephs in the world. but it is also my agreeable conviction that the highminded government of the united states shares warmly the sentiments of the people. it has proved it by executing in a ready and dignified manner the resolution of congress on behalf of my liberation. it has proved it by calling on the congress to consider how i shall be received, and even this morning i was honoured by the express order of the government with an official salute from the batteries of the united states, in a manner in which, according to the military rules, only a high official personage can be greeted. i came not to your glorious shores to enjoy a happy rest--i came not to gather triumphs of personal distinction, but as a humble petitioner, in my country's name, as its freely chosen constitutional leader, to entreat your generous aid. i have no other claims than those which the oppressed principle of freedom has to the aid of victorious liberty. if you consider these claims not sufficient for your active and effectual sympathy, then let me know at once that the hopes have failed, with which europe has looked to your great, mighty, and glorious republic--let me know it at once that i may hasten back and say to the oppressed nations, "let us fight, forsaken and single-handed, the battle of leonidas; let us trust to god, to our right, and to our good sword; for we have no other help on earth." but if your generous republican hearts are animated by the high principle of freedom and of the community in human destinies,--if you have the will, as undoubtedly you have the power, to support the cause of freedom against the sacrilegious league of despotism, then give me some days of calm reflection, to become acquainted with the ground upon which i stand--let me take kind advice as to my course--let me learn whether any steps have been already taken in favour of that cause which i have the honour to represent; and then let me have a new opportunity to expound before you my humble request in a practical way. i confidently hope, mr. mayor, the corporation and citizens of the empire city will grant me a second opportunity. if this be your generous will, then let me take this for a boon of happier days; and let me add, with a sigh of thanksgiving to the almighty god, that providence has selected your glorious country to be the pillar of freedom, as it is already the asylum to oppressed humanity. i am told that i shall have the high honour to review your patriotic militia. my heart throbs at the idea of seeing this gallant army enlisted on the side of freedom against despotism. the world would then soon be free, and you the saviours of humanity. citizens of new york, it is under your protection that i place the sacred cause of freedom and the independence of hungary. * * * * * vi.--reply to the baltimore address. [_dec. 10th_, 1851.] mr. henry p. brooks, chairman of the committee of the baltimore city council, came forward, and after congratulating kossuth upon his release from peril, and arrival in america, he presented the following resolutions of the council written on parchment:-in city council. whereas it is understood that louis kossuth, the illustrious hungarian patriot and exile, is about seeking an asylum upon our shores; and whereas it is believed that the city of baltimore, in common with the whole people of the united states, feel a deep and abiding interest in the cause of freedom wherever it is assailed, and entertain the most sincere regret for the unfortunate condition of hungary; and whereas, in the reception of kossuth, an opportunity is offered of expressing our sympathy for the cause of hungarian independence--of recording our detestation of the unholy coalition by which that gallant people have been crushed, and of evincing our admiration of the noble conduct of the turkish sultan in refusing to deliver to the despots of europe that illustrious exile and patriot whom it is about to be our privilege and pride to receive, as it befits the chosen people of liberty to receive one who has so nobly battled and suffered in that sacred cause; therefore-_resolved_, by the mayor and city council of baltimore, that we look to the arrival of kossuth upon our shores with mingled feelings of satisfaction and regret--satisfaction that we are enabled to afford a safe asylum to an illustrious patriot--regret that the cause of liberty should give birth to such necessity. _resolved_, that we sympathize fully with the hungarians in their important struggles for independence, but mindful of that providence which crowned our own efforts for liberty with success, trust yet to behold that glorious future which their noble leader so eloquently predicts for his beloved country. _resolved_, that we regard the alliance with russia and austria for the purpose of crushing the spirit of liberty in hungary as a fit accompaniment in the annals of time for the infamous partition of unfortunate poland by the same tyrannical powers, each alike worthy of the execration of the civilized world. _resolved_, that we cordially welcome kossuth and his exiled companions to the full enjoyment of american liberty and an asylum beyond the reach of european despotism. _resolved_, further, that a joint committee of five from each branch of the city council be appointed, whose duty it shall be, in conjunction with the mayor, in the event of their arrival in our city, to tender to them appropriate public tokens of our esteem and admiration for their gallant conduct, as well as of our sympathy for their sufferings and their cause. committee under the last resolution--first branch: henry p. brooke, john dukehart, j. hanson thomas, david blanford, john thomas morris. second branch: jacob j. cohen, w. b. morris, hugh a. cooper, james c. ninde, geo. a. lovering. john h. j. jerome, mayor. john s. brown, president of first branch. hugh bolton, president of second branch. city of baltimore, state of maryland, united states of america, oct. 28, a.d. 1851. [after hearing several other--complimentary addresses, kossuth in a few minutes replied. he began with apologies, and then proceeded]:-permit me to say, that in my opinion the word "glory" should be blotted out from the dictionary in respect to individuals, and only left for use in respect to nations. whatever a man can do for his country, even though he should live a long life, and have the strongest faculties, would not be too much: for he ought to use his utmost exertions, and his utmost powers, in return for the gifts he receives. whatever a man can do on behalf of his country and of humanity, would never be so much as his duty calls upon him to do, still less so much as to merit the use of the word "glory" in regard to himself. once more, i say, that duty belongs to the man and glory to the nation. when an honest man does his duty to his own country, and becomes a patriot, he acts for all humanity, and does his duty to mankind. you have bestowed great attention upon the cause of hungary, and the subject is here well understood generally, which is a benefit to me. i declare to you all, that i find more exact knowledge of the hungarian cause here, than in any other place i have been. yet i am astonished to see in a report of the proceedings of the united states senate, that a member rose and said that we were not struggling for the principle of freedom and of liberty, but rather for the support of our ancient charter. this, gentlemen, is a misrepresentation of our cause. there is a truth in the assertion that we were struggling for our _ancient rights_, for the right of self-government is an ancient right. the right of self-government was ours a thousand years ago, and has been guaranteed to us by the coronation oaths of more than thirty of our kings. i say that this right was guaranteed to us, yet it had become a dead letter in the course of time. before the revolution of 1848 we were long struggling to enforce our notorious but often invaded rights; but the whole people were not interested in them: for although they were constitutional rights, they were restricted in ancient times, not to a particular _race_, but to a particular _class_, called nobles. these did not belong to the magyars alone, but to all the races that settled in the country, to the sclaves, to the wallachians, the serbs, and to others, whatever their race or their extraction. yet none but the _nobles_ were privileged. we saw that for one class only to be interested in these rights was not enough, and we wished to make them a benefit to every man in the country, and to replace the old constitution by one which should give a common and universal right to all men to vote, without regard to the tongue they speak or the church at which they pray. i need not enter further into the subject than to say, that we established a system of practically universal suffrage, of equality in representation, a just share in taxation for the support of the state, and equality in the benefits of public education, and in all those blessings which are derived from the freedom of a free people. it has been asked by some, why i allowed a treacherous general to ruin our cause. i have always been anxious not to assume any duty for which i might be unsuited. if i had undertaken the practical direction of military operations, and anything went amiss, i feared that my conscience would torture me, as guilty of the fall of my country, as i had not been familiar with military tactics. i therefore entrusted my country's cause, thus far, into other hands; and i weep for the result. in exile, i have tried to profit by the past and prepare for the future. i believe that the confidence of hungary in me is not shaken by misfortune nor broken by my calumniators. i have had all in my own hands once; and if ever i am in the same position again, i will act. i will not become a napoleon nor an alexander, and labour for my own ambition; but i will labour for freedom and for the moral well-being of man. i do but ask you to enforce your own great constitutional principles, and not permit russia to interfere. * * * * * vii.--hereditary policy of america. [_speech at the corporation dinner, new york, dec. 11th_, 1851.] the mayor having made an address to kossuth, closed by proposing the following toast:-"hungary--betrayed but not subdued. her call for help is but the echo of our appeal against the tread of the oppressor." kossuth rose to reply. the enthusiasm with which he was greeted was unparalleled. it shook the building, and the chandeliers and candelabras trembled before it. every one present rose to his feet, and appeared excited to frenzy. the ladies participated in honouring the hungarian hero. at length the storm of applause subsided, and then ensued a silence most intense. every eye was fixed on kossuth, and when he commenced his speech, the noise caused by the dropping of a pin could be heard throughout the large and capacious room. kossuth's speech. sir,--in returning you my most humble thanks for the honour you did me by your toast, and by coupling my name with that cause which is the sacred aim of my life, i am so overwhelmed with emotion by all it has been my strange lot to experience since i am on your glorious shores, that i am unable to find words; and knowing that all the honour i meet with has the higher meaning of principles, i beg leave at once to fall back on my duties, which are the lasting topics of my reflections, my sorrows, and my hopes. i take the present for a highly important opportunity, which may decide the success or failure of my visit. i must therefore implore your indulgence for a pretty long and plain development of my views concerning that cause which the citizens of new york, and you particularly, gentlemen, honour with generous interest. when i perceive that the sympathy of your people with hungary is almost universal, and that they pronounce their feelings in its favour with a resolution such as denotes noble and great deeds about to follow; i might feel inclined to take for granted, at least _in principle_, that we shall have your generous aid for restoring to our land its sovereign independence. nothing but _details_ of negotiation would seem to be left for me, were not my confidence checked, by being told, that, according to many of your most distinguished statesmen, it is a ruling principle of your public policy never to interfere in european affairs. i highly respect the source of this conviction, gentlemen. this source is your religious attachment to the doctrines of those who bequeathed to you the immortal constitution which, aided by the unparalleled benefits of nature, has raised you, in seventy-five years, from an infant people to a mighty nation. the wisdom of the founders of your great republic you see in its happy results. what would be the consequences of departing from that wisdom, you are not sure. you therefore instinctively fear to touch, even with improving hands, the dear legacy of those great men. and as to your glorious constitution, all humanity can only wish that you and your posterity may long preserve this religious attachment to its fundamental principles, which by no means exclude development and progress: and that every citizen of your great union, thankfully acknowledging its immense benefits, may never forget to love it more than momentary passion or selfish and immediate interest. may every citizen of your glorious country for ever remember that a partial discomfort of a corner in a large, sure, and comfortable house, may be well amended without breaking the foundation; and that amongst all possible means of getting rid of that partial discomfort, the worst would be to burn down the house with his own hands. but while i acknowledge the wisdom of your attachment to fundamental doctrines, i beg leave with equal frankness to state, that, in my opinion, there can be scarcely anything more dangerous to the progressive development of a nation, than to mistake for a basis that which is none; to mistake for a principle that which is but a transitory convenience; to take for substantial that which is but accidental; or to take for a constitutional doctrine that which is but a momentary exigency of administrative policy. such a course of action would be like to a healthy man refusing substantial food, because when he was once weak in stomach his physician ordered him a severe diet. let me suppose, gentlemen, that that doctrine of non-interference was really bequeathed to you by your washingtons (and that it was not, i will essay to prove afterwards), and let me even suppose that your washingtons imparted to it such an interpretation, as were equivalent to the words of cain, "am i my brother's keeper?" (which supposition would be, of course, a sacrilege; but i am forced to such suppositions:) i may be entitled to ask, is the dress which suited the child, still suitable to the full grown man? would it not be ridiculous to lay the man into the child's cradle, and to sing him to sleep by a lullaby? in the origin of the united states you were an infant people, and you had, of course, nothing to do but to grow, to grow, and to grow. but now you are so far grown that there is no foreign power on earth from which you have anything to fear for your existence or security. in fact, your growth is that of a giant. of old, your infant frame was composed of thirteen states, and was restricted to the borders of the atlantic: now, your massive bulk is spread to the gulf of mexico and the pacific, and your territory is a continent. your right hand touches europe over the waves; your left reaches across the pacific to eastern asia; and there, between two quarters of the world, there you stand, in proud immensity, a world yourselves. then you were a small people of three millions and a half; now you are a mighty nation of twenty-four millions. thus you have fully entered into the second stadium of national life, in which a nation lives at length not for itself separately, but as a member of the great family of human nations; having a right to whatever is due from that family _towards_ every one of its full-grown members, but also engaged to every duty which that great family may claim _from_ every one of its full-grown members. a nation may, either from comparative weakness, or by choice and policy, as japan and china, or by both these motives, as paraguay under dr. francia,--be induced to live a life secluded from the world, indifferent to the destinies of mankind, in which it cannot or will not have any share. but then it must be willing to be also excluded from the benefits of progress, civilization and national intercourse, while disavowing all care about all other nations in the world. no citizen of the united states has, or ever will have, the wish to see this country degraded to the rotting vegetation of a paraguay, or the mummy existence of a japan and china. the feeling of self-dignity, and the expansiveness of that enterprizing spirit which is congenial to freemen, would revolt against the very idea of such a degrading national captivity. but if there were even a will to live such a mummy life, there is no possibility to do so. the very existence of your great country, the principles upon which it is founded, its geographical position, its present scale of civilization, and all its moral and material interests, would lead on your people not only to maintain, but necessarily more and more to develop your foreign intercourse. then, being in so many respects linked to mankind at large, you cannot have the will, nor yet the power, to remain indifferent to the outward world. and if you cannot remain indifferent, you must resolve to throw your weight into that balance in which the fate and condition of man is weighed. you are a power on earth. you must be a power on earth, and must therefore accept all the consequences of this position. you cannot allow that any power in the world should dispose of the fate of that great family of mankind, of which you are so pre-eminent a member: else you would resign your proud place and your still prouder future, and be a power on earth no more. i hope i have sufficiently shown, that should even that doctrine of non-interference have been established by the founders of your republic, that which might have been very proper to your infancy would not now be suitable to your manhood. it is a beautiful word of montesquieu, that republics are to be founded on virtue. and you know that virtue between man and man, as sanctioned by our christian religion, is but an exercise of that great principle--"thou shalt do to others as thou desirest others to do to thee." thus i might rely simply upon your generous republican hearts, and upon the consistency of your principles; but i beg to add some essential differences in material respects, between your present condition and that of yore. of your twenty-four millions, more than nineteen are spread over yonder immense territory, the richest of the world, employed in the cultivation of the soil, that honourable occupation, which in every time has proved to be the most inexhaustible and most unfailing source of public welfare and private happiness, as also the most unwavering ally of freedom, and the most faithful fosterer of all those upright, noble, generous sentiments which the constant intercourse with ever young, ever great, ever beautiful virtue, imparts to man. now this immense agricultural interest, desiring large markets, at the same time affords a solid basis to your manufacturing industry, and in consequence to your immensely developed commerce. all this places such a difference between the republic of washington and your present grandeur, that though you may well be attached to your original principles (for the principles of liberty are everlastingly the same), yet not so in respect to the exigencies of your policy. for if it is to be regulated by _interest_, your country has other interests to-day than it had then; and if ever it is to be regulated by the higher consideration of _principles_, you are strong enough to feel that the time is already come. and i, standing here before you to plead the cause of oppressed humanity, am bold to declare that there may never again come a crisis, at which such an elevation of your policy would prove either more glorious to you, or more beneficial to man: for we in europe are apparently on the eye of that day, when either the hopes or the fears of oppressed nations will be crushed for a long time. having stated so far the difference of the situation, i beg leave now to assert that it is an error to suppose that non-interference in foreign matters has been bequeathed to the people of the united states by your great washington as a doctrine and as a constitutional principle. firstly, washington never even recommended to you non-interference in the sense of _indifference_ to the fate of other nations. he only recommended _neutrality_. and there is a mighty diversity between these two ideas. neutrality has reference to a state of war between two belligerent powers, and it is this case which washington contemplated, when he, in his farewell address, advised the people of the united states not to enter into entangling alliances. let quarrelling powers, let quarrelling nations go to war--but do you consider your own concerns; leave foreign powers to quarrel about ambitious topics, or narrow partial interests. neutrality is a matter of convenience--not of principle. but while neutrality has reference to a state of war between belligerent powers, the principle of non-interference, on the contrary, lays down the sovereign right of nations to arrange their own domestic concerns. therefore these two ideas of neutrality and non-interference are entirely different, having reference to two entirely different matters. the sovereign right of every nation to rule over itself, to alter its own institutions, to change the form of its own government, is a common public law of nations, common to all, and, _therefore, put under the common guarantee of all_. this sovereign right of every nation to dispose of itself, you, the people of the united states must recognize; for it is the common law of mankind, in which, because it is such, every nation is equally interested. you must recognize it, secondly, because the very existence of your great republic, as also the independence of every nation, rests upon this ground. if that sovereign right of nations were no common public law of mankind, then your own independence would be no matter of right, but only a matter of fact, which might be subject, for all future time, to all sorts of chances from foreign conspiracy and violence. and where is the citizen of the united states who would not revolt at the idea that this great republic is not a righteous nor a lawful existence, but only a mere accident--a mere matter of fact? if it were so, you were not entitled to invoke the protection of god for your great country; for the protection of god cannot, without sacrilege, be invoked but in behalf of justice and right. you would have no right to look to the sympathy of mankind for yourselves; for you would profess an abrogation of the laws of humanity upon which is founded your own independence, your own nationality. now, gentlemen, if these be principles of common law, of that law which god has given to every nation of humanity--if to organize itself is the common lawful right of every nation; then the interference with this common law of all humanity, the violent act of hindering, by armed forces, a nation from exercising that sovereign right, must be considered as a violation of that common public law upon which your very existence rests, and which, being a common law of all humanity, is, by god himself, placed under the safeguard of all humanity; for it is god himself who commands us to love our neighbours as we love ourselves, and to do towards others as we desire others to do towards us. upon this point you cannot remain indifferent. you may well remain neutral to war between two belligerent nations, but you cannot remain indifferent to the violation of the common law of humanity. that indifference washington has never taught you. i defy any man to show me, out of the eleven volumes of washington's writings, a single word to that effect. he could not have recommended this indifference without ceasing to be wise as he was; for without justice there is no wisdom on earth. he could not have recommended it without becoming inconsistent; for it was this common law of mankind which your fathers invoked before god and man when they proclaimed your independence. it was he himself, your great washington, who not only accepted, but again and again asked, foreign aid--foreign help for the support of that common law of mankind in respect to your own independence. knowledge and instruction are so universally spread amongst the enlightened people of the united states, the history of your country is such a household science at the most lonely hearths of your remotest settlements, that it may be sufficient for me to refer, in that respect, to the instructions and correspondence between washington and the minister at paris--the equally immortal franklin--the modest man with the proud epitaph, which tells the world that he wrested the lightning from heaven, and the sceptre from the tyrant's hands. i will go further. even that doctrine of neutrality which washington taught and bequeathed to you, he taught not as a constitutional _principle_--a lasting regulation for all future time, but only as a matter of temporary _policy_. i refer in that respect to the very words of his farewell address. there he states explicitly that "it is your _policy_ to steer clear of _permanent_ alliances with any portion of the foreign world." these are his very words. policy is the word, and you know that policy is not the science of principle, but of exigencies; and that principles are, of course, by a free and powerful nation, never to be sacrificed to exigencies. the exigencies pass away like the bubbles of a shower, but the nation is immortal: it must consider the future also, and not only the egotistical dominion of the passing hour: it must be aware that to an immortal nation nothing can be of higher importance than immortal principles. again, in the same address washington explicitly says, in reference to his policy of neutrality, that "with him a predominant motive has been to _gain time_ to your country to settle and mature its institutions, and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength and consistency which is necessary to give it the command of its own fortunes." these are highly memorable words, gentlemen. here i take my ground; and casting a glance of admiration over your glorious land, i confidently ask you, gentlemen, are your institutions settled and matured or are they not? are you, or are you not, come to such a degree of strength and consistency as to be the masters of your own fortunes? oh! how do i thank god for having given me the glorious view of this country's greatness, which answers this question for me! yes! you _have_ attained that degree of strength and consistency in which your less fortunate brethren may well claim your protecting hand. one word more on washington's doctrines. in one of his letters, written to lafayette, he says:--"let us only have twenty years of peace, and our country will come to such a degree of power and wealth that we shall be able, in a just cause, to defy any power on earth whatsoever." "in a just cause!" now, in the name of eternal truth, and by all that is dear and sacred to man, since the history of mankind is recorded, there has been no cause more just than the cause of hungary. never was there a people, without the slightest reason, more sacrilegiously, more treacherously attacked, or by fouler means than hungary. never has crime, cursed ambition, despotism, and violence, united more wickedly to crush freedom, and the very life, than against hungary. never was a country more mortally aggrieved than hungary is. all _your_ sufferings--all _your_ complaints, which, with so much right, drove your forefathers to take up arms, are but slight grievances in comparison with those immense deep wounds, out of which the heart of hungary bleeds! if the cause of our people is not sufficiently just to insure the protection of god, and the support of right-willing men--then there is no just cause, and no justice on earth. then the blood of no new abel will moan towards heaven. the genius of charity, christian love, and justice will mourningly fly the earth; a heavy curse will fall upon morality--oppressed men will despair, and only the cains of mankind walk proudly with impious brow about the ruins of liberty on earth. now, allow me briefly to consider how your foreign policy has grown and enlarged itself. i will only recall to your memory the message of president monroe, when he clearly stated that the united states would take up arms to protect the american colonies of spain, now free republics, should the holy (or rather unholy) alliance make an attempt either to aid spain to reduce the new american republics to their ancient colonial state, or to compel them to adopt political systems more conformable to the policy and views of that alliance. i entreat you to mark this well, gentlemen. not only the forced introduction of monarchy, but in general the interference of foreign powers in the contest, was declared sufficient motive for the united states to protect the colonies. let me remind you that this declaration of president monroe was not only approved and confirmed by the people of the united states, but that great britain itself joined the united states, in the declaration of this decision and this policy. i further recall to your memory the instructions given in 1826 to your envoys to the congress of panama, richard anderson and john sergeant, where it was clearly stated that the united states would have opposed, with their whole force, the interference of the continental powers in that struggle for independence. it is true, that this declaration to go even to war, to protect the independence of foreign states against foreign interference, was restricted to the continent of america; for president monroe declares in his message that the united states can have no concern in european straggles, being distant and separated from europe by the great atlantic ocean. but i would remark that this indifference to european concerns is again a matter, not of principle but of temporary exigency--the motives of which have, by the lapse of time, entirely disappeared--so much that the balance is even turned to the opposite side. president monroe mentions _distance_ as a motive of the above-stated distinction. well, since the prodigious development of your fulton's glorious invention, distance is no longer calculated by miles, but by hours; and, being so, europe is of course less distant from you than the greater part of the american continent. but, let even the word distance be taken in a nominal sense. europe is nearer to you than the greatest part of the american continent--yea! even nearer than perhaps some parts of your own territory. president monroe's second motive is, that you are separated from europe _by the atlantic_. now, at the present time, and in the present condition of navigation, the atlantic is no separation, but rather a link; as the means of that commercial intercourse which brings the interest of europe home to you, connecting you with it by every tie of moral as well as material interest. there is immense truth in that which the french legation in the united states expressed to your government in an able note of 27th october past:--"america is closely connected with europe, being only separated from the latter by a distance scarcely exceeding eight days' journey, by one of the most important of general interests--the interest of commerce. the nations of america and europe are at this day so dependent upon one another, that the effects of any event, prosperous or otherwise, happening on one side of the atlantic, are immediately felt on the other side. the result of this community of interests, commercial, political, and moral, between europe and america--of this frequency and rapidity of intercourse between them, is, that it becomes as difficult to point out the geographical degree where american policy shall terminate, and european policy begin, as it is to trace out the line where american commerce begins and european commerce terminates. where may be said to begin or terminate the ideas which are in the ascendant in europe and in america?" it is chiefly in new york that i feel induced to urge this, because new york is, by innumerable ties, connected with europe--more connected than several parts of europe itself. it is the agricultural interest of this great country which chiefly wants an outlet and a market. now, it is far more to europe than to the american continent that you have to look in that respect. on this account you cannot remain indifferent to the fate of freedom on the european continent: for be sure, gentlemen--and i would say this chiefly to the gentlemen of trade--should absolutism gain ground in europe, it will, it must, put every possible obstacle in the way of commercial intercourse with republican america: for commercial intercourse is the most powerful convoyer of principles, and be sure the victory of absolutism on the european continent will in no quarter have more injurious national consequences than against your vast agricultural and commercial interests. then why not prevent it, while it is still possible to do so with comparatively small sacrifices, rather than abide that fatal catastrophe, and have to mourn the immense sacrifices it would then cost? even in political considerations, now-a-days, you have stronger motives to feel interested in the fate of europe than in the fate of the central or southern parts of america. whatever may happen in the institutions of these parts, you are too powerful to see your own institutions affected by it. but let europe become absolutistical (as, unless hungary be restored to its independence, and italy become free, be sure it will)--and your children will see those words, which your national government spoke in 1827, fulfilled on a larger scale than they were meant, that "the absolutism of europe will not be appeased, until every vestige of human freedom has been obliterated even here." and oh! do not rely too fondly upon your power. it is great, assuredly. you have not to fear any single power on earth. but look to history. mighty empires have vanished. let not the enemies of freedom grow too strong. victorious over europe, and then united, they would be too strong even for you! and be sure they hate you most cordially. they consider you as their most dangerous opponent. absolutism cannot sleep tranquilly, while the republican principle has such a mighty representative as your country is. yes, gentlemen, it was the fear of driving the absolutists to fanatical effort, which induced your great statesmen not to extend to europe the principle on which they acted towards the new world, and by no means the publicly avowed feeble motives. every manifestation of your public life in those times shows that i am right to say so. the european nations were, about 1823, in such a degraded situation, that indeed you must have felt anxious not to come into any political contact with that pestilential atmosphere, when, as mr. clay said in 1818, in his speech about the emancipation of south america, "paris was transferred to st. petersburg." but scarcely a year later, the greek nation came in its contest to an important crisis, which gave you hope that the spirit of freedom was waking again, and at once you abandoned the principle of political indifference for europe. you know, your clays and your websters spoke, as if really they were speaking for my very cause. you know how your citizens acted in behalf of that struggle for liberty in a part of europe which is more distant than hungary: and again when poland fell, you know what spirit pervaded the united states. i have shown you how washington's policy has been gradually changed: but one mighty difference i must still commemorate. your population has, since monroe's time, nearly doubled, i believe; or at least has increased by millions. and what sort of men are these millions? are they only native-born americans? no european emigrants? many are men, who though citizens of the united states are, by the most sacred ties of relationship, attached to the fate of europe. that is a consideration worthy of reflection with your wisest men, who will, ere long agree with me, that in your present condition you are at least as much interested in the state of europe, as twenty-eight years ago your fathers were in the fate of central and southern america. and really so it is. the unexampled sympathy for the cause of my country which i have met with in the united states proves that it is so. your generous interference with the turkish captivity of the governor of hungary, proves that is so. and this progressive development in your foreign policy, is, in fact, no longer a mere instinctive ebullition of public opinion, which is about hereafter to direct your governmental policy; the opinion of the people is _already_ avowed as the policy of the government. i have a most decisive authority to rely upon in saying so. it is the message of the president of the united states. his excellency, millard fillmore, made a communication to congress, a few days ago, and there i read the paragraph:--"the deep interest which we feel in the spread of liberal principles, and the establishment of free governments, and the sympathy with which we witness every struggle against oppression, _forbid that we should be indifferent_ to a case in which the strong arm of a foreign power is invoked to stifle public sentiment and repress the spirit of freedom in any country." now, gentlemen, here is the ground which i take for my earnest endeavours to benefit the cause of hungary. i have only respectfully to ask: is a principle which the public opinion of the united states so resolutely professes, and which the government of the united states, with the full sentiment of its responsibility, declares to your congress to be a ruling principle of your national government--is that principle meant to be serious? indeed, it would be a most impertinent outrage towards your great people and your national government, to entertain the insulting opinion, that what the people of the united states and its national government profess in such a solemn diplomatic manner could be meant as a mere sporting with the most sacred interests of humanity. god forbid that i should think so. therefore, i take the principle of your policy as i find it established--and i come in the name of oppressed humanity to claim the unavoidable, practical, consequences of your own freely chosen policy, which you have avowed to the whole world; to claim the realization of those expectations which you, the sovereign people of the united states, have chosen, of your own accord, to raise in the bosom of my countrymen and of all the oppressed. you will excuse me, gentlemen, for having dwelt so long upon that principle of non-interference with european measures: but i have found it to be the stone of stumbling thrown in my way when i spoke of what i humbly request from the united states. i have been charged as arrogantly attempting to change your existing policy, and since i cannot in one speech exhaust the complex and mighty whole of my mission, i choose on the present opportunity to develop my views about that fundamental principle: and having shown, not theoretically, but practically, that it is a mistake to think that you had, at any time, such a principle, and having shown that if you ever entertained such a policy, you have been forced to abandon it--so much, at least, i hope i have achieved. my humble requests to your active sympathy may be still opposed by--i know not what other motives; but the objection, that you must not interfere with european concerns--this objection is disposed of, once and for ever, i hope. it remains now to inquire, whether, since you have professed not to be indifferent to the cause of european freedom--the cause of hungary is such as to have just claims to your active and effectual assistance and support. it is, gentlemen. to prove this i do not now intend to enter into an explanation of the particulars of our struggle, which i had the honour to conduct, as the chosen chief magistrate of my native land. it is highly gratifying to me to find that the cause of hungary is--excepting some ridiculous misrepresentations of ill-will--correctly understood here. i will only state now one fact, and that is, that our endeavours for independence were crushed by the armed interference of a foreign despotic power--the principle of all evil on earth--russia. and stating this fact, i will not again intrude upon you with my own views, but recall to your memory the doctrines established by your own statesmen. firstly--i return to your great washington. he says, in one of his letters to lafayette, "my policies are plain and simple; i think every nation has a right to establish that form of government under which it conceives it can live most happy; and that no government ought to interfere with the internal concerns of another." here i take my ground:--upon a principle of washington--a _principle_, not a mere temporary policy calculated for the first twenty years of your infancy. russia _has_ interfered with the internal concerns of hungary, and by doing so has violated the policy of the united states, established as a lasting principle by washington himself. it is a lasting principle. i could appeal in my support to the opinion of every statesman of the united states, of every party, of every time; but to save time, i pass at once from the first president of the united states to the last, and recall to your memory this word of the present annual message of his excellency president fillmore:--"let every people choose for itself, and make and alter its political institutions to suit its own condition and convenience." i beg leave also to quote the statement of your present secretary of state, mr. webster, who, in his speech on the greek question, speaks thus:--"the law of nations maintains that in extreme cases resistance is lawful, and that one nation has no right to interfere in the affairs of another." well, that precisely is the ground upon which we hungarians stand. but i may perhaps meet the objection (i am sorry to say i have met it already)--"well, we own that it has been violated by russia in the case of hungary, but after all what is hungary to us? let every people take care of itself, what is that to us?" so some speak: it is the old doctrine of private egotism, "every one for himself, and god for us all." i will answer the objection again by the words of mr. webster, who, in his speech on the greek question, having professed that the internal sovereignty of every nation is a law of nations--thus goes on, "but it may be asked 'what is all that to us?' the question is easily answered. _we are one of the nations_, and we as a nation have precisely the same interest in international law as a private individual has in the laws of his country." the principle which your honourable secretary of state professes, is a principle of eternal truth. no man can disavow it, no political party can disavow it. thus happily i am able to address my prayers, not to a party, but to the whole people of the united states, and will go on to do so as long as i have no reason to regard one party as opposed or indifferent to my country's cause. but from certain quarters it may be avowed, "well, we acknowledge every nation's sovereign right; we acknowledge it to be a law of nations that no foreign power interfere in the affairs of another, and we are determined to respect this common law of mankind; but if others do not respect that law it is not ours to meddle with them." let me answer by an analysis:--_every nation has the same interest in international, law as a private individual has in the laws of his country_. that is an acknowledged principle with your statesmen. what then is the latter relation? does it suffice that an individual do not himself violate the law? must he not so far as is in his power also prevent others from violating the law? suppose you see that a wicked man is about to rob--to murder your neighbour, or to burn his house, will you wrap yourself in your own virtuous lawfulness, and say, "i myself neither rob, nor murder, nor burn; but what others do is not my concern. i am not my brother's keeper. _i sympathize with him_; but i am not called on to save him from being robbed, murdered, or burnt." what honest man of the world would answer so? none of you. none of the people of the united states, i am sure. that would be the damned maxim of the pharisees of old, who thanked god that they were not as others were. our saviour was not content himself to avoid trading in the hall of the temple, but he drove out those who were trading there. the duty of enforcing observance to the common law of nations has no other _limit_ than the power to fulfil it. of course the republic of st. marino, or the prince of monaco, cannot stop the czar of russia in his ambitious annoyance. it was ridiculous when the prince of modena refused to recognize the government of louis philippe--"but to whom much is given, from him will much be expected," says the lord. every condition has not only its rights, but also its own duties; and whatever exists as a power on earth, is in duty a part of the executive government of mankind, called to maintain the law of nations. woe, a thousandfold woe to humanity, should there be no force on earth to maintain the laws of humanity. woe to humanity, should those who are as mighty as they are free, not feel interested to maintain the laws of mankind, because they are rightful laws,--but only in so far as some partial money-interests would desire it. woe to mankind if every despot of the world may dare to trample down the laws of humanity, and no free nation make these laws respected. people of the united states, humanity expects that your glorious republic will prove to the world, that _republics are founded on virtue_--it expects to see you the guardians of the laws of humanity. i will come to the last possible objection. i may be told, "you are right in your principles, your cause is just, and you have our sympathy, but, after all, we _cannot_ go to war for your country; we cannot furnish you armies and fleets; we cannot fight your battle for you." there is the rub! who can exactly tell what would have been the issue of your own struggle for independence (though your country was in a far happier geographical position than we, poor hungarians), had france given such an answer to your forefathers in 1778 and 1781, instead of sending to your aid a fleet of thirty-eight men-of-war, and auxiliary troops, and 24,000 muskets, and a loan of nineteen millions? and what was far more than all this, did it not show that france resolved with all its power to espouse the cause of your independence? but, perhaps, i shall be told that france did this, not out of love of freedom, but out of hatred against england. well, let it be; but let me then ask, shall the curse of olden times--hatred--be more efficient in the destinies of mankind than love of freedom, principles of justice, and the laws of humanity? and is america in the days of steam navigation more distant from europe to-day, than france was from america seventy-three years ago? however, i most solemnly declare that it is not my intention to rely literally upon this example. it is not my wish to entangle the united states in war, or to engage your great people to send out armies and fleets to raise up and restore hungary. not at all, gentlemen; i most solemnly declare that i have never entertained such expectations or such hopes; and here i come to the practical point. the principle of evil in europe is the enervating spirit of russian absolutism. upon this rests the daring boldness of every petty tyrant to trample upon oppressed nations, and to crush liberty. to this moloch of ambition has my native land fallen a victim. it is with this that montalembert threatens the french republicans. it was russian intervention in hungary which governed french intervention in rome, and gave german tyrants hardihood to crush all the endeavours for freedom and unity in germany. the despots of the european continent are leagued against the freedom of the world. that is a matter of fact. the second matter of fact is that the european continent is on the eve of a new revolution. it is not necessary to be initiated in the secret preparations of the european democracy to be aware of that approaching contingency. it is pointed out by the french constitution itself, prescribing a new presidential election for the next spring. now, suppose that the ambition of louis napoleon, encouraged by russian secret aid, awaits this time (_which i scarcely believe_), and suppose that there should be a republic in france; of course the first act of the new french president must be, at least, to recall the french troops from rome. nobody can doubt that a revolution in italy will follow. or if there is no peaceful solution in france, but a revolution, then every man knows that whenever the heart of france boils up, the pulsation is felt throughout europe, and oppressed nations once more rise, and russia again interferes. now i humbly ask, with the view of these circumstances before your eyes, can it be convenient to such a great power as this glorious republic, to await the very outbreak, and not until then to discuss and decide on your foreign policy? there may come, as under the last president, at a late hour, agents to see how matters stand in hungary. russian interference and treason achieved what the sacrilegious hapsburg dynasty failed to achieve. you know the old words, "while rome debated, saguntum fell." so i respectfully press upon you my first entreaty: it is, that your people will in good time express to your central government what course of foreign policy it wishes to be pursued in the case of the approaching events i have mentioned. and i most confidently hope that there is only one course possible, consistently with the above recorded principles. if you acknowledge that the right of every nation to alter its institutions and government is a law of nations--if you acknowledge the interference of foreign powers in that sovereign right to be a violation of the law of nations, as you really do--if you are _forbidden to remain indifferent_ to this violation of international law (as your president openly professes that you are)--then there is no other course possible than neither to interfere in that sovereign right of nations, nor to allow any other powers whatever to interfere. but you will perhaps object to me, "that amounts to going to war." i answer: no--that amounts to preventing war. what is wanted to that effect? it is wanted, that, being aware of the precarious condition of europe, your national government should, as soon as possible, send instructions to your minister at london, to declare to the english government that the united states, acknowledging the sovereign right of every nation to dispose of its own domestic concerns, have resolved not to interfere, but also not to let any foreign power whatever interfere with this sovereign right in order to repress the spirit of freedom in any country. consequently, to invite the cabinet of st. james's into this policy, and declare that the united states are resolved to act conjointly with england in that decision, in the approaching crisis of the european continent. such is my first humble request. if the citizens of the united states, instead of honouring me with the offers of their hospitality, would be pleased to pass convenient resolutions, and to ratify them to their national government--if the press would hasten to give its aid, and in consequence the national government instructed its minister in england accordingly, and by communication to the congress, as it is wont, give publicity to this step, i am entirely sure that you would find the people of great britain heartily joining this direction of policy. no power could feel peculiarly offended by it; no existing relation would be broken or injured: and still any future interference of russia against the restoration of hungary to that independence which was formally declared in 1849 would be prevented, russian arrogance and preponderance would be checked, and the oppressed nations of europe soon become free. there may be some over-anxious men, who perhaps would say, "but if such a declaration of your government were not respected, and russia still did interfere, then you would be obliged by this previous declaration, to go to war; and you don't desire to have a war." that objection seems to me as if somebody were to say, "if the vault of heaven breaks down, what shall we do?" my answer is, "but it will not break down." even so i answer. but your declaration _will_ be respected--russia will not interfere--you will have no occasion for war--you will have prevented war. be sure russia would twice, thrice consider, before provoking against itself, besides the roused judgment of nations--(to say nothing of the legions of republican france)--the english "lion" and the star-surrounded "eagle" of america. remember that you, in conjunction with england, once before declared that you would not permit european absolutism to interfere with the formerly spanish colonies of america. did this declaration bring you to a war? quite the contrary; it prevented war. so it would be in our case also. let me therefore most humbly entreat you, people of the united states, to give such practical direction to your generous sympathy for hungary, as to arrange meetings and pass such resolutions, in every possible place of this union, as i took the liberty to mention above. the second measure which i beg leave to mention, has reference to commercial interest. in later times a doctrine has stolen into the code of international law, which is as contrary to the commercial interests of nations as to their independence. the pettiest despot of the world is permitted to exclude your commerce from whatever port he pleases. he has only to arrange the blockade, and your commerce is shut out; or, if captured venice, bleeding lombardy, or my prostrate but resolute hungary, rises to shake off the austrian tyrant's yoke (as surely they will), that tyrant believes he has the right, from that very moment, to exclude your commerce from the uprisen nation. now, this is an absurdity--a tyrannical invention of tyrants violating your interest--your independence. the united states have not always regarded things from the despotic point of view. i find, in a note of mr. everett, minister of the united states in spain, dated "madrid, jan. 20, 1826," these words:--"in the war between spain and the spanish american colonies, the united states have freely granted to _both_ parties the hospitality of their ports and territory, and have allowed the agents of _both_ to procure within their jurisdiction, in the way of lawful trade, _any_ supplies which suited their convenience." now, gentlemen, this is the principle which humanity expects, for your own and for mankind's benefit, to see maintained by you, and not yonder fatal course, which permits tyrants to draw from your country every facility for the oppression of their nations, but forbids nations to buy the means of defence. that was not the principle of your washington. when he speaks of harmony, of friendly intercourse, and of peace, he always takes care to apply his ideas to _nations_, and not to _governments_--still less to tyrants who subdue nations by foreign arms. the sacred word nation, with all its natural rights, should not be blotted out, at least from _your_ political dictionary: and yet i am sorry to see that the word nation is often replaced by the word government. gentlemen, i humbly wish that the public opinion of the people of the united states, conscious of its own rights, should loudly and resolutely declare that the people of the united states will continue its commercial intercourse with any or every nation, be it in revolution against its oppressors or be it not; and that the people of the united states expect confidently, that its government will provide for the protection of your trade. i feel assured, that your national government, seeing public opinion so pronounced, will judge it convenient to augment your naval forces in the mediterranean: and to look for some such station for it as would not force the navy of republican america to make disavowals inconsistent with republican principles or republican dignity, only because king so-and-so, be he even the cursed king of naples, grants the favour of an anchoring place for the naval forces of your republic. i believe your illustrious country should everywhere freely unfurl the star-spangled banner of liberty, with all its congenial principles, and not make itself in any respect dependent on the glorious smiles of the kings bomba et compagne. the third object of my wishes, gentlemen, is the recognition of the independence of hungary when the critical moment arrives. your own declaration of independence proclaims the right of every nation to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which "the laws of nature and nature's god" entitle them. the political existence of your glorious republic is founded upon this principle, upon this right. our nation stands upon the same ground: there is a striking resemblance between your cause and that of my country. on the 4th july, 1776, john adams spoke thus in your congress, "sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, i am for this declaration. in the beginning we did not go so far as separation from the crown, but 'there is a divinity which shapes our ends.'" these noble words were present to my mind on the 14th april, 1849, when i moved the forfeiture of the crown by the hapsburgs in the national assembly of hungary. our condition was the same; and if there be any difference, i venture to say it is in favour of us. your country, before this declaration, was not a _self-consisting independent_ state. hungary was. through the lapse of a thousand years, through every vicissitude of this long period, while nations vanished and empires fell, _the self-consisting independence of hungary was never disputed_, but was recognized by all powers of the earth, sanctioned by treaties made with the hapsburg dynasty, at the era when this dynasty, by the freewill of my nation, which acted as one of two contracting parties, was invested with the kingly crown of hungary. even more, this independence of the kingdom was acknowledged to make a part of the international law of europe, and was guaranteed not only by foreign european governments, such as great britain, but also by several of those once constitutional states which belonged formerly to the german, and after its dissolution, to the austrian empire. this independent condition of hungary is clearly defined in one of our fundamental laws of 1791, in these words:--"hungary is a free and independent kingdom, having its own self-consistent existence and constitution, and not subject[*] to any other nation or country in the world." this therefore was our ancient right. _we were not dependent on, nor a part of, the austrian empire, as your country was dependent on england._ it was clearly defined that we owed to austria nothing but good neighbourhood, and the only tie between us and austria was, that we elected to be our kings the same dynasty which were also the sovereigns of austria, and occupied the same line of hereditary succession as our kings; but by accepting this; our forefathers, with the consent of the king, again declared, that though hungary accepts the dynasty as our hereditary kings, all the other franchises, rights, and laws of the nation shall remain in full power and intact; and our country shall not be governed like the other dominions of that dynasty, but according to our constitutionally established authorities. we could not belong to "the austrian empire," for that empire did not then as yet exist, while hungary had already existed as a substantive kingdom for many centuries, and for some two hundred and eighty years under the government of that hapsburgian dynasty. the austrian empire, as you know, was established only in 1806, when the rhenish confederacy of napoleon struck the deathblow of the german empire, of which francis ii. of austria, was not _hereditary_ but _elected_ emperor. that hungary had belonged to the _german_ empire is a thing which no man in the world ever imagined yet. it is only now that the hapsburgian tyrant professes an intention to melt hungary into the german confederation; but you know this intention to be in so striking opposition to the european public law, that england and france solemnly protested against it, so that it is not carried out even to-day. the german empire having died, its late emperor francis, also king of hungary, chose to entitle himself austrian emperor, in 1806; but even in that fundamental charter he solemnly declared that hungary and its annexed provinces _are not intended to make, and will not make, a part of the austrian empire_. subsequently he entered with this empire into the german confederation, but hungary, as well as lombardy and venice, not making part of the austrian empire, still remained separated, and were not received into the confederacy. [footnote *: in the original latin, _obnoxium_, "not entangled, or compromised, with any other."] the laws which we succeeded to carry in 1848, of course altered nothing in that old chartered condition of hungary. we transformed the peasantry into freeholders, and abolished feudal incumbrances. we replaced the political privileges of aristocracy by the common liberty of the whole people; gave to the people at large representation in the legislature; transformed our municipalities into democratic corporations; introduced equality before the law for the whole people in rights and duties, and abolished the immunity of taxation which had been enjoyed by the class called _noble_; secured equal religious liberty to all, secured liberty of the press and of association, provided for public gratuitous instruction of the whole people of every confession and of whatever tongue. in all this we did no wrong. all these were, as you see, internal reforms which did not at all interfere with our allegiance to the king and were carried lawfully in peaceful legislation _with the king's own sanction_. besides this there was one other thing which was carried. we were formerly governed by a board of council, which had the express duty to govern according to our laws, and be responsible for doing so; but we found by long experience that a corporation cannot really be responsible; and that this was the reason why the absolutist tendency of the dynasty succeeded in encroaching upon our liberty. so we replaced the board of council by ministers; the empty responsibility of a board by the individual responsibility of men--and _the king consented to it_. i myself was named by him minister of the treasury. that is all. but precisely here was the rub. the dynasty could not bear the idea that we would not give to its ambition the life sweat of our people; it was not contented with the 1,500,000 dollars which were generously appropriated to it yearly. it dreaded that it would be disabled in future from using our brave army, against our will, to crush the spirit of freedom in the world. therefore it resorted to the most outrageous conspiracy, and attacked us by arms, and upon receiving a false report of a great victory this young usurper issued a proclamation declaring that hungary shall no more exist--that its independence, its constitution, its very existence is abolished, and it shall be absorbed, like a farm or fold, into the austrian empire. to all this hungary answered, "thou shalt not exist, tyrant, but we will;" and we banished him, and issued the declaration of the deposition of his dynasty, and of our separate independence. so you see, gentlemen, that there is a very great difference between your declaration and ours--it is in our favour. there is another difference; you declared your independence of the english crown when it was yet very doubtful whether you would be successful. we declared our independence of the austrian crown only after we, in legitimate defence, were already victorious; when we had actually beaten the pretender, and had thus already proved that we had strength to become an independent power. one thing more: our declaration of independence was not only overwhelmingly voted in our congress, but every county, every municipality, solemnly declared its consent and adherence to it; so it became sanctioned, not by mere representatives, but by the whole nation positively, and by the fundamental institutions of hungary. and so it still remains. nothing has since happened on the part of the nation contrary to this declaration. one thing only happened,--a foreign power, russia, came with its armed bondsmen, and, aided by treason, has overthrown us for a while. now, i put the question before god and humanity to you, free sovereign people of america, can this violation of international law abolish the legitimate character of our declaration of independence? if not, then here i take my ground, because i am in this very manifesto entrusted with the charge of governor of my fatherland. i have sworn, before god and my nation, to endeavour to maintain and secure this act of independence. and so may god the almighty help me as i will--i will, until my nation is again in the condition to dispose of its government, which i confidently trust,--yea, more, i know,--will be republican. and then i retire to the humble condition of my former private life, equalling, in one thing at least, your washington, not in merits, but in honesty. that is the only ambition of my life. amen. here, then, is my third humble wish: that the people of the united states would, by all constitutional means of its wonted public life, declare that, acknowledging the legitimacy of our independence, it is anxious to greet hungary amongst the independent powers of the earth, and invites the government of the united states to recognize this independence _at the earliest convenient time_. that is all. let me see the principle announced: the rest may well be left to the wisdom of your government, with some confidence in my own respectful discretion also. so much for the people of the united states, in its public and political capacity. but if that sympathy which i have the honour to meet with is really intended to become beneficial, there is one humble wish more which i entertain: it is a respectful appeal to generous feeling. gentlemen, i would rather starve than rely, for myself and family, on foreign aid; but for my country's freedom, i would not be ashamed to go begging from door to door. i have taken the advice of some kind friends whether it be lawful to express such a humble request, for i feel it an honourable duty neither to offend nor to evade your laws. i am told it is lawful. there are two means to see this my humble wish accomplished. the first is, by spontaneous subscription; the second is, by a loan. the latter may require private consultation in a narrower circle. as to subscriptions, the idea was brought home to my mind by a plain but very generous letter, which i had the honour to receive, and which i beg to read. it is as follows:-cincinnati, o., nov. 14, 1851. m. louis kossuth, governor of hungary:--sir--i have authorized the office of the ohio life insurance and trust company, in new york, to honour your draft on me for one thousand dollars. respectfully yours, w. smead. i beg leave here publicly to return my most humble thanks to the gentleman, for his ample aid, and the delicate manner in which he offered it; and it came to my mind, that where one individual is ready to make such sacrifices to my country's cause, there may perhaps be many who would give their small share to it, if they were only apprised that it will be thankfully accepted, however small it may be. and it came to my mind, that millions of drops make an ocean, and the united states number many millions of inhabitants, all warmly attached to liberty. a million dollars, paid singly, would be to me far _more_ precious than paid in one single draft; for it would practically show the sympathy of the people at large. would i were so happy as your washington was, when he also, for your glorious country's sake, in the hours of your need, called to france for money. sir, i have done. i came to your shores an exile: you have poured upon me the triumph of a welcome such as the world has never yet seen. and why? because you took me for the representative of that principle of liberty which god has destined to become the common benefit of all humanity. it is glorious to see a free and mighty people so greet the principle of freedom, in the person of one who is persecuted and helpless. be blessed for it! your generous deed will be recorded; and as millions of europe's oppressed nations will, even now, raise their thanksgiving to god for this ray of hope, which by this act you have thrown on the dark night of their fate; even so, through all posterity, oppressed men will look to your memory as to a token of god that there is a hope for freedom on earth, since there is a people like you to feel its worth and to support its cause. * * * * * viii.--on nationalities. [_speech at the banquet of the press, new york_.] at this banquet, mr. bryant, the poet, presided, and numerous speeches were delivered, among which was one by the well-known author, mr. bancroft, lately ambassador in england. this gentleman closed by saying, that when the illustrious governor of hungary uttered the solemn truth, that europe had no hope but in republican institutions--that was a renunciation to the world that the austrian monarchy was sick and dying, and that vitality remained in the people alone. and as he uttered that truth, not his own race only--not the magyars only, but every nationality of hungary, all the fifteen or twenty millions within its limits--all cried out that he was the representative of their convictions--that he was the man of their affections, that he was the utterer of truths on which they relied. our guest crosses the atlantic, and he is received; and what is the great fact that constitutes his reception? he finds there the military arranged to do him honour. and among those who, on that day, bore arms, were men of every tongue that is spoken between the steppes of tartary, eastward, towards the pacific ocean. the great truth that was pronounced on that occasion--i do not fear to utter it--was, let who will cavil, _la solidarité des peuples_--the sublime truth that all men are brothers--that all nations, too, are brethren, and are responsible for one another. the chairman also spoke eloquently in introducing the third toast, which was briefly, louis kossuth. as mr. bryant pronounced his name, kossuth rose, and was received with multifarious demonstrations of enthusiasm. at last he proceeded as follows:-gentlemen.--i know that in your hands the independent republican press is a weapon to defend truth and justice, a torch lit at the fire of immortality, a spark of which glisters in every man's soul and proves its divine origin: and as the cause of my country is just and true, and wants nothing but light to secure support from every friend of freedom, every noble-minded man,--for this reason i address you with joy, gentlemen. though it is sorrowful to see how austrian intrigues, distorting plain open history into a tissue of falsehood, find their way even into the american press, i am proud and happy that the immense majority of you, conscious of your noble vocation and instinct with the generosity of freedom, protect our sacred rights against the dark plots of tyranny. your independent press has likewise proved that its freedom is the most efficient protection even against calumny; a far better one than restrictive prevention, which condemns the human intellect to eternal minority. i address you, gentlemen, with the greater joy, because through you i have the invaluable benefit of reaching the whole of your great, glorious, and free people. eighty years ago the immortal franklin's own press was almost the only one in the colonies: now you have above three thousand newspapers, with a circulation of five millions of copies. i am told that the journals of new york state alone exceed in number those of all the rest of the world outside of your great union, and that the circulation of the newspapers of this city alone nearly reaches that of the whole empire of great britain! but, what is more,--i boldly declare that, except in the united states, there is scarcely anywhere a practical freedom of the press. indeed, concerning norway i am not quite aware. but throughout the european continent you know how the press is fettered. in france, under nominally republican government, all the fruits of victorious revolutions are nipt by the blasting grip of _centralized_ power,--legislative and administrative omnipotence. the independence of the french press is crushed; the government cannot bear the free word of public opinion; and in a republic, the shout "vive la république" is become almost a crime. this is a mournful sight, but is an efficient warning against centralization. it is chiefly great britain which boasts of a free press; and assuredly in one sense the freedom is almost unlimited: for i saw placards with the printer's name stating that queen victoria is no lawful queen, and all those who rule ought to be hanged; but men only laughed at the foolish extravagance. nevertheless, i hope the generous people of great britain will not be offended when i say that their press is not practically free. its freedom is not real, for it is not a _common benefit_ to all: it is but a particular benefit, that is, a _privilege_. taxation there forbids the use of newspapers to the poor. absence of taxation enables your journals to be published at one tenth, or even one twentieth, of the english price: hence several of your daily papers reach from thirty to sixty thousand readers, while in england one paper alone is on this scale,--the london 'times,' which circulates thirty thousand, perhaps. such being the condition of your press, in addressing you i address a whole people; nor only so, but a whole intelligent people. the wide diffusion of intelligence among you is in fact proved by the immense circulation of your journals. it is not solely the cheap price which renders your press a common benefit, and not a mere privilege to the richer; but it is the universality of public instruction. it is glorious to know that in this flourishing young city alone nearly a hundred thousand children receive public education annually. do you know, gentlemen, what i consider to be your most glorious monument? if it be, as i have read, that, when your engineers draw geometrical lines to guide your wandering squatters in the solitudes where virgin nature adores her lord, they place on every thirty-sixth square of the district marked out to be a township, a modest wooden pole with the glorious mark, popular education. this is your proudest monument. in my opinion, not your geographical situation, not your material power, not the bold enterprizing spirit of your people, is the chief guarantee of their future; but the universality of education: for a whole people, once become intelligent, never can consent not to be free. you will always be willing to be free, and you are great and powerful enough to be as good as your will. my humble prayers in my country's cause i address to your entire nation: but you, gentlemen, are the engineers through whom my cause must reach them. it is therefore highly gratifying to me to see, not isolated men, but the powerful complex of the great word press, granting me this important manifestation of generous sentiment. i beg you to consider, that whatever and wherever i speak, is _always_ spoken to the press; and for all the imperfections of my language let me plead for your indulgence, as one of your professional colleagues: for indeed such i have been. yes, gentlemen; i commenced my public career as a journalist. you, under your happy institutions, know not the torment of writing with hands fettered by an austrian censor. to sit at the desk, with a heart full of the necessity of the moment, a conscience stirred with righteous feeling, a mind animated with convictions and principles, and a whole soul warmed by a patriot's fire;--to see before your eyes the scissors of the censor ready to lop your ideas, maim your arguments, murder your thoughts, render vain your laborious days and sleepless nights;--to know that the people will judge you, not by what you have felt, thought, written, but by what the censor will let you say;--to perceive that the prohibition has no rule or limit but the arbitrary pleasure of a man who is doomed by profession to be a coward and a fool;--oh! his little scissors suspended over one are a worse misery than the sword of damocles. oh! to go on, day by day, in such a work of sisyphus, believe me, is no small sacrifice of any intelligent man to fatherland and humanity. and this is the present condition of the press, not in hungary only, but in all countries cursed by austrian rule. indeed, our recent reforms gave freedom of the press, not to my fatherland only, but indirectly to vienna, prague, lemberg; in a word, to the whole empire of austria and this must ensure your sympathy to us. contrariwise, the interference of russia has crushed the press on the whole european continent. freedom of the press is incompatible with the preponderance of russia, and with the very existence of the austrian dynasty, the sworn enemy of every liberal thought. this must engage your generous support to sweep away those tyrants, and to raise liberty where now foul oppression rules. some time back there appeared in certain new york papers systematic falsehoods, which went so far as to state that we, the hungarians, had struggled for oppression, while it was the austrian dynasty which stood up for liberty! such effrontery astonishes even one who has seen russian treacheries. we may be misrepresented, scorned, jeered at, censured. our martyrs, whose blood cries for revenge, may be laughed at as fools. heroes, who will command the veneration of history, may be called don quixotes. but that among freemen and professed republicans even the honour of an unfortunate nation, in its most mournful suffering, should not be sacred,--that is indeed a sorrowful page in human history. you cannot expect me to enter into a special refutation of this compound of calumnies. i may reserve it for my pen. but inasmuch as the basis of all the calumnies lies in general ignorance concerning the relation of the magyars to other races of hungary, permit me to speak on the question of nationalities, a false theory of which plays so mischievous a part in the destinies of europe. no word has been more misrepresented than the word nationality, which is become in the hands of absolutism a dangerous instrument against liberty. let me ask you, gentlemen: are you, the people of the united states, a _nation_, or not? have you a _national_ government, or not? you answer, yes: and yet you are not all of one blood, nor of one language. millions of you speak english; others french, german, italian, spanish, danish, and even several indian dialects: yet you are a nation. neither your central government, nor those of separate states, nor your municipalities, legislate or administer in every language spoken among you; yet you have a national government. now, suppose many of you were struck with the curse of babel, and exclaimed, "this union is an oppression! our laws, our institutions, our state and city governments, are an oppression! what is union to us? what are rights? what avail laws? what is freedom? what is geography? what is community of interests to us? they are all nothing; language is everything. let us divide the union, divide the states, divide the very cities, divide the whole territory, according to languages. let the people of every language become a separate state: for every nation has a right to national life, and to us, the language, and nothing else, is the nationality. unless the state is founded upon language, its organization is tyranny." what then would become of your great union? what of your constitution, the glorious legacy of your greatest man? what of those immortal stars on mankind's moral sky? what would become of your country itself, whence the spirit of freedom soars into light, and rising hope irradiates the future of humanity? what would become of this grand, mighty complex of your republic, should her integrity ever be rent by the fanatics of language? where now she walks among the rising temples of liberty and happiness, she soon would tread upon ruins, and mourn over human hopes. but happy art then, free nation of america, founded on the only solid basis,--liberty! a principle steady as the world, eternal as the truth, universal for every climate, for every time, like providence. tyrants are not in the midst of you to throw the apple of discord and raise hatred in this national family, hatred of _races_, that curse of humanity, that venomous ally of despotism. glorious it is to see the oppressed of diverse countries,--diverse in language, history, habits,--wandering to these shores, and becoming members of this great nation, regenerated by the principle of common liberty. if language alone makes a nation, then there is no great nation on earth: for there is no country whose population is counted by millions, but speaks more than one language. no! it is not language only. community of interests, of rights, of duties, of history, but chiefly community of institutions; by which a population, varying perhaps in tongue and race, is bound together through daily intercourse in the towns, which are the centres and home of commerce and industry:--besides these, the very mountain-ranges, the system of rivers and streams,--the soil, the dust of which is mingled with the mortal remains of those ancestors who bled on the same field, for the same interests, the common inheritance of glory and of woe, the community of laws and institutions, common freedom or common oppression:--all this enters into the complex idea of nationality. that this is instinctively felt by the common sense of the people, nowhere is more manifestly shown than at this very moment in my native land. hungary was declared by francis joseph of austria _no more to exist_ as a nation, no more as a state. it was and is put under martial law. strangers, aliens to our laws and history as well as to our tongue, rule now, where our fathers lived and our brothers bled. to be a hungarian is become almost a crime in our own native land. well: to justify before the world the extinction of hungary, the partition of its territory, and the reincorporating of the dissected limbs into the common body of servitude, the treacherous dynasty was anxious to show that the hungarians are in a minority in their own land. they hoped that intimidation and terrorism would induce even the very magyars to disavow their language and birth. they ordered a census of races to be made. they performed it with the iron rule of martial law; and dealt so arbitrarily that thousands of women and men, who professed to be magyars, who professed not to know any other language than the magyar, were, notwithstanding all their protestation, put down as sclaves, serbs, germans, or wallachians, because their names had not quite a hungarian sound. and still what was the issue of this malignant plot? that of the twelve millions of inhabitants of hungary proper, the magyars turned out to be more than eight millions, some two millions more than we know the case really is. the people instinctively felt that the tyrant had the design through the pretext of language to destroy the existence of the complex nation, and it met the tyrannic plot as if it answered, "we are, and must be, a nation; and if the tyrant takes language only for the mark of nationality, then we are all magyars." and mark well, gentlemen! this happened, not under my governorship, but under the rule of austrian martial law. the cabinet of vienna became furious; it thought of a new census, but prudent men told them that a new census would give the whole twelve millions as magyars; thus no new census was taken. but on the european continent there unhappily has grown up a school, which bound the idea of nationality to the idea of language only, and joined political pretensions to it. there are some who advocate the theory that existing states must cease, and the territories of the world be divided anew by languages and nations, separated by tongues. you are aware that this idea, if it were not impracticable, would be a curse to humanity--a deathblow to civilization and progress, and throw back mankind by centuries. it would be an eternal source of strife and war: for there is a holy, almost religious tie, by which man's heart is bound to his home, and no man would ever consent to abandon his native land only because his neighbours speak another language than himself. his heart claims that sacred spot where the ashes of his fathers lie--where his own cradle stood--where he dreamed the happy dreams of youth, and where nature itself bears a mark of his manhood's toil. the idea were worse than the old migration of nations was. nothing but despotism would rise out of such a fanatical strife of all mankind. and really it is very curious. nobody of the advocates of this mischievous theory is willing to yield to it for himself--but others he desires to yield to it. every frenchman becomes furious when his alsace is claimed to germany by the right of language--or the borders of his pyrenees to spain--but there are some amongst the very men who feel revolted at this idea, who claim of germany that it should yield up large territory because one part of the inhabitants speak a different tongue, and would claim from hungary to divide its territory, which god himself has limited by its range of mountains and the system of streams, as also by all the links of a community of more than a thousand years; to cut off our right hand, transylvania, and to give it up to the neighbouring wallachia, to cut out like shylock one pound of our very breast--the banat--and the rich country between the danube and theiss--to augment by it turkish serbia and so forth. it is the new ambition of conquest, but an easy conquest not by arms, but by language. so much i know, at least, that this absurd idea cannot, and will not, be advocated by any man here in the united states; which did not open its hospitable shores to humanity, and greet the flocking millions of emigrants with the right of a citizen, in order that the union may be cut to pieces, and even your single states divided into new-framed, independent countries according to languages. and do you know, gentlemen, whence this absurd theory sprang up on the european continent? it was the idea of panslavismus--that is the idea that the mighty stock of sclavonic races is called to rule the world, as once the roman did. it was a russian plot--it was a dark design to make out of national feelings a tool to russian preponderance over the world. perhaps you are not aware of the historical origin of this plot. it was after that most immortal act of tyranny, the third division of poland, that the chance of fate brought the prince czartorinsky, to the court of catherine of russia. he subsequently became minister of alexander the czar. it was in this quality that, with the noble aim to benefit his fallen fatherland, he claimed from the young czar the restoration of poland, suggesting for equivalent the idea of russian preponderance over all nations of the old sclavonic race. i believe his intention was sincere; i believe he did not mean to overlook those natural borders, which, besides the affinity of language, god himself has drawn between the nations. but he forgot that he might be no longer able to master the spirits which he would raise, and that an undesired fanaticism might force sundry fantastical shapes into his framework, by which the frame itself must burst in pieces. he forgot that russian preponderance cannot be propitious to liberty; he forgot that it cannot be favourable even to the development of the sclave nationality, because sclavonic nations would by this idea be degraded into mere russians, that is, absorbed by despotism. russia got hold of the fanciful idea very readily! may be that young alexander had in the first moment noble inclinations; the warm heart of youth is susceptible to noble instincts. it is not common in history to find young princes so premature in tyranny as francis-joseph of austria. but a few years of power were sufficient to extinguish every spark of noble sentiment, if there was one, in alexander's heart. upon the throne of the romanoffs the man is soon absorbed by the autocrat. the traditional policy of st. petersburg is not an atmosphere in which the plant of regeneration can grow, and the fanciful idea became soon a weapon of oppression and of russian preponderance--russia availed herself of the idea of panslavism to break turkey down, and to make an obedient satellite out of austria. turkey still withstands her, but austria has fallen into the snare. russia sent out its agents, its moneys, its venomous secret diplomacy; it whispered to the sclave nations about hatred against foreign dominion--about independence of religion connected with nationality under its own supremacy; but chiefly it spoke to them of panslavism under the protectorate of the czar. the millions of his large empire also, all oppressed--all in servitude--all a tool to his ambition; them too he flattered with the idea of becoming rulers of the world, in order that they might not think of liberty: he knew that man's breast cannot maintain in ascendancy two great passions at once. he gave them ambition and excluded the spirit of liberty. this ambition got hold of all the sclave nations through europe; so panslavism became the source of a movement, not of nationality, but of the dominion of languages. that word "language" replaced every other sentiment, and so it became a curse to the development of liberty. only one part of the sclavonic races saw the matter clear, and withstood the current of this dark russian plot. these were the polish democrats--the only ones who understood that to fight for liberty is to fight for nationality. therefore they fought in our ranks, and were willing to flock in thousands upon thousands to aid us in our struggle; but we could not arm them, so i would not accept them. we ourselves had a hundredfold more hands ready to fight than arms--and there was nobody in the world to supply us with arms. now let me see what was the condition of hungary under these circumstances. eight hundred and fifty years ago, when the first king of hungary, st. stephen, becoming christian himself, converted the hungarian nation to christianity, it was the roman catholic clergy of germany whom he invited to assist him in his pious work. they did assist him, but the assistance, as happens with human nature, was accompanied by some worldly designs. hungary offered a wide field to the ambition of foreigners, and they persuaded the king to adopt a curious principle, which he laid down in his last will and testament--that it is not good for the people of a country to be but of one extraction and speak but one tongue. a second rule was, to adopt the language of the church--latin--for the language of government, legislature, law and all public proceedings. this is the origin of that fatality, that democracy did not grow up for centuries in hungary. the public proceedings being in latin, the laws given in latin, public instruction carried on in latin, the great mass of the people, who were agriculturists, did not partake in any of this; and the few who in the ranks of the people partook in it, became severed and alienated from the people's interests. this dead latin language, introduced into the public life of a living nation, was the most mischievous barrier against liberty. the first blow to it was stricken by the reformation. the protestant church, introducing the national language into the divine services, became a medium to the development of the spirit of liberty, and so our ancient struggles for religious liberty were always connected with the maintenance of political rights. but still, latin public life went on down to 1780. at that time, joseph of hapsburg, aiming at centralization, replaced the latin by the german tongue. this roused the national spirit of hungary; and our forefathers seeing that the dead latin language, excluding the people from the public concerns, cannot be propitious to liberty, and anxious to oppose the design of the viennese cabinet to germanize hungary, and _so melt it into the common absolutism of the austrian dynasty_--i say, anxious to oppose this design by a cheerful public life of the people itself, from the year 1790 began to pass laws in the direction that by-and-by, step by step, the latin language should be replaced in the public proceedings of the legislature and of the government by a living language familiar to the people itself. and what was more natural, than that, being in the necessity to choose one language, they choose the magyar? the more so, since those who spoke hungarian were not only more than those who spoke any one of the other languages, but were if not more than, at least equal to, all those who spoke several other languages together. be so kind to mark well, gentlemen; no other language was oppressed--the hungarian language was enforced upon nobody. wherever another language was in use even in public life; of whatever church--whatever popular school--whatever community--it was not replaced by the hungarian language. it was only the dead latin, which by-and-by became eliminated from the diplomatic public life, and replaced by the living hungarian in hungary. in hungary, i say. gentlemen, be pleased to mark: never was this measure extended into the municipal life of croatia and sclavonia, which, though belonging for 800 years to hungary, still were not hungary, but a race with distinct local institutions. the croatians and sclavonians themselves repeatedly urged us in the common parliament to afford them opportunity to learn the hungarian language, that, having the right, they might also enjoy the benefit, of being employed in the government offices of our common hungary. this opportunity was afforded to them, but nobody was forced to make use of it; while neither with their own municipal and public life, nor with the domestic, social, religious life, of any other people in hungary itself, did the hungarian language ever interfere. it replaced only the latin language, which no people spoke, and which was contrary to liberty, because it excluded the millions from public life. willing to give freedom to the people, we expelled that latin tongue; which was an obstacle to its future. we did what every other nation in the old world has done, clearing by it the way to the universal liberty. your country is happy even in that respect. being a young nation, you did not find the latin tongue in your way when you established this republic; so you did not want a law to eject it from your public life. you have a living language, which is spoken in your congress, in your state legislatures, and by which your government rules. it is not the native language of your whole people--and yet no man in the union takes it for an oppression that legislature and government is not carried on in every language spoken in the united states. and one thing i have to mention yet. this replacing of the latin language by the hungarian was not a work of our recent measures, it was done before, step by step, from 1791. when we carried in 1848 our democratic reforms, and gave political, social, civil, and full religious freedom to the whole people, we extended our cares to the equal protection of every tongue and race, affording to all equal right to aid out of the public funds, for the moral, religious, and scientific development in churches and in schools. nay, we extended this even to political affairs, sanctioning the free use of every tongue, in the municipalities and communal corporations, as well as in the administration of justice. the promulgation of the laws in every tongue, the right to petition and to claim justice in each man's tongue, the duty of the government to answer in the same, all this was granted, and thus far more was done in that respect also, than any other nation ever accorded to the claims of tongues; by far more than the united states ever did, though there is no country in the world where so many different languages are spoken as here. it is therefore the most calumnious misrepresentation to say that the hungarians struggled for the dominion of their own _race_. no; we struggled for civil, political, social, and religious freedom, common to all, against austrian despotism. we struggled for the great principle of _self-government against centralization_; because centralization is absolutism; and is inconsistent with constitutional rights. austria has given the very proof of it. the house of austria had never the intention to grant constitutional life to the nations of europe. i will prove that on another occasion. but the friends of the hapsburgs say, it has granted a constitution--in march, 1849. well, where is that constitution now? it was not only never executed, but it was, three months ago, formally withdrawn. even the word ministry is blotted out from the dictionary of the austrian government! schwarzenberg is again house, court, and state chancellor, as metternich was; only metternich ruled not with the iron rule of martial law over the whole empire of austria as schwarzenberg does. metternich _encroached upon_ the constitutional rights of hungary, transylvania, croatia, and slavonia. schwarzenberg has _abolished_ them, and young francis-joseph has melted all the nations together into common bondage, where the promised _equality of nationalities_ is carried out most literally, to be sure, for they are all equally oppressed, and all are equally ruled by absolutist principles and by the german language. and why was that illusory constitution withdrawn? because it was a lie from the beginning; an impossibility. it was founded on the principle of centralization. it centralized thirteen different nations, which had had no political history in common, except to have groaned under austrian rule. under such circumstances to have a common life was an absurdity augmented by deceit. i cannot exhaust this vast topic in one speech. we want republican institutions, so founded on self-government everywhere, that the people themselves may be sovereign everywhere. this is the cause, for which i humbly request your protecting aid. it is the cause of oppressed europe. it is the cause of germany, bleeding under some thirty petty tyrants who lean on that league of despots, the basis of which is petersburg. it is the cause of fair, but unfortunate italy, which in so many respects is now dear to our heart. we have a common enemy; so we are brothers in arms for freedom and independence. i know how italy is situated; and i dare confidently to declare, there is no hope for italy, but in that great republican party, at the head of which mazzini stands. it has nothing to do with communistical schemes, or the french doctrines of socialism: but it wills, that italy be free and republican. whither else could italy look for freedom and independence, if not to that party which mazzini leads? to the king of naples perhaps? let me be silent about that execrated man. or to the dynasty of sardinia and piedmont? this professes to be constitutional; yet it captures those poor hungarian soldiers who seek an asylum in piedmont,--captures, and delivers them to austria to be shot: and they _are_ shot, increasing the number of those 3742 martyrs whom radetzky murdered on the scaffold during three short years. the house of savoy is become the blood-hound of austria against fugitive hungarians. gentlemen, the generous sympathy of public opinion here (god be blessed!) is strongly aroused to the wrongs and sufferings of hungary. i look to _your_ aid to keep that sympathy alive,--to urge the formation of societies to collect funds and support a loan,--to move in favour of the propositions which i had the honour to express at the corporation banquet. consider not the weakness of my address, but only the strength of my cause; and following the generous impulse of your republican hearts, accord to it the protective aid of the free independent press. then i may yet see fulfilled the noble words of your chairman's poetry:- truth crush'd to earth shall rise again; the eternal years of god are hers; but error, wounded, writhes in pain, and dies _among_.... (let me add, sir,).. _with all_ her worshippers. in the course of the same evening, one of the toasts drunk was, "to the political exiles of europe," to which michael doheny, esq., an irish exile, first responded, in a speech full of animosity against england. after him mr. dana made the following speech, which may be a useful comment on that of kossuth. my friend, who has taken his seat, spoke in his own right as a political exile from ireland, a country than which none has more deeply suffered from the woes of foreign domination. i speak here by no such title. and yet if any man may without presumption claim to speak in behalf of the political exiles and rebels against tyranny, of several nations, of all nations, indeed it is an american. for he is not only himself the heir of a nation of rebels, but his whole lineage is cosmopolitan, and he may boast that he is akin to all the races of europe. we have no exclusive origin, thank god! in the veins of our country there flows the blood of a thousand tribes, just as our language is made up of a thousand idioms. we hear a good deal from certain quarters about the greatness of races, the practical energy of this race, the artistic genius of the other, and the great intellectual qualities of another. america disproves of all these dogmas, and establishes in their stead the higher principle that all races are capable of a noble development under noble institutions. give freedom to the celt, the slavon, or the italian, or whatever other people; give them freedom and independence; establish among them the great principle of _local self-government_, and the earth does not more surely revolve in its orbit than they will in due time ripen into all the excellence and all the dignity of humanity. men make and control institutions, but institutions in their turn make men. and if a people under providence are endowed with institutions that have given free play and healthy growth to the most useful and admirable powers of man, it is not for that people to boast of its race as better than other races, and thank god, like the pharisee, that it is not as other men. no, it is for that people to see the cause of its good fortune in its institutions, and to remember that it has responsibilities, and that it owes a helping hand to others that honestly struggle for such benefits. especially is this the case with the american people, made up as they are from all races, and absorbing yearly as they do so much of the best blood of all. america has thriven and grown strong upon the misfortunes of europe. our toast specially refers to the political exiles of europe, but the truth is, that all the exiles of that continent are political. every shipload of emigrants that seeks our shores has been banished by political causes; for had the institutions of their country been such as to secure to them freedom and the prosperity of freedom, do you think they would have forsaken their homes and the homes of their fathers to seek new homes beyond the ocean? we owe then to europe a debt for all this population and power that it has flung upon our shores, and how else can we pay it except by doing what we can to help the european nations to gain their freedom and form institutions under which there will be no political exiles? for one i go for paying that debt, according to our means and opportunities. i saw the other day in the streets a large body of europeans of various nations, marching along with a red flag. in paris, or rome, or vienna, such a procession would have been impossible, or if it could have got into the streets, it would have been assailed by the soldiery, and its members either shot down or flung into prison. yet in new york they went peacefully on their way, made their demonstration in all freedom, and no trouble or harm came of it. very many of those men were political exiles. and why? not because they were bad men, for here in new york nothing could be more quiet and appropriate than their behaviour. but they prove, that from whatever country there are political exiles, there the institutions are bad. i know we are in the habit of hearing about red republicans and socialists as men who are dangerous on account of their opinions, and who have deserved to be banished from france, from germany, from italy. i will not now say anything about those opinions, but this i do say, that a country where all opinions and every opinion cannot be held and freely discussed, has a bad system of government and bad institutions. it is not the men nor their opinions that stand condemned, but the government and institutions. therefore it is that we must sympathize with such exiles, without regard to their opinions, and pray earnestly and labour earnestly for the elevation of all countries to freedom. * * * * * ix.--on military institutions. [_speech to the new york militia, december 16th._] the first division, consisting of four brigades, was presented to kossuth in the castle garden. major-general sandford then proceeded to address kossuth as follows:-governor kossuth:--it is with no ordinary feeling of gratification that i have this opportunity of addressing you, in the name and on behalf of the citizen soldiers of the city of new york. with an unbounded admiration of your devotion to the great cause of constitutional liberty, and of that indomitable firmness with which you have persevered under all circumstances in sustaining it, they were most happy to testify, upon your arrival in our city, their sense of your services in that cause which they are organized to sustain, and now they are again assembled to greet you with a heart-felt welcome, and to listen to the voice of one whom they have learned to respect, to love, and to venerate. the body of men now presented to you, about five thousand in number, represents the first division of new york state militia. the division enrols about fifty thousand men in this city and upon staten island, and the law of our state only imposes upon the general body the duty of appearing armed and equipped once in each year, at an annual parade appointed for that purpose. but out of this large number the law provides for the organization of those who are willing and desirous to acquire that degree of military science, to fit them, upon any sudden emergency of domestic insurrection or of foreign aggression, to sustain the laws and support the institutions of our country. they uniform and equip themselves at their own expense, and they serve without pay, satisfied with the consciousness that they are discharging a duty to their country, and qualifying themselves to sustain the honour of our flag and the freedom won by our fathers. they represent fairly all classes of our citizens. our hard-working and ingenious mechanic--our enterprising and energetic merchant--our intelligent professional men--our grocers, butchers, bakers, and cartmen, are all to be found in our ranks, exhibiting in public spirit, energy, and intelligence, a body of men not to be surpassed, even in this country of active enterprise and widely diffused intelligence. it is amongst such men, devoted to such a service, that, you may feel well assured, the intelligence of the noble struggle of the hungarian people for their rights and liberties was received with the deepest feeling, and the progress of your contest watched with the most earnest solicitude. they exulted in your victories as the triumph of freedom over oppression and despotism--they saw in your almost superhuman energies and dauntless courage the hearts of a people determined to be free. they rejoiced that a great nation, with kindred principles and institutions, was established as an independent republic amidst the despotisms of europe. but, alas! all their hopes and anticipations were blasted. such an example amidst the down-trodden subjects of the arbitrary governments of europe, was viewed with alarm by their despotic rulers, and the enslaved hordes of the imperial russian were hurled upon the free sons of hungary. even with such mighty odds, we should not have despaired for hungary, had she been afforded but one year of peaceful preparation to complete her organization and develop her resources. her gallant sons upon her own soil, and battling for their homes, their altars, and their independence, would have been unconquerable. but treason and despotism combined, triumphed over freedom. then commenced a scene of horrors and cruelty, such as despots only and the minions of despots can perpetrate. hungarian liberty may be cast down, but cannot be destroyed. the sacred flame burns unquenched in the hearts of the people, and will again burst forth, a glorious light to enlighten the nation--but a consuming fire to their oppressors. but when? and how shall this be accomplished? sir, we believe and feel with you that this will be accomplished whenever the free people of america, uniting with those kindred nations of europe which sustain and shall secure free institutions, will support and insist upon that great moral principle of international law which you have recently so eloquently and ably expounded--that one nation should not interfere with the domestic concerns of another. establish this great and just principle, and hungary would again assume her station among the nations of the earth--free and independent. establish this great principle, and germany and italy would also soon be free. sir, we believe in this great principle; we believe it to be a principle of justice and humanity; we believe it to be the inalienable right of every people to establish such forms of government as are best adapted to their condition, and as they may deem best calculated to ensure their own rights, liberties, and pursuit of happiness. and we believe that this great principle of international law should be the basis of the intercourse of nations, and that we have no more right to make free with the forms of government of other nations, than with their forms of religion. but this principle being conceded and established, how is it to be enforced? how are the despotic dynasties of europe to be prevented from lending their combined energies to crush every germ of freedom amongst those who, if left to themselves, would, like hungary, be free and independent. solely by the method which you have so ably developed. solely by inducing those nations which are strong enough to maintain the principles of international law--to unite in their support, and by such union, effectually to guarantee the peace of the world. to effect this most desirable object, you have adopted the true method. you would operate upon the public opinion, and public opinion operating upon free government, creates and establishes public and international law. but when we see this great principle of non-intervention violated--when we see a free and united people crushed and trampled upon by foreign despots, because they have dared to proclaim and establish equal rights and privileges as the basis of their own institutions, must we look tamely on and see the life-blood of freedom crushed out by the iron heel of barbaric despotism, and hear the death-groans of the brave and free without daring to express our feelings or to extend the hand of sympathy and comfort to the suffering sons of liberty? no! in the name of outraged justice and humanity, no! we will openly, warmly, and freely express our sympathy in the cause of freedom, and our approbation of the devotion, the endurance, and the gallantry of her sons. we will, by all constitutional modes, endeavour to sustain those principles, which will terminate this outrage upon the sacred laws of justice and humanity. we will further aid this cause by contributing our share to the contributions offered by our people to enable you to advance the establishment of those principles so important to the emancipation of your beloved hungary, and so essential to the preservation of civil and religious liberty. and now upon this interesting occasion, i hail the presence of this noble company of faithful and devoted sons of hungary, your companions in exile and in prison, and present them to this division; men, who, like our fathers, pledged their sacred honours "to sustain the independence of their country." [here there was an outburst of cheering, and colonel berczenszy and the other hungarians, companions in arms of kossuth, all rose, and were again greeted with another burst of enthusiastic cheering.] we receive them as friends and brothers, and as martyrs in the same holy cause of constitutional liberty in which our fathers fought and bled, and suffered, and triumphed; and in which, we trust and believe, you will also live to triumph and rejoice, in the bosom of your own, your native land. loud applause followed the conclusion of this address. kossuth then rose and said-general and gentlemen,--i accept with the highest gratitude, the honour to meet the first division of the new york state militia, who having, in their capacity of citizen soldiers, honoured me on my arrival by their participation in the generous welcome which i met with, have also, by the military honour bestowed on me, so much contributed to impart to this great demonstration that public character which cannot fail to prove highly beneficial to the cause which i hold up before the free people of this mighty republic, and which i dare confidently to state is the great question of freedom and independence to the european continent. i entreat you, gentlemen, not to expect any elaborate speech from me, because really i am unprepared to make one. you are citizen soldiers, a glorious title, to which i have the ambition of aspiring; so, i hope you will kindly excuse me, if i endeavour to speak to you _as_ soldiers. do you know, gentlemen, what is the finest speech i ever heard or read? it is the address of garibaldi to his roman soldiers in the last war, when he told them:--"soldiers, what i have to offer you is fatigue, danger, struggling, and death--the chill of the cold night, the open air, and the burning sun--no lodgings, no munitions, no provisions--but forced marches, dangerous watchposts, and continual struggling with bayonets against batteries. let those who love freedom and their country, follow me." that is the most glorious speech i ever heard in my life. but, of course, that is no speech for to-day. i will speak so, when i again meet the soldiers of hungary, to fight once more the battle of freedom and independence. [after various compliments to general sandford on the appearance of his soldiers, and the good order of the republic, kossuth continued as follows:] i thank you for the explanation of the organization and discipline of this gallant division. europe has many things to learn from america. it has to learn the value of free institutions--the expansive power of freedom--the practical value of local self-government, as opposed to centralization. but one of the most important lessons you give to europe, is in the organization of the militia of the united states. you have the best organized army in the world, and yet you have scarcely a standing army at all. that is a necessary thing for europe to learn from america---that great standing armies must cease. but they can cease, only _then_, when the nations are free; for great standing armies are not national institutions, they are the instruments of dynastic violence or foreign despotism. the existence of tyranny imposes on europe great standing armies. when the nations once become free, they will not want them, because they will not war with each other. freedom will become a friendly link among nations. but as far as they may want them, your example shows that a popular militia, like yours, is the mightiest national defence. thirty-seven years ago a great battle was fought at new orleans, which showed what a defence your country has in its militia. nay more, your history proves that this institution affords the most powerful means of offensive war, should war become indispensable. i am aware, gentlemen, that your war with mexico was chiefly carried on by volunteers. i know what a distinguished part the volunteers of new york took in that war. and who were these volunteers? who were those from new york city, and of other regiments? they were of your militia, the source of that military spirit which is the glory of your country, and its safety when needed in time of war or social disorder. i learned all this from the united states, and it was my firm intention to carry out this militia organization in hungary. my idea was and still is to do so, and i will endeavour, with the help of god, to carry it out. my idea is, there are duties towards one native land common to every citizen, and public instruction and education must have such a direction as to enable every citizen to perform them. one of these duties is to defend it in time of danger, to take up arms for its freedom and independence and security. my idea is to lay such a foundation for public instruction, in the schools, that every boy in hungary shall be educated in military skill, so much as is necessary for the defence of his native land, and those who feel inclined to adopt the profession of arms, might complete their education in higher public schools and universities, as is the case in the professions of the bar, and physic, and the pulpit. but i would have no distinction among the citizens. to defend our country is a common duty, and every one must know how to perform it. taking the basis of your organization as an example for hungary, hungary would have at least one million of men ready to defend it against the oppression of any power whatever. that the militia of hungary, thus developed, would be the most solid guardian of my country's freedom and independence, we have shown in our past struggles. the glorious deeds which the unnamed heroes of the people achieved, proves what with previous preparation they could do in defence of their native land. often they have gone into battle without knowing how to fire or cock a musket; but they took batteries by their bayonets, and they achieved glorious deeds like those that are classed among the deeds of immortality. we have not either wish or inclination for conquest. we are content with our native land if it be independent and free. for the maintenance of that independence and freedom, we established by law the institution of the national guard. it is like your militia. i consider the organization to be like a porcupine, which moves on its own road quietly, but when attacked or when danger approaches, stretches forth its thorns. may god almighty grant that i may soon see developed in my native land, the great institution of a national guard! the power of hungary, thus established, is a basis indispensable to the freedom of europe. i will prove this in a few words. the enemy of european freedom is russia. now, can hungary be a barrier to secure europe against this power of russia? i answer: yes. you are a nation of twenty-four millions, and you have an organized militia of some three millions; hungary is a nation of fifteen millions, and at least can have one million of brave citizen soldiers. i hope this may be regarded, then, as a positive proof of what i say about the ability of hungary to resist the power of despotism, and defend europe against russian encroachments. another thing is, the weakness of russia herself; for she is not so strong as people generally believe. it has taken her whole power to put down hungary, and all she can raise consists of 750,000 men. then you must consider that the russian territory is of immense extent, and that its population is oppressed; tranquillity and the order of the grave,--not the order of contentment,--is kept in russia itself, only by the armed soldiery of the czar. now, it is not much when i say that 250,000 men are indispensable to keep tranquillity in the interior of that empire; 100,000 men are necessary to guard its frontiers extending from siberia to turkey; 100,000 to keep down the heroic spirit of oppressed poland, take all this together, and you will see that russia scarcely can, at the utmost, employ 300,000 men in a foreign war, and, really, it had not more engaged, as history will prove, in the greatest struggle it made for existence--it could not bring more into the field. the million of citizen soldiers would not require to be so brave as they are, to be a match for those 300,000 men; and, therefore, the first result of restored independence in hungary would be--should the czar once more have the arrogant intention to put his foot upon mankind's neck, as he blasphemously boasted he had the authority of god to do--the repression of his power by hungary. not only would it be repressed, but hungary could assault him in a quarter where she would find powerful allies. his financial embarrassments are very great, for you know that even in the brief war in hungary he was necessitated to raise a loan in england. we should have for our allies the oppressed people, and our steps would be marked by the liberation of all who are now enslaved. first among our allies would be the polish nation, which is not restricted to the poland of the maps, but extends through the wide provinces of gallicia, lithuania, &c. these are proofs that the might of russia is not so immense that it should intimidate a nation fighting in a just cause. with hungary once free, russia would never dare to threaten european liberty again. but if russia is so weak as i have shown her to be, why, you may say, do i ask your support and aid against her interference? because russia is only thirty hours' distance from hungary, and one of her large armies stands prepared to move at any time against the liberties of our people, before we could have time to develop our resources. this is the motive why i ask, in the name of my country, the great and beneficial support of the united states to check and prevent russian interference in hungary, so that we may have _time_ to erect it into an insurmountable barrier and impregnable fortress against the despotism of the czar. this, i say, is the reason why i claim aid from the united states, and ask it to assume its rightful executive in the police of nations. that is the only glory which is wanting to the lustre of your glorious stars. the militia of the united states having been the assertors of the independence and liberties of this country and the guardians of its security, have now scarcely any other calling; and i confidently hope, that being your condition, you will not deny your generous support to the great principle of non-interference, in the next struggle which hungary will make for freedom and independence, which even now is felt in the air, and is pointed out by the finger of god himself. my _second_ earnest wish and hope is, that the people will see that their commerce with other people, whether in revolution or not, shall be secured. it is not so much my interest as it is your right; and i hope the militia of the united states will ever be ready to protect oppressed humanity. my _third_ humble claim is, that this great republic shall recognize the legitimate independence of hungary. the militia of this country fought and bled for that principle upon your own soil; so, by the glory of your predecessors--by all the blessings which have flowed from your struggle, which make your glory and happiness--you will feel inclined to support this my humble claim for the recognition of the legitimate independence of my fatherland. i thank you for the generous sympathy, and for the reception and welcome of my companions, the devoted sons of hungary, who were ready to sacrifice life and fortune to the independence of their native land. there are several among them who were already soldiers before our struggle, and they employed their military skill in the service of their country. but there were others who were not soldiers, yet whose patriotism led them to embrace the cause of their native land, and they proved to be brave and efficient supporters of the freedom for which they fought. thanking you for the sympathy you have expressed for them, i promise you, gentlemen, that they will prove themselves worthy of it. i will point out to them the most dangerous places, and i know they will acquit themselves honourably and bravely. as to myself, i have here a sword on my side given to me by an american citizen. this being a gift from a citizen of the united states, i take it as a token of encouragement to go on in that way by which, with the blessing of almighty god, i shall yet be enabled again to see my fatherland independent and free. i swear here before you, that this american sword in my hand shall be always faithful in the cause of freedom--that it shall be ever foremost in the battle--and that it shall never be polluted by ambition or cowardice. * * * * * x.--conditions essential for democracy and peace. [_reply to the address of the democrats of tammany hall, new york, dec. 17th_.] mr. sickles, who made the address, closed by stating that he contributed to the cause of hungary "a golden dollar, fresh from the free mines of the pacific;" adding that he trusted millions would follow, and that the "almighty dollar," if still the proverb of a money-making people, would become a symbol of its noblest instincts and truest ambition. kossuth, in reply, after warm thanks, declined the personal praises bestowed on him, and sketched the series of events by which the austrian tyranny had converted him from insignificance into a man of importance. he then proceeded to comment on france[*] as follows:--i hope that the great french nation will soon succeed to establish a true republic. but i have come to the conviction, that for freedom there is no duration in centralization, which is a legacy of ambitious men. to be conquerors, power must be centralized; but to be a free nation, self-government must reign in families, villages, cities, counties, states. as power now is lodged in france, the government has in its hand an army of half a million of men, under that iron discipline which is needed in a standing army. it has under its control a budget of more than a thousand million francs. it can dispose of every public office in france; it has a civil army of more than 500,000 men: the mayor of the least village derives his appointment from the government. all the police, all the _gens d'armes_, are in its hands. now, gentlemen, is it not clear that--with such authority and force,--not to become dangerous to liberty, every president needs to be a washington. and washingtons are not so thickly strewn around. woe to the country, whose institutions are such, that their freedom depends on the personal character of one man. be he the best man in the world, he will not overcome the essential repugnance of his position to freedom. when france abandons this _centralization_, and carries out her own principles of "liberty, equality, fraternity," by _local self-government_, she will be the great basis of european republics. as to sovereignty of the people, i take it that the right to cast a vote for the election of a president once in four years does not exhaust the sovereign rights of a nation. a people deciding about its own matters, must be everywhere master of its own fate, in village communes as much as in electing its chief officer. [footnote *: the news of the _coup d'état_ had not yet reached him.] you have spoken about certain persons who will have "peace at any price." of course you feel that permanent peace _cannot_ be had at any less price, than that which buys justice: nor can there be justice, where is no freedom. under oppression is neither contentment nor tranquillity. there are some who prefer being oppressed to the dangers of shaking off oppression; but i am sure there are millions who fear death less than enslavement. peace therefore will not exist, though all your rothschilds and barings help the despots. to withhold material aid from the oppressed will not avert the war, but by depriving the leaders of the means of concert will simply make the struggle more lingering: a result surely not desired by friends of peace. but, sir, i thank you for your dollar. the ocean is composed of drops. the greatest results are achieved, not by individuals, but by the humble industry of mankind, incessantly bringing man nearer to the aim providentially destined for him. not all the rothschilds together can wield such sums as poor people can; for the poor count by millions. those dollars of the people have another great value. one million of them given by a million of men gives hope to the popular cause: it gives the sympathy and support of a million men. i bless god for that word of yours, that the one dollar should be followed by many; for then your example would not only in a financial respect be a great benefit, but afford a foundation for that freedom which the almighty designs for the nations. here is a great glory for your country to aim at. it is glorious to stand at the top of the pyramid of humanity; more glorious to become yourselves the pillar on which the welfare of human nature rests. for this, mankind looks to your country with hope and confidence. * * * * * xi.--hungary and austria in religious contrast. [_address in the plymouth church at brooklyn, dec. 18th, 1851_.] the rev. h. w. beecher having assured kossuth of the deep and religious interest long felt and expressed towards him within those very walls: kossuth replied, declaring that he felt himself always in the power of god, and believed christianity and freedom to be but one cause. he went on to add: the cause of hungary is strongly connected with the principle of religious liberty on earth. in the first war of the sixteenth century a battle was fought by the moslems in hungary, by which the power of our nation was almost overthrown. at that time the monarchy was elective. a hungarian, who was governor of transylvania, was chosen king, but another party elected ferdinand of austria to be king of hungary. a long struggle ensued, in which the princes of transylvania called in turkish aid against the house of austria. in the hour of necessity, the house of austria complied with the wishes of my nation, whenever my country had taken up arms; but no sooner was the sword laid down, than this dynasty always neglected to perform its promises. in the midst of the last century, under maria theresa, those who did not belong to the catholic faith were almost excluded from all offices. joseph succeeded, who was a tolerant man; but scarcely was he in his grave, when the emperor francis renewed persecution, and it was only in 1848, that religious liberty was established to every creed. when the house of austria took arms against the laws of 1848, they took arms against religious liberty. in our parliament, it was roman catholics who stood in the van of battle for religious liberty: but when i say this, i must state it without drawing any commentary from it. it was reserved to our revolution to show the development of the glorious cause of freedom. when my country imposed on me the duty to govern the land, i was ready to show the confidence i had in religious freedom. i chose a catholic minister to be minister of education in hungary, and he fully justified the confidence i reposed in him. he has shown that our constitution is founded upon equality; that it regards all men as citizens, and makes no distinction of profession. it is only under free institutions that a clergyman can remain a clergyman with burning heart towards his own duties, and yet, when called to perform the duties of a citizen, be no longer a clergyman but a citizen. could the church of rome have appreciated this principle, and have acted upon it, my friend mazzini were not now necessary for the freedom of italy. but as rome did not appreciate it, the temporal power of the pope will probably fall at the next revolution. my principles are, that the church shall not meddle with politics, and government will not meddle with religion. in every society there are political and civil concerns on one side, and on the other social concerns; for the first, civil authority must be established--in political and civil respects every one has to acknowledge the power of its jurisdiction. but, in respect to social interests, it is quite the contrary. religion is not an institution--it is a matter of conscience. for the support of these principles i ask your generous aid. you know that whenever the house of austria attains to any strength, its first step is to break down religious liberty. and austria is helped by russia, which is even still less propitious to these principles; you remember the insolence or hardship to which in russia those people are subject who do not belong to the greek church; at the present time the poor jews are subjected to great indignities, and compelled, if not to shave off their hair, to cut it in a particular manner, so as to distinguish them from members of the greek church. but hungary, by the providence of god, is destined to become once more the vanguard of civilization, and of religious liberty for the whole of the european continent against the encroachments of russian despotism, as it has already been the barrier of christianity, against islamism. kossuth then proceeded to explain, that any moneys contributed by the generosity of the american public would not be employed as a warlike fund, for which it would be utterly insignificant; but solely as a means of enabling the oppressed to concert their measures. after this he canvassed _the three props_ of austria, and pointed out the weakness of them all; viz. its loans,--its army,--and russia. its loans run fast to a bankruptcy. its army is composed of nations which hate it. under the austrian government, the tyrol perhaps alone has escaped bombardments, scaffolds, and jails filled with patriots. the armies are raised by forcible conscriptions, and contain some hundred thousand hungarians who recently fought and conquered austria, whom austria now keeps in drill to serve against her when the time comes. as to the third prop--russia,--possibly for some days yet in the future it may support austria; but not in a long war: austria can never stand in a long war. i am told (said kossuth) that some who call themselves "men of peace" cry out for _peace at any price_. but is the present condition peace? is the scaffold peace?--that scaffold, on which in lombardy during the "peaceful" years the blood of 3742 patriots has been shed. when the prisons of austria are filled with patriots, is that peace? or is the discontent of all the nations peace? i do not believe that the lord created the world for _such_ a kind of peace as that,--to be a prison,--to be a volcano, boiling up and ready to break out. no: but with justice and liberty there will be contentment, and with contentment, peace--lasting peace, consistent peace: while from the tyrants of the world there is oppression, and with oppression the breaking forth of war..... * * * * * xii.--public piracy of russia [_reply to the address of the bar of new york, dec. 19th, 1851_.] a reception and a banquet to kossuth having been prepared by the bar at tripler hall, ex-justice jones introduced him with a short speech; after which judge sandford, in the name of the whole bar, read an ample address, of which the following is the principal part:-governor kossuth.--the bar of new york, having participated with their fellow-citizens in extending to you that cordial and enthusiastic welcome which greeted your landing upon the shores of america, have solicited the opportunity to express to you, as a member of the legal profession, their respect for your great talents and eminent attainments, and their admiration for the ardour and enthusiasm with which you have devoted all your powers and energies to the sacred cause of the emancipation of your native land. wherever freedom has needed an advocate, wherever law has required a supporter, wherever tyranny and oppression have provoked resistance, and men have been found for the occasion, it is the proud honour of our common profession to have presented from our ranks some prominent individual who has generously and boldly engaged in the service; and hungary has furnished to the world one of the most striking in the brilliant series of illustrious examples. as early as the year 1840, the public history of hungary had made us acquainted with the distinguished part which a mr. kossuth, an attorney, as he was then described, had performed in sustaining the laws of his country. mr. kossuth, the attorney of that day, has since matured into the counsellor, statesman, patriot, governor, and now stands before us the exile more distinguished for his firmness and undaunted courage in his last reverse than for his exaltation by the free choice of his countrymen. after the years of your imprisonment and painful anxiety had worn away, and the illegal measure of your arrest had been publicly acknowledged, we found you restored to your personal liberty, and again ardently engaged in the great cause of your country's freedom. at the meeting of the diet of hungary which was held in november, 1847, and before the flame of revolution had illuminated europe, we found a series of acts resolved upon by that body, which declared an equality of civil rights and of public burdens among all classes, denominations, and races in hungary and its provinces, perfect toleration for every form of religion, an extension of the elective franchise, universal freedom in the sale of landed property, liberty to strangers to settle in the country, the emancipation of the jews, the sum of eight millions set apart to encourage manufactures and construct roads, and the nobles of hungary, by a voluntary act, abolishing the old tenure of the lands, thereby constituting the producing classes to be absolute owners of nearly one half of the cultivated territory in the kingdom. this great advance made by your country in a system of benign and ameliorating legislation, was checked by occurrences which are too fresh in your recollection to require a recapitulation. we welcome you among us; we tender you our admiration for your efforts; our sympathy for your sufferings; our cordial wishes that your persevering labours may be successful in restoring your country to her place among nations, and her people to the enjoyment of those blessings of civil and religious liberty, to which, by their intelligence and bravery, and by the _laws of nature and of nature's god_, they are justly entitled. our professional pursuits have led us to the study of the system of jurisprudence which has been matured by the wisdom and experience of ages, but which has been recognized by all eminent jurists to be founded upon the defined principles of christianity. from that great source of law we have learned, that as members of the family of mankind, our duties are not bounded by the territorial limits of the government which protects us, nor circumscribed as to time or space. we have framed a constitution of government, and under it have adopted a system of laws which we are bound to execute and obey. the stability and efficiency of our own government are dependent upon the intelligence, virtue, and moderation of our people. it has been justly remarked by one of our most distinguished jurists, that "in a republic, every citizen is himself in some measure entrusted with the public safety, and acts an important part for its weal or woe." trained as we have been in these principles of self-government, appreciating all the blessings which a bounteous creator has so profusely showered upon us, and desirous to see the principles of civil and religious liberty extended to other nations, we rejoice at every uprising of their oppressed people; we sympathize with their struggles, and within the limits of our public laws and public policy, we aid them in their efforts. if through weakness or treachery they fail, we grieve at their misfortunes. in you, sir, we behold a personification of that great principle which forms the corner stone of our own revered constitution--the right of self-government. darkened as has been the horizon of suffering hungary, in you, sir, still burns that living fire of freedom, which we trust will yet light up her firmament, and shed its lustrous flame over her wasted lands. "the unnamed demi-gods" whose blood has moistened her battle-fields, the martyrs whose lives have been freely offered up on the scaffold and beneath the axe, the living exiles now scattered through distant lands, have not suffered, are not suffering in vain. governments were created for the benefit of the many, and not of the few. a day, an hour of retribution will yet come; the almighty promise will not be forgotten--"vengeance is mine--i will repay it, saith the lord." kossuth thereupon replied:-gentlemen,--highly as i value the opportunity to meet the gentlemen of the bar, i should have felt very much embarrassed to have to answer the address of that corporation before such a numerous and distinguished assembly, had not you, sir, relieved my well-founded anxiety by justly anticipating and appreciating my difficulties. let me hope, that herein you were the interpreter of this distinguished assembly's indulgence. gentlemen of the bar, you have the noble task to be the first interpreters of the law; to make it subservient to justice; to maintain its eternal principles against encroachment; and to restore those principles to life, whenever they become obliterated by misunderstanding or by violence. my opinion is, that law must keep pace in its development with institutions and intelligence, and until these are perfect, law is and must be with them in continual progress. justice is immortal, eternal, and immutable, like god himself; and the development of law is only then a progress, when it is directed towards those principles which, like him, are eternal; and whenever prejudice or error succeeds in establishing in customary law any doctrine contrary to eternal justice, it is one of your noblest duties, gentlemen,--having no written code to fetter justice within the bonds of error and prejudice,--it is one of your noblest duties to apply _principles_, --to show that an unjust custom is a corrupt practice, an abuse; and by showing this, to originate that change, or rather development in the unwritten, customary law, which is necessary to make it protect justice, instead of opposing and violating it. if this be your noble vocation in respect to the private laws of your country, let me entreat you, gentlemen, to extend it to that public law which, regulating the mutual duties of nations towards each other, rules the destinies of humanity. you know that in that eternal code of "nature and of nature's god," which your forefathers invoked when they raised the colonies of england to the rank of a free nation, there are no pettifogging subtleties, but only everlasting principles: everlasting, like those by which the world is ruled. you know that when artificial cunning of ambitious oppressors succeeds to pervert those principles, and when passive indifference or thoughtlessness submits to it, as weakness must submit: it is the noble destiny--let me say, duty--of enlightened nations, alike powerful as free, to restore those eternal principles to practical validity, so that justice, light, and truth may sway, where injustice, oppression, and error have prevailed. raise high the torch of truth; cast its beams on the dark field of arbitrary prejudice; become the champions of principles, and your people will be the regenerators of international law. it will. a tempestuous life has somewhat sharpened my eye, and had it even not done so, still i would dare to say, i know how to read your people's heart. it is conscious of your country's power; it is jealous of its own dignity; it knows that it is able to restore the law of nations to the principles of justice and right; and knowing its ability, its will shall not be lacking. let the cause of hungary become the opportunity for the restoration of true and just international law. mankind is come to the eleventh hour in its destinies. one hour of delay more, and its fate may be sealed, and nothing left to the generous inclinations of your people--so tender-hearted, so noble, and so kind--but to mourn over murdered nations, its beloved brethren in humanity. i have but to make a few remarks about two objections, which i am told i shall have to contend with. the first is, that it is a leading principle of the united states not to interfere with european nations. i may perhaps assume that you have been pleased to acquaint yourselves with what i have elsewhere said on that argument; viz. that the united states had never entertained or confessed such a principle, or at any rate had abandoned it, and had been forced to do so: which indicates it to have been only a temporary policy. i stated the mighty difference between neutrality and non-interference; so i will only briefly remark that a like difference exists between alliance and interference. every independent power has the right to form alliances, but is not under duty to do so: it may remain neutral, if it please. neither alliances nor neutrality are matters of principle, but simply of policy. they may hurt interest, but do not violate law; whereas with interference the contrary is the case. interference with the sovereign right of nations to resist oppression, or to alter their institutions and government, is a violation of the law of nations and of god: therefore non-interference is a duty common to every power and every nation, and is placed under the safeguard of every power, of every nation. he who violates that law is like a pirate: every power on earth has the duty to chase him down as a curse to human nature. there is not a man in the united states but would avow that a pirate must be chased down; and no man more readily than the gentlemen of trade. a gentleman who came yesterday to honour me with the invitation of cincinnati, that rising wonder of the west,--with eloquence which speaks volumes in one word, designated as _piracy_ the interference of foreign violence with the domestic concerns of a nation. there is such a moving power in a word of truth! that word has relieved me of many long speeches. i no longer need to discuss the principle of your foreign policy: there can be no doubt about what is lawful, what is a duty, against piracy. your naval forces are, and must be, instructed to put down piracy wherever they meet it, on whatever geographic lines, whether in european or in american waters. you sent your commodore decatur for that purpose to the mediterranean, who told the dey of algiers, that "if he claims powder, he will have it with the balls;" and no man in the united states imagined this to oppose your received policy. nobody then objected that it is the ruling principle of the united states not to meddle with european or african concerns; rather, if your government had neglected so to do, i am sure the gentlemen of trade would have been foremost to complain. now, in the name of all which is pleasing to god and sacred to man, if all are ready thus to unite in the outcry against a rover, who, at the danger of his own life, boards some frail ship, murders some poor sailors, or takes a few bales of cotton--is there no hope to see a similar universal outcry against those great pirates who board, not some small cutters, but the beloved home of nations? who murder, not some few sailors, but whole peoples? who shed blood, not by drops, but by torrents? who rob, not some hundred weight of merchandize, but the freedom, independence, welfare, and the very existence of nations? oh god and father of human kind! spare--oh spare that degradation to thy children; that in their destinies some bales of cotton should more weigh than those great moralities. alas! what a pitiful sight! a miserable pickpocket, a drunken highway robber, chased by the whole human race to the gallows: and those who pickpocket the life-sweat of nations, rob them of their welfare, of their liberty, and murder them by thousands--these high-handed criminals proudly raise their brow, trample upon mankind, and degrade its laws before their high reverential name, and term themselves "most sacred majesties." but may god be blessed, there is hope for human nature; for there is a powerful, free, mighty people here on the virgin soil of america, ready to protect the laws of man and of heaven against the execrated pirates and their associates. but again i am told, "the united states, as a power, are not indifferent; we sympathize deeply with those who are oppressed; we will respect the laws of nations; but we have no interest to make them respected by others towards others." interest! and always interest! oh, how cupidity has succeeded to misrepresent the word? is there any interest which could outweigh the interest of justice and of right? interest! but i answer by the very words of one of the most distinguished members of your profession, gentlemen, the present honourable secretary of state:--"the united states, as a nation, have precisely the same interest (yes, _interest_ is his word) in international law as a private individual has in the laws of his country." he was a member of the bar who advanced that principle of eternal justice against the mere fact of policy; and now that he is in the position to carry out the principle which he has advanced, i confidently trust he will be as good as his word,[*] and that his honourable colleagues, the gentlemen of the bar, will remember their calling to maintain the permanent principles of justice against the encroachments of accidental policy. [footnote *: see the extracts from mr. webster's speech at the washington banquet.] but i may be answered--"if we (the united states) avow that we will not endure the interference of russia in hungary (for that is the practical meaning, i will not deny), and if russia should not respect our declaration; then we _might_ have to go to war." well, i am not the man to decline the consequences of my principles. i will not steal into your sympathy by evasion. yes, gentlemen, i confess, _should_ russia not respect such a declaration of your country, then you are forced to go to war, or else be degraded before mankind. but, gentlemen, you must not shrink back from the mere _word_ war; you must consider what is the probability of its occurrence. i have already stated publicly my certain knowledge how vulnerable russia is; how weak she is internally. but the best clue to you as to what will be her future conduct, if you act decisively, will be gained by examining the extreme caution and timidity with which, in the late events, she felt her way, before she interposed by force. the last french revolution broke out in february, 1848. the czar hates republics,--name and thing; but he did not interfere against the france of lamartine, any more than against the france of louis philippe in 1830. why not? he dared not. but he resorted to his natural and his most dangerous weapon, _secret diplomacy_. he sent male and female intriguers to paris, and succeeded in turning the revolution into a mock republic. but from the pulsations of the great french heart every tyrant had trembled. the german nation took its destiny into its own hands, and proposed to itself to become one, in frankfort. the throne in berlin quaked; the austrian emperor fled from his palace, a few weeks after he had with his own hands waved the flag of freedom out of his window. in vienna an austrian parliament met. a constitution was devised for polish gallicia, linked by blood, history, and nature, to the poland domineered over by the czar; while on its western frontier another polish province, posen, was wrapt in revolutionary flames. you can imagine how the czar raged, how he wished to unite all mankind in one head, so that he might cut it off with a single blow; and still he nowhere interfered. why not? again i say, he was prudently afraid. however, the french republic became very innocent to him--almost an ally in some respects, really an ally in others, as in the case of unfortunate rome. the gentlemen of frankfort proved also to be very innocent. the hopes of germany failed--the people were shot down in vienna, prague, lemberg,--the austrian mock parliament was sent from vienna to kremsen, and from kremsen home. only hungary stood firm, steady, victorious--the czar had nothing more to fear from all revolutionary europe--nothing from germany--nothing from france. he had no fear from the united states, since he knew that your government then was not willing to meddle with european affairs: so he had free hands in hungary. but one thing still he did not know, and that was--what will _england_ and what will _turkey_ say, if he interferes?--and that consideration alone was sufficient to check him. so anxious was he to feel the pulse of england and of turkey, that he sent first a small army--some ten thousand men--to help the austrians in transylvania; and sent them in such a manner as to have, in case of need, for excuse, that he was called to do so, _not by austria only, but by that part of the people also, which deceived by foul delusion, stood by austria!_ oh, it was an infernal plot! we beat down and drove out his 10,000 men, together with all the austrians--but the czar had won his game. he was hereby assured that he would have no foreign power to oppose him when he dared to violate the law of nations by an armed interference in hungary. so he interfered with all his might. it is a torture even to remember, how like a dream vanished all our hopes that there is yet justice on earth. when i saw my nation, as a handful of brave men, forsaken to fight alone that immense battle for humanity; when i saw russian diplomacy stealing, like secret poison, into our ranks, introducing treason into them;--but let me not look back; it is all in vain; the past is past. _forward_ is my word, and forward i will go; for i know that there is yet a god in heaven, and there is a people like you on earth, and there is a power of decided will here also in this bleeding heart. it is my motto still, that "there is no difficulty to him who wills." but so much is a fact, so much is sure, that _the czar did not dare to interfere until he was assured that he would meet no foreign power to oppose him_. show him, free people of america--show him in a manly declaration, that he will meet your force if he dares once more to trample on the laws of nations--accompany this declaration with an augmentation of your mediterranean fleets, and be sure he will not stir. you will have no war, and austria falls almost without a battle, like a house without foundation, raised upon the sand; hungary--my poor hungary--will be free, and europe's oppressed continent able to arrange its domestic concerns. even without my appeal to your sympathy, you have the source in your own generous hearts. this meeting is a substantial proof of it. receive my thanks. i have done, gentlemen; i am worn out. i must reserve for another occasion what i would say further, were i able. i know that when i speak in this glorious country, there is the mighty engine of the press which enables me to address the whole people. let me now say that the ground on which the hopes of my native land rest, is the principle of justice, right, and law. to the maintenance of these you have devoted your lives, gentlemen of the bar. i leave them under your professional care, and trust they will find many advocates among you. * * * * * xiii.--claims of hungary on the female sex. [_speech to the ladies of new york_.] the rev. dr. tyng having spoken in the name of the ladies of new york, and concluded with the words: "and now, sir, the ladies whom i have the honour to represent, knowing your history, and fully aware of its vast importance, desire themselves to be the audience, and to hear the voice of kossuth, and the claims of hungary." kossuth replied as follows:-i would i were able to answer that call. i would i were able suitably to fill the place which your kindness has assigned to me. you were pleased to say that austria was blind to let me escape. be assured that it was not the merit of austria. she would have been very glad to bury me alive, but the sultan of turkey took courage, and notwithstanding all the remonstrances of austria, i am free. ladies, worn out as i am, still i am very glad that the ladies of new york condescend to listen to my farewell. when in the midst of a busy day, the watchful care of a guardian angel throws some flowers of joy in the thorny way of man, he gathers them up with thanks: a cheerful thrill quivers through his heart, like the melody of an aeolian harp; but the earnest duties of life soon claim his attention and his cares. the melodious thrill dies away, and on he must go; on he goes, joyless, cheerless, and cold, every fibre of his heart bent to the earnest duties of the day. but when the hard work of the day is done, and the stress of mind for a moment subsides, then the heart again claims its right, and the tender fingers of our memory gather up again the violets of joy which the guardian angel threw in our way, and we look at them with delight; while we cherish them as the favourite gifts of life--we are as glad as the child on christmas eve. these are the happiest moments of man's life. but when we are not noisy, not eloquent, we are silent almost mute, like nature in a midsummer's night, reposing from the burning heat of the day. ladies, that is my condition now. it is a hard day's work which i have had to do here. i am delivering my farewell address; and every compassionate smile, every warm grasp of the hand, every token of kindness which i have received (and i have received so many), every flower of consolation which the ladies of new york have thrown on my thorny way, rushes with double force to my memory. i feel happy in this memory--there is a solemn tranquillity about my mind; but in such a moment i would rather be silent than speak. you know, ladies, that it is not the deepest feelings which are the loudest. and besides, i have to say farewell to new york! this is a sorrowful word. what immense hopes are linked in my memory with its name!--hopes of resurrection for my fatherland--hopes of liberation for the european continent! will the expectations which the mighty outburst of new york's heart foreshadowed, be realized? or will the ray of consolation pass away like an electric flash? oh, could i cast one single glance into the book of futurity! no, god forgive me this impious wish. it is he who hid the future from man, and what he does is well done. it were not good for man to know his destiny. the sense of duty would falter or be unstrung, if we were assured of the failure or success of our aims. it is because we do not know the future, that we retain our energy of duty, so on will i go in my work, with the full energy of my humble abilities, without despair, but with hope. it is eastern blood which runs in my veins. if i have somewhat of eastern fatalism, it is the fatalism of a christian who trusts with unwavering faith in the boundless goodness of a divine providence. but among all these different feelings and thoughts that come upon me in the hour of my farewell, one thing is almost indispensable to me, and that is, the assurance that the sympathy i have met with here will not pass away like the cheers which a warbling girl receives on the stage--that it will be preserved as a principle, and that when the emotion subsides, the calmness of reflection will but strengthen it. this consolation i wanted, and this consolation i have, because, ladies, i place it in your hands. i bestow on your motherly and sisterly cares, the hopes of europe's oppressed nations,--the hopes of civil, political, social, and religious liberty. oh let me entreat you, with the brief and stammering words of a warm heart, overwhelmed with emotions and with sorrowful cares--let me entreat you, ladies, to be watchful of the sympathy of your people, like the mother over the cradle of her beloved child. it is worthy of your watchful care, because, it is the cradle of regenerated humanity. especially in regard to my poor fatherland, i have particular claims on the fairer and better half of humanity, which you are. the _first_ of these claims is, that there is not perhaps on the face of the earth a nation, which in its institutions has shown more chivalric regard for ladies than the hungarian. it is a praiseworthy trait of the oriental character. you know that it was the moorish race in spain, who were the founders of the chivalric era in europe, so full of personal virtue, so full of noble deeds, so devoted to the service of ladies, to heroism, and to the protection of the oppressed. you are told that the ladies of the east are degraded to less almost than a human condition, being secluded from all social life, and pent up within the harem's walls. and so it is. but you must not judge the east by the measure of european civilization. they have their own civilization, quite different from ours in views, inclinations, affections, and thoughts. we in hungary have gained from the west the advantages of civilization for our women, but we have preserved for them the regard and reverence of our oriental character. nay, more than that, we carried these views into our institutions and into our laws. with us, the widow remains the head of the family, as the father was. as long as she lives, she is the mistress of the property of her deceased husband. the chivalrous spirit of the nation supposes she will provide, with motherly care, for the wants of her children; and she remains in possession so long as she bears her deceased husband's name. under the old constitution of hungary (which we reformed upon a democratic basis--it having been aristocratic) the widow of a lord had the right to send her representative to the parliament, and in the county elections of public functionaries widows had a right to vote alike with the men. perhaps this chivalric character of my nation, so full of regard toward the fair sex, may somewhat commend my mission to the ladies of america. our _second_ particular claim is, that the source of all the misfortune which now weighs so heavily upon my bleeding fatherland, is in two ladies--catharine of russia, and sophia of hapsburg, the ambitious mother of this second nero, francis-joseph. you know that one hundred and fifty years ago, charles the twelfth of sweden, the bravest of the brave, foreseeing the growth of russia, and fearing that it would oppress and overwhelm civilization, ventured with a handful of men to attack its rising power. after immortal deeds, and almost fabulous victories, one loss made him a refugee upon turkish soil, like myself. but, happier than myself, he succeeded in persuading turkey of the necessity of checking russia in her overweening ambition, and curtailing her growth. on went mehemet baltadji with his turks, and met peter the czar, and pent him up in a corner, where there was no possibility of escape. there mehemet held him with iron grasp till hunger came to his aid. nature claimed her rights, and in a council of war it was decided to surrender to mehemet. then catharine who was present in the camp, appeared in person before the grand vizier to sue for mercy. she was fair, and she was rich with jewels of nameless value. she went to the grand vizier's tent. she came back without her jewels, but she brought mercy, and russia was saved. from that celebrated day dates the downfall of turkey, and the growth of russia. out of this source flowed the stream of russian preponderance over the european continent. the depression of liberty, and the nameless sufferings of poland and of my poor native land, are the dreadful fruits of catharine's success on that day, cursed in the records of the human race. the second lady who will be cursed through all posterity in her memory, is sophia, the mother of the present usurper of hungary--she who had the ambitious dream to raise the power of a child upon the ruins of liberty, and on the neck of prostrate nations. it was her ambition--the evil genius of the house of hapsburg in the present day--which brought desolation upon us. i need only mention one fact to characterize what kind of a heart was in that woman. on the anniversary of the day of arad, where our martyrs bled, she came to the court with a bracelet of rubies set in so many roses as was the number of heads of the brave hungarians who fell there, declaring that she joyfully exhibited it to the company as a memento which she wears on her very arm, to cherish in eternal memory the pleasure she derived from the killing of those heroes at arad. this very fact may give you a true knowledge of the character of that woman, and this is the _second_ claim to the ladies' sympathy for oppressed humanity and for my poor fatherland. our _third_ particular claim is the behaviour of our ladies during the last war. it is no arbitrary praise--it is a fact,--that, in the struggle for our rights and freedom, we had no more powerful auxiliaries, and no more faithful executors of the will of the nation, than the women of hungary. you know that in ancient rome, after the battle of cannae, which was won by hannibal, the senate called on the people spontaneously to sacrifice all their wealth on the altar of their fatherland. every jewel, every ornament was brought forth, but still the tribune judged it necessary to pass a law prohibiting the ladies of rome to wear more than half an ounce of gold, or particoloured splendid dresses. now, we wanted in hungary no such law. the women of hungary brought all that they had. you would have been astonished to see how, in the most wealthy houses of hungary, if you were invited to dinner, you would be forced to eat soup with iron spoons. when the wounded and the sick--and many of them we had, because we fought hard--when the wounded and the sick were not so well provided as it would have been our duty and our pleasure to do, i ordered the respective public functionaries to take care of them. but the poor wounded went on suffering, and the proper officers were but slow in providing for them. when i saw this, one single word was spoken to the ladies of hungary, and in a short time there was provision made for hundreds of thousands of sick. and i never met a single mother who would have withheld her son from sharing in the battle; but i have met many who ordered and commanded their children to fight for their fatherland. i saw many and many brides who urged on the bridegrooms to delay their day of happiness till they should come back victorious from the battles of their fatherland. thus acted the ladies of hungary. a country deserves to live; a country deserves to have a future, when the women, as much as the men, love and cherish it. but i have a stronger motive than all these to claim your protecting sympathy for my country's cause. it is her nameless woe, nameless sufferings. in the name of that ocean of bloody tears which the impious hand of the tyrant wrung from the eyes of the childless mothers, of the brides who beheld the executioner's sword between them and their wedding day--in the name of all these mothers, wives, brides, daughters, and sisters, who, by thousands of thousands, weep over the graves of magyars so dear to their hearts,--who weep the bloody tears of a patriot (as they all are) over the face of their beloved native land--in the name of all those torturing stripes with which the flogging hand of austrian tyrants dared to outrage human nature in the womankind of my native land--in the name of that daily curse against austria with which even the prayers of our women are mixed--in the name of the nameless sufferings of my own dear wife [here the whole audience rose and cheered vehemently]--the faithful companion of my life,--of her, who for months and for months was hunted by my country's tyrants, with no hope, no support, no protection, but at the humble threshold of the hard-working people, as noble and generous as they are poor--in the name of my poor little children, who when so young as to be scarcely conscious of life, had already to learn what an austrian prison is--in the name of all this, and what is still worse, in the name of liberty trodden down, i claim, ladies of new york, your protecting sympathy for my country's cause. nobody can do more for it than you. the heart of man is as soft wax in your tender hands. mould it, ladies; mould it into the form of generous compassion for my country's wrongs, inspire it with the noble feelings of your own hearts, inspire it with the consciousness of your country's power, dignity, and might. you are the framers of man's character. whatever be the fate of man, one stamp he always bears on his brow--that which the mother's hand impressed upon the soul of the child. the smile of your lips can make a hero out of the coward, and a generous man out of the egotist; one word from you inspires the youth to noble resolutions; the lustre of your eyes is the fairest reward for the toils of life. you can kindle energy even in the breast of broken age, that once more it may blaze up in a noble generous deed before it dies. all this power you have. use it, ladies, in behalf of your country's glory, and for the benefit of oppressed humanity, and when you meet a cold calculator, who thinks by arithmetic when he is called to feel the wrongs of oppressed nations, convert him, ladies. your smiles are commands, and the truth which pours forth instinctively from your hearts, is mightier than the logic articulated by any scholar. the peri excluded from paradise, brought many generous gifts to heaven in order to regain it. she brought the dying sigh of a patriot; the kiss of a faithful girl imprinted upon the lips of her bridegroom, when they were distorted by the venom of the plague. she brought many other fair gifts; but the doors of paradise opened before her only when she brought with her the first prayer of a man converted to charity and brotherly love for his oppressed brethren and humanity. remember the power which you have, and which i have endeavoured to point out in a few brief words. remember this, and form associations; establish ladies' committees to raise substantial aid for hungary. now i have done. one word only remains to be said-a word of deep sorrow, the word, "farewell, new york!" new york! that word will for ever make every string of my heart thrill. i am like a wandering bird. i am worse than a wandering bird. he may return to his summer home, i have no home on earth! here i felt almost at home. but "forward" is my call, and i must part. i part with the hope that the sympathy which i have met here in a short transitory home will bring me yet back to my own beloved home, so that my ashes may yet mix with the dust of my native soil. ladies, remember hungary, and--farewell! * * * * * xiv.--results of the overthrow of the french republic. [_speech at the citizens' banquet, philadelphia, dec. 26th._] mr. dallas, the chairman, made an eloquent address advocating the cause of hungary against russia, and avowing the duty of america to give warlike aid. this speech was the more remarkable, as coming immediately after the arrival of the news of louis napoleon's usurpation. the mind of the public was naturally so full of the event, that kossuth could not avoid to discuss it; but the topic is so threadbare to the reader, that it will suffice here to preserve a few sentiments. in the opening, kossuth complained of forged letters and forged cheques sent to annoy him, and anonymous letters of false accusation circulated against him. proceeding from this to public topics, and the certainty of a new convulsion in europe, he said, that it might prove in the future highly dangerous to the moneyed interests, if the world be persuaded that the holders of great disposable wealth use it to aid despotism, and that the possession of it checks the generous propensity to forward the triumph of freedom. if the world be confirmed in this persuasion, the results will be painfully felt by those gentlemen, whose treasures are always open for the despots to crush liberty with. such moneylenders have excited boundless hatred in all that section of europe, which has had to suffer from their ready financial aid to despotism. i (said kossuth) am no socialist, no communist; and if i get the means to act efficiently, i shall so act that the inevitable revolution may not subvert the rights of property: but so much i confidently declare--that to the spreading of communist doctrines in certain quarters of europe nobody has so much contributed as those european capitalists, who by incessantly aiding the despots with their money have inspired many of the oppressed with the belief that financial wealth is dangerous to the freedom of the world. rothschild is the most efficient apostle of communism. in regard to louis bonaparte's temporary success, kossuth argued, that it would secure, when france makes her next move for freedom, two results beneficial to liberty: first, that in future, the french republicans would abandon their delusive and disastrous centralization. we have shown (said he) in hungary, that for a nation to be invincible, its life must not be bound up with its metropolis. henceforward, in european aspirations, centralization is replaced by federative harmony. i thank louis napoleon for it. _your_ principles of local self-government, gentlemen, were hitherto professed on the continent of europe chiefly by us hungarians: now they will conquer the world,--a new victory for humanity. had the old french republic stood, it would have perpetuated the curse of _great standing armies_, which are instruments of ambition and a wasting pestilence. again; the blow struck by louis napoleon has forced his nation into the common destiny of europe. it has forbidden france ever in future to play a separate game, and think to keep her own liberty, without effectively espousing the cause of foreign liberty. what is the sum of all this? first, that there is nothing in the news from france to alter any judgments which you might previously have formed, or cause you any suspense. secondly, it only more than ever claims from you an immediately decisive conduct. the success of freedom now depends entirely on what policy the united states of america will adopt. well! gentlemen. it may be that the united states have no reply to the hopes of the world. you will then see a mournful tear in the eye of humanity, and its breast heaving with sighs. we presume, you are so powerful that you can afford not to care about the treading down of the law of nations and the funeral of european freedom. you are so glorious at home, that you can afford to lose the glory (at so rare a crisis!) of saving liberty and justice on earth. yet in your own hour of trial you asked and received military and naval aid from france. your president has informed the world, that you are not willing to allow "the strong arm of a foreign power to suppress the spirit of freedom in any country." if after this you tell me that you are _afraid_ of russia, and are _too weak_ to help us,--and would rather be on good terms with the czar, than rejoice in the liberty and independence of hungary, italy, germany, france,--dreadful as it would be, i would wipe away my tear, and say to my brethren, "let us pray, and let us go to the lord's last supper, and thence to battle and to death." i would then leave you, gentlemen, with a dying farewell, and with a prayer that the sun of freedom may never drop below the horizon of your happy land. i am in philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, the city of william penn, whose likeness i saw this day in a history of your city, with this motto under it: "_si vis pacem, para bellum_"--(prepare for war, if thou wilt have peace)--a weighty memento, gentlemen, to the name of william penn. and i am in that city which is the cradle of your independence--where, in the hour of your need, the appeal was proclaimed to the law of nature's god, and that appeal for help from europe, which was granted to you. i stood in independence hall, whence the spirit of freedom lisps eternal words of history to the secret recesses of your hearts. man may well be silent where from such a place history so speaks. so my task is done--with me the pain, with you the decision--and, let me add the prophetic words of the poet, "the moral of the strain." kossuth took his seat amid the three times three of the audience. * * * * * xv.--interest of america in hungarian liberty. [_baltimore, dec. 27th_.] on the 27th december kossuth reached baltimore, and was met by an immense concourse of citizens and a long line of military, who escorted him to his quarters with much enthusiastic demonstration. in the evening he addressed the citizens in the hall of the maryland institute, which was densely crowded, great numbers standing outside the building, when unable to get admittance. after an apologetic introduction, kossuth proceeded to say:-gentlemen! it is gratifying to me to receive this spontaneous welcome. i was already grateful, during my stay in new york, to receive the expression of your sentiments, and your generous resolutions. they become the more beneficial to me, because i am on my way and very near to washington city, where the elected of your national confidence stand in their proud position, as conservators of those lofty interests, which bind your thirty-one stars of sovereign states into one mighty constellation of freedom, power, and right; where the congress and government of this vast republic watch over the common weal of your united country, and hereby make you a power on earth, a fullgrown member of that great family of nations, which, having one father in heaven, are brethren, and should act as brethren. among the interests intrusted by you to the congress and government, your _foreign policy_ is nearly the most important. this, in a great and powerful nation, can have no other basis than eternal law and christian morality. even your peculiar interests are, in my belief, best served, when your foreign policy rests, not on transitory considerations, but on everlasting principles. even in private life no man can entirely cut himself off from others. a man willing to attempt it would be an exile in his own country, an exile in his own city, an exile in his family. just so with nations, which in the larger family of man are individual members. if a nation seclude itself, it is an exile in the midst of humanity. no man, ladies and gentlemen, is independent of his fellow-man; no nation, however powerful, is independent of other nations. put the richest, the strongest man for a single week wholly apart from family, city, country, and he will quickly learn his essential weakness. in a nation, the consequence of total isolation is not felt as soon, but it will at length be felt as surely. the _hours_ of nations are counted by _years_; yet the secluded nation, self-exiled from mankind, dwindles away. woe to the people, whose citizens care only for their own present, and not for the future of their country! the future, in which they have to live immortally by children and children's children, with whose glory and happiness and power they ought now to sympathize. men or nations secluded are like the silk-worm, which secretes itself in a self-woven case, and at length creeps out to die. so will it at length be with the nation which is wrapped up in self. it is one of your glories, that some portions of your united republic are farther from other portions than hungary is from baltimore: mere distance is therefore no reason why you should be unconcerned about our fate. you are not too far for commercial intercourse with the most distant coasts of europe; and especially since the invention of one of your citizens has been brought to higher perfection, the ocean rather unites you to us, than separates you. would you have the _advantages_ of the connection, without the _duties_ which spring out of it? disregard of duty sooner or later kills advantage. i need not remind you what a link of nature, blood, language, science, industry, religion, civilization, exists between you and us, and binds us ever tighter. you cannot help feeling at home our condition in europe. our peace or war, our civilization or barbarism, our freedom or oppression, our wealth or starvation, progress or retrogression, _must_ act upon you, just as your condition reacts upon us. the link between the destinies of christendom cannot be cut asunder. in fact, there never yet was a time when europe more demanded that you should have _some_ policy towards it; and indifference is none at all. at this moment it is under universal oppression of _social, political_, and _religious_ liberty,--the three treasures which make your glory and happiness. this oppression is ordered by russia, and executed by her satellites. the elected president of france has impiously stabbed the constitution, to make himself emperor. the austrian ministry has openly declared that the absolutist powers will maintain him. thus the impulse of revolution has been given; its vibration will be felt throughout europe and in my fatherland. never will you have an opportunity more glorious for you, and more favourable to mankind, for adopting a real policy founded upon principles. the people of hungary have abundant motives to risk life for freedom and independence. once we had a nationality; now we have none. once we had a constitution;--by the blessing of god we succeeded to transform it three years ago from an aristocratic to a democratic one;--now hungary has no constitution at all. for a thousand years we were a free people; we are now so no longer. like a flock of sheep, we are appropriated, not by the austrian empire, not by the nation, but by a despotic ambitious family. we had freedom of the press. not nineteen years ago, i began the struggle, and endured three years imprisonment for it; but we won that great right of mankind--free expression of thought. now there is no press at all in hungary; there is only the hangman and martial law. we established equal protection for every religion; now there is equal oppression for all. the protestant church had its own self-government for its churches and schools, won by victorious arms and secured by a hundred laws; now the laws are torn down, and the freedom of church and school is gone. the catholic church had control of its own estates; now, day by day, the nearly bankrupt austrian government is overgrowing that property by the poisonous weeds of a new loan, on which it vegetates, a curse to every nation on the continent. such is the condition of the catholic church, concerning which i--a protestant, not only by birth, but also by conviction--declare, that during a whole lifetime, when hungary was struggling for religious liberty, that church contended in the foremost rank for the rights of us protestants. so much do we value the freedom of conscience, that the very thought was repugnant to us all, that there should be unequal rights of citizenship between protestants and catholics and professors of the faith of moses. zeal for religious freedom will kindle magyars to struggle, as long as there is blood in our veins. as during three centuries, so the late war was for religious independence as well as civil; indeed, still earlier, we were the barrier of christendom against the invading mahommedan. we succeeded lately in freeing the agriculture of hungary, and transforming peasants into freeholders; now the austrian dynasty is stealthily bringing back feudal rights. in freeing the peasants, we provided for indemnification of landlords; austria taxes the peasants very heavily, and does not (for she cannot) indemnify the landlords; because her violence and wastefulness does not know how to turn our public estates to account. she favours a few landlords only, who are faithful tools of her oppression. during our struggle, we issued paper-money,--it was called the kossuth-bank-note; austria disavowed it, and commanded its surrender, yet twenty millions are firmly held by the people, as valuable after a new revolution. before we fell under the stroke of russian interference, the taxation permitted by our parliament was only four and a half millions of dollars; austria now imposes sixty. our people burn their tobacco-seed and cut down their vines, rather than endure her tax. such are the motives which austria gives to hungary _not_ to make a new revolution! there is not a single interest which she has not mortally wounded. the mind, the heart, dignity, conscience, self-esteem, hatred, love, revenge, besides every material interest of every class, is engaged to the struggle. the oppression of hungary has ratified the oppression of all our continent. since she has fallen, italy has been completely crushed, the moderate freedom of germany has been put down by austria with the support of russia; lastly, the usurpation of louis napoleon has been made possible. without the restoration of hungary europe cannot be freed from russian thraldom; under which nationalities are erased, no freedom is possible, all religions are subjected to like slavery. gentlemen! the emperor napoleon spoke a prophetic word, when he said that in fifty years all europe would be either republican or cossack. hungary once free, europe is republican; hungary permanently crushed, all europe is cossack. and what does hungary _need_ for freedom? not that other nations should fight our proper battle against our immediate oppressor. we have hearts loving freedom and ready to shed their blood for it; we have armies fully equal to austria, we want only "fair play." let the united states feel itself to be as it is, a power on earth, bound to aid in the police of the nations, and in the name of violated right let it say to the russian intruder, "keep back, hands off, let the brave magyars fight their own battle, _else_ we must take their part." for centuries, perhaps, you will have no more glorious opportunity than now. hitherto, the word glory has been connected with conquest and oppression. take the new glory for yours, by assuring to all nations exemption from the conspiracy of tyrants. that is what i _first_ humbly request and hope. [kossuth proceeded, as in former speeches, to explain his other requests, viz. _secondly_, free commerce with america, whether hungary was in war with austria or not; _thirdly_, that when the suitable moment arrived, the government should recognize the legitimate character of the declaration of independence made by hungary in april, 1849. he added]:-these requests i have very often explained since i have had the honour to be in the united states. i explained them yesterday in philadelphia--the cradle of your declaration of independence. there i was answered, not only by the unanimous adoption of these resolutions on the part of the city of harrisburg the capital of pennsylvania, but also by the people of philadelphia, at a great and important meeting. nor was that enough. i received more in philadelphia. i was told that, besides the granting of these my humble requests, whenever war breaks out for hungary's freedom and independence i shall find brave hearts and stout arms among the twenty-four millions of the people of the united states ready to go over to europe and fight side by side in the great battle for the freedom and independence of the european continent. i was told that it was not possible, when the battle for mankind's liberty is fought, for the sword of washington to rest in its scabbard. that sword, which struck the first blow here on this continent for the republican freedom of this great country, must be present there, where the last stroke for all humanity will be given. now, gentlemen, i will not abuse your kind indulgence and patience, which you have bestowed in your crowded situation. i will only say, that should this be the generous will of the people of the united states, in the name of the honour of my nation i can give the assurance that the hungarians will be found worthy to fight side by side with you for civil and political freedom on the european continent, and to take care, with the sword of washington, that no hair of that lock which i received as a present in philadelphia, and which i promised to attach to that very standard which i will bear to decide the victory against despotism--that no hair of that lock shall fall into the hands of tyrants. and now may the ladies who have honoured me with their presence graciously allow me to express to them my most humble thanks and one humble prayer. the destinies of mankind--the future of humanity--repose in the hands of womanhood. the mark which the mother imprints upon the brow of the child remains for his whole life. ladies of the united states, when the wandering exile passes away from your presence, take to your kind care the great cause of the liberty of the world with the tenderness with which a mother takes care of her child; and when _you_ take care of this great cause, the sympathy of the people of the united states will not vanish like the passing emotion of the heart, but will become substantial, active, and effectual. the speaker then took his seat, with three times three from the audience. judge legrand followed and proposed the harrisburg resolutions, which were adopted. they are as annexed:-resolved,--that the citizens of harrisburg, the seat of government of pennsylvania, in town meeting assembled, hereby approve and endorse the three propositions promulgated by louis kossuth, governor of hungary, in his great speech before the mayor and authorities of the city of new york, viz.:-"first. that feeling interested in the maintenance of the laws of nations, acknowledging the sovereign right of every people to dispose of its own domestic concerns to be one of the laws, and the interference with this sovereign right to be a violation of these laws of nations, the people of the united states--resolved to respect and to make respected these public laws--declares the russian past intervention in hungary to be a violation of these laws, which, if reiterated, would be a new violation, and would not be regarded indifferently by the people of the united states. "second. that the people of the united states are resolved to maintain its right of commercial intercourse with the nations of europe, whether they be in a state of revolution against their government or not; and that, with the view of approaching scenes on the continent of europe, the people invite the government to take appropriate measures for the protection of the trade of the people with the mediterranean. "third. that the people of the united states should declare their opinion in respect to the question of the independence of hungary, and urge the government to act accordingly." resolved, that the people of hungary are, and ought to remain a free and independent nation; that louis kossuth is their lawful governor, and that the hungarian people should not be prevented from exercising the rights of freemen by the tyranny of austria and russia. resolved, that we extend to louis kossuth, governor of hungary, and the hungarian nation, that has made such a noble stand in the cause of freedom, that sympathy, aid, and support, which freemen alone know how to grant. resolved, that a committee of fifteen, including the officers of this meeting, be appointed to repair to philadelphia, and invite the governor of hungary to visit the capital of pennsylvania at such times as may suit his convenience. * * * * * xvi.--novelties in american republicanism. [_washington banquet, jan. 5th_, 1852.] the banquet given by a large number of the members of the two houses of congress to kossuth took place at the national hotel, in washington city. the number present was about two hundred and fifty. the hon. wm. r. king, of alabama, president of the senate, presided. on his right sat louis kossuth, and on his left the hon. daniel webster, secretary of state. on the right of kossuth at the same table, sat the hon. linn boyd, speaker of the house of representatives. besides other distinguished guests who responded to toasts, are named hon. thomas corwin, secretary of the treasury, and hon. alex. h. h. stuart, secretary of the interior. a few minutes after eight o'clock, a large number of ladies were admitted, and the president of the senate requested gentlemen to fill their glasses for the first toast, which was, "the president of the united states." to this, mr. webster responded. the president then announced the second toast: "the judiciary of the united states: the expounder of the constitution and the bulwark of liberty regulated by law." judge wayne, of the supreme court of the united states, replied, and after alluding to "the distinguished stranger" who was then among them, said: i give you, gentlemen, as a sentiment: "constitutional liberty to all the nations of the earth, supported by christian faith and the morality of the bible." the toast was received with enthusiastic applause. the third toast was,-"the navy of the united states: the home squadron everywhere. its glory was illustrated, when its flag in a foreign sea gave liberty and protection to the hungarian chief." mr. stanton, of tennessee, in his reply, said: but recently, mr. president, a new significance has been given to this flag. heretofore, the navy has been the symbol of our power and the emblem of our liberty, but now it speaks of humanity and of a noble sympathy for the oppressed of all nations. _the home squadron everywhere_, to give protection to the brave and to those who may have fallen in the cause of freedom! your acquiescence in that sentiment indicates the profound sympathy of the people of the united states for the people of hungary, manifested in the person of their great chief; and i can conceive of no duty that would be more acceptable to the gallant officers of the navy of the united states except one, and that is, _to strike a blow for liberty themselves in a just cause, approved by our government_. the fourth toast was,-"the army of the united states. in saluting the illustrious exile with magnanimous courtesy, as high as it could pay to any power on earth, it has added grace to the glory of its history." general shields, senator for illinois, chairman of the committee of military affairs in the senate, being loudly called for, replied in the necessary absence of general scott, the chief of the army; and after an appropriate acknowledgment of the toast, added: in paving this very high honor to our illustrious guest--this noble hungarian--let me observe that that army which has been toasted to-night spoke for his reception by the voice of their cannon; and the cannon that spoke there spoke the voice of twenty-five millions of people. sir, that salute which the american cannon gave the hungarian exile had a deep meaning in it. it was not a salute to the mere man louis kossuth, but it was a salute in favour of the great principle which he represents--the principle which he advocates, the principle of nationality and of human liberty. sir, i was born in a land which has suffered as an oppressed nation. i am now a citizen of a land which would have suffered from the same power, had it not been for the bravery, gallantry, and good fortune of the men of that time. sir, as an irishman by birth, and an american by adoption, i would feel myself a traitor to both countries if i did not sustain downtrodden nationalities everywhere--in hungary, in poland, in germany, in italy--everywhere where man is trodden down and oppressed. and, sir, i say again, that that army which maintained itself in three wars against one of the greatest and most powerful nations of the world, will, if the trying time should come again, maintain that same flag (the stars and stripes) and the same triumph, and the same victories in the cause of liberty. [great applause.] the president of the evening then, after a cordial speech, proposed the fifth toast: "hungary, represented in the person of our honoured guest, having proved herself worthy to be free by the virtues and valour of her sons, the law of nations and the dictates of justice alike demand that she shall have fair play in her struggle for independence." this toast was received with immense applause, which lasted several minutes. kossuth then rose and spoke as follows: sir: as once cineas the epirote stood among the senators of rome, who, with a word of self-conscious majesty, arrested kings in their ambitious march--thus, full of admiration and of reverence, i stand amongst you, legislators of the new capitol, that glorious hall of your people's collective majesty. the capitol of old yet stands, but the spirit has departed from it, and is come over to yours, purified by the air of liberty. the old stands a mournful monument of the fragility of human things: yours as a sanctuary of eternal right. the old beamed with the red lustre of conquest, now darkened by the gloom of oppression; yours is bright with freedom. the old absorbed the world into its own centralized glory; yours protects your own nation from being absorbed, even by itself. the old was awful with unrestricted power; yours is glorious by having restricted it. at the view of the old, nations trembled; at the view of yours, humanity hopes. to the old, misfortune was introduced with fettered hands to kneel at triumphant conquerors' feet; to yours the triumph of introduction is granted to unfortunate exiles who are invited to the honour of a seat. and where kings and caesars never will be hailed for their power and wealth, there the persecuted chief of a downtrodden nation is welcomed as your great republic's guest, precisely because he is persecuted, helpless, and poor. in the old, the terrible _voe victis!_ was the rule; in yours, protection to the oppressed, malediction to ambitious oppressors, and consolation to a vanquished just cause. and while from the old a conquered world was ruled, you in yours provide for the common federative interests of a territory larger than that old conquered world. there sat men boasting that their will was sovereign of the earth; here sit men whose glory is to acknowledge "the laws of nature and of nature's god," and to do what their sovereign, the people, wills. sir, there is history in these contrasts. history of past ages and history of future centuries may be often recorded in small facts. the particulars to which the passion of living men clings, as if human fingers could arrest the wheel of destiny, these particulars die away; it is the issue which makes history, and that issue is always coherent with its causes. there is a necessity of consequences wherever the necessity of position exists. principles are the _alpha_: they must finish with _omega_, and they will. thus history may be often told in a few words. before the heroic struggle of greece had yet engaged your country's sympathy for the fate of freedom, in europe then so far distant and now so near, chateaubriand happened to be in athens, and he heard from a _minaret_ raised upon the propylaeum's ruins a turkish priest in the arabic language announcing the lapse of hours to the christians of minerva's town. what immense history there was in the small fact of a turkish imaum crying out, "pray, pray! the hour is running fast, and the judgment draws near." sir, there is equally a history of future ages written in the honour bestowed by you on my humble self. the first governor of independent hungary, driven from his native land by russian violence; an exile on turkish soil, protected by a mahommedan sultan from the blood-thirst of christian tyrants; cast back a prisoner to far asia by diplomacy; was at length rescued from his asiatic prison, when america crossed the atlantic, charged with the hopes of europe's oppressed nations. he pleads, as a poor exile, before the people of this great republic, his country's wrongs and its intimate connection with the fate of the european continent, and, in the boldness of a just cause, claims that the principles of the christian religion be raised to a law of nations. to see that not only is the boldness of the poor exile forgiven, but that he is consoled by the sympathy of millions, encouraged by individuals, associations, meetings, cities, and states; supported by effective aid and greeted by congress and by government as the nation's guest; honoured, out of generosity, with that honour which only one man before him received (a man who had deserved them from your gratitude,) with honours such as no potentate ever can receive, and this banquet here, and the toast which i have to thank you for: oh! indeed, sir, there is a history of future ages in all these facts! they will go down to posterity as the proper consequences of great principles. sir, though i have a noble pride in my principles, and the inspiration of a just cause, still i have also the consciousness of my personal insignificance. never will i forget what is due from me to the _sovereign source_ of my public capacity. this i owe to my nation's dignity; and therefore, respectfully thanking this highly distinguished assembly in my country's name, i have the boldness to say that hungary well deserves your sympathy; that hungary has a claim to protection, because it has a claim to justice. but as to myself, i am well aware that in all these honours i have no personal share. nay, i know that even that which might seem to be personal in your toast, is only an acknowledgment of a historical fact, very instructively connected with a principle valuable and dear to every republican heart in the united states of america. as to ambition, i indeed never was able to understand how anybody can love ambition more than liberty. but i am glad to state a historical fact, as a principal demonstration of that influence which institutions exercise upon the character of nations. we hungarians are very fond of the principle of municipal self-government, and we have a natural horror against centralization. that fond attachment to municipal self-government, without which there is no provincial freedom possible, is a fundamental feature of our national character. we brought it with us from far asia a thousand years ago, and we preserved it throughout the vicissitudes of ten centuries. no nation has perhaps so much struggled and suffered for the civilized christian world as we. we do not complain of this lot. it may be heavy, but it is not inglorious. where the cradle of our saviour stood, and where his divine doctrine was founded, there now another faith rules: the whole of europe's armed pilgrimage could not avert this fate from that sacred spot, nor stop the rushing waves of islamism from absorbing the christian empire of constantine. _we_ stopped those rushing waves. the breast of my nation proved a breakwater to them. we guarded christendom, that luthers and calvins might reform it. it was a dangerous time, and its dangers often placed the confidence of all my nation into one man's hand. but there was not a single instance in our history where a man honoured by his people's confidence deceived them for his own ambition. the man out of whom russian diplomacy succeeded in making a murderer of his nation's hopes, gained some victories when victories were the chief necessity of the moment, and at the head of an army, circumstances gave him the ability to ruin his country; but he never had the people's confidence. so even he is no contradiction to the historical truth, that no hungarian whom his nation honoured with its confidence was ever seduced by ambition to become dangerous to his country's liberty. that is a remarkable fact, and yet it is not accidental; it springs from the proper influence of institutions upon the national character. our nation, through all its history, was educated in the school of local self-government; and in such a country, grasping ambition having no field, has no place in man's character. the truth of this doctrine becomes yet more illustrated by a quite contrary historical fact in france. whatever have been the changes of government in that great country--and many they have been, to be sure--we have seen a convention, a directorate, consuls, and one consul, and an emperor, and the restoration, and the citizen king, and the republic; through all these different experiments centralization was the keynote of the institutions of france--power always centralized; omnipotence always vested somewhere. and, remarkable indeed, france has never yet raised one single man to the seat of power, who has not sacrificed his country's freedom to his personal ambition! it is sorrowful indeed, but it is natural. it is in the garden of centralization that the venomous plant of ambition thrives. i dare confidently affirm, that in your great country there exists not a single man through whose brains has ever passed the thought, that he would wish to raise the seat of his ambition upon the ruins of your country's liberty, if he could. such a wish is impossible in the united states. institutions react upon the character of nations. he who sows wind will reap storm. history is the revelation of providence. the almighty rules by eternal laws not only the material but also the moral world; and as every law is a principle, so every principle is a law. men as well as nations are endowed with free-will to choose a principle, but, that once chosen, the consequences must be accepted. with self-government is freedom, and with freedom is justice and patriotism. with centralization is ambition, and with ambition dwells despotism. happy your great country, sir, for being so warmly attached to that great principle of self-government. upon this foundation your fathers raised a home to freedom more glorious than the world has ever seen. upon this foundation you have developed it to a living wonder of the world. happy your great country, sir! that it was selected by the blessing of the lord to prove the glorious practicability of a federative union of many sovereign states, all preserving their state-rights and their self-government, and yet united in one--every star beaming with its own lustre, but altogether one constellation on mankind's canopy. upon this foundation your free country has grown to prodigious power in a surprizingly brief period, a power which attracts by its fundamental principle. you have conquered by it more in seventy-five years than rome by arms in centuries. your principles will conquer the world. by the glorious example of your freedom, welfare, and security, mankind is about to become conscious of its aim. the lesson you give to humanity will not be lost. the respect for state-rights in the federal government of america, and in its several states, will become an instructive example for universal toleration, forbearance, and justice to the future states, and republics of europe. upon this basis those mischievous questions of language-nationalities will be got rid of, which cunning despotism has raised in europe to murder liberty. smaller states will find security in the principle of federative union, while they will preserve their national freedom by the principle of sovereign self-government; and while larger states, abdicating the principle of centralization will cease to be a blood-field to unscrupulous usurpation and a tool to the ambition of wicked men, municipal institutions will ensure the development of local elements; freedom, formerly an abstract political theory, will be brought to every municipal hearth; and out of the welfare and contentment of all parts will flow happiness, peace, and security for the whole. that is my confident hope. then will the fluctuations of germany's fate at once subside. it will become the heart of europe, not by melting north germany into a southern frame, or the south into a northern; not by absorbing historical peculiarities into a centralized omnipotence; not by mixing all in one state, but by federating several sovereign states into a union like yours. upon a similar basis will take place the national regeneration of sclavonic states, and not upon the sacrilegious idea of panslavism, which means the omnipotence of the czar. upon a similar basis shall we see fair italy independent and free. not unity, but _union_ will and must become the watchword of national members, hitherto torn rudely asunder by provincial rivalries, out of which a crowd of despots and common servitude arose. in truth it will be a noble joy to your great republic to feel that the moral influence of your glorious example has worked this happy development in mankind's destiny; nor have i the slightest doubt of the efficacy of that example. but there is one thing indispensable to it, without which there is no hope for this happy issue. it is, that the oppressed nations of europe become the masters of their future, free to regulate their own domestic concerns. and to this nothing is wanted but to have that "fair play" to all, _for_ all, which you, sir, in your toast, were pleased to pronounce as a right of my nation, alike sanctioned by the law of nations as by the dictates of eternal justice. without this "fair play" there is no hope for europe--no hope of seeing your principles spread. yours is a happy country, gentlemen. you had more than fair play. you had active and effectual aid from europe in your struggle for independence, which, once achieved, you used so wisely as to become a prodigy of freedom and welfare, and a lesson of life to nations. but we in europe--we, unhappily, have no such fair play. with us, against every pulsation of liberty all despots are united in a common league; and you may be sure that despots will never yield to the moral influence of your great example. they hate the very existence of this example. it is the sorrow of their thoughts, and the incubus of their dreams. to stop its moral influence abroad, and to check its spread at home, is what they wish, instead of yielding to its influence. we shall have no fair play. the cossack already rules, by louis napoleon's usurpation, to the very borders of the atlantic ocean. one of your great statesmen--now, to my deep sorrow, bound to the sick bed of far advanced age[*]--(alas! that i am deprived of the advice which his wisdom could have imparted to me)--your great statesman told the world thirty years ago that paris was transferred to st. petersburg. what would he now say, when st. petersburg is transferred to paris, and europe is but an appendage to russia? [footnote *: henry clay, since deceased.] alas! europe can no longer secure to europe fair play. england only remains; but even england casts a sorrowful glance over the waves. still, we will stand our ground, "sink or swim, live or die." you know the word; it is your own. we will follow it; it will be a bloody path to tread. despots have conspired against the world. terror spreads over europe, and persecutes by way of anticipation. from paris to pesth there is a gloomy silence, like the silence of nature before the terrors of a hurricane. it is a sensible silence, disturbed only by the thousandfold rattling of muskets by which napoleon prepares to crush the people who gave him a home when he was an exile, and by the groans of new martyrs in sicily, milan, vienna, and pesth. the very sympathy which i met in england, and was expected to meet here, throws my sisters into the dungeons of austria. well, god's will be done! the heart may break, but duty will be done. we will stand our place, though to us in europe there be no "fair play." but so much i hope, that no just man on earth can charge me with unbecoming arrogance, when here, on this soil of freedom, i kneel down and raise my prayer to god: "almighty father of humanity, will thy merciful arm not raise up a power on earth to protect the law of nations when there are so many to violate it?" it is a prayer and nothing else. what would remain to the oppressed if they were not even permitted to pray? the rest is in the hand of god. sir, i most fervently thank you for the acknowledgment that my country has proved worthy to be free. yes, gentlemen, i feel proud at my nation's character, heroism, love of freedom and vitality; and i bow with reverential awe before the decree of providence which has placed my country into a position such that, without its restoration to independence, there is no possibility for freedom and independence of nations on the european continent. even what now in france is coming to pass proves the truth of this. every disappointed hope with which europe looked towards france is a degree more added to the importance of hungary to the world. upon our plains were fought the decisive battles for christendom; _there_ will be fought the decisive battle for the independence, of nations, for state rights, for international law, and for democratic liberty. we will live free, or die like men; but should my people be doomed to die, it will be the first whose death will not be recorded as suicide, but as a martyrdom for the world, and future ages will mourn over the sad fate of the magyar race, doomed to perish, not because we deserved it, but because in the nineteenth century there was nobody to protect "the laws of nature and of nature's god." but i look to the future with confidence and with hope. manifold adversities could not fail to impress some mark of sorrow upon my heart, which is at least a guard against sanguine illusions. but i have a steady faith in principles. once in my life indeed i was deplorably deceived in my anticipations, from supposing principle to exist in quarters where it did not. i did not count on generosity or chivalrous goodness from the governments of england and france, but i gave them credit for selfish and instinctive prudence. i supposed them to value parliamentary government, and to have foresight enough to know the alarming dangers to which they would be exposed, if they allowed the armed interference of russia to overturn historical, limited, representative institutions. but france and england both proved to be blind, and deceived me. it was a horrible mistake; and has issued in a horrible result. the present condition of europe, which ought to have been foreseen by those governments, exculpates me for having erred through expecting them to see their own interests. well, there is a providence in every fact. without this mistake the principles of american republicanism would for a long time yet not have found a fertile soil on that continent, where it was considered wisdom to belong to the french school. now matters stand thus: that either the continent of europe has no future at all, or this future is american republicanism. and who can believe that two hundred millions of that continent, which is the mother of such a civilization, are not to have any future at all? such a doubt would be almost blasphemy against providence. but there is a providence indeed--a just, a bountiful providence, and in it i trust, with all the piety of my religion. i dare to say my very self was an instrument of it. even my being here, when four months ago i was yet a prisoner of the league of european despots in far asia, and the sympathy which your glorious people honours me with, and the high benefit of the welcome of your congress, and the honour to be your guest, to be the guest of your great republic--i, a poor exile--is there not a very intelligible manifestation of providence in it?--the more, when i remember that the name of your guest is by the furious rage of the austrian tyrant, nailed to the gallows. i confidently trust that the nations of europe have a future. i am aware that this future is vehemently resisted by the bayonets of absolutism; but i know that though bayonets may give a defence, they afford no seat to a prince. i trust in the future of my native land, because i know that it is worthy to have one, and that it is necessary to the destinies of humanity. i trust to the principles of republicanism; and, whatever may be my personal fate, so much i know, that my country will preserve to you and your glorious land an everlasting gratitude. a toast in honour of mr. webster, the secretary of state, having then been proposed, that gentleman responded in an ample speech, of which the following is an extract:-gentlemen, i do not propose at this hour of the night, to entertain you by any general disquisition upon the value of human freedom, upon the inalienable rights of man, or upon any general topics of that kind; but i wish to say a few words upon the precise question, as i understand it, that exists before the civilized world, between hungary and the austrian government, and i may arrange the thoughts to which i desire to give utterance under two or three general heads. and in the first place i say, that wherever there is in the christian and civilized world a nationality of character--wherever there exists a nation of sufficient knowledge and wealth and population to constitute a government, then a national government is a necessary and proper result of nationality of character. we may talk of it as we please, but there is nothing that satisfies the human being in an enlightened age, unless he is governed by his own countrymen and the institutions of his own government. no matter how easy be the yoke of a foreign power, no matter how lightly it sits upon the shoulders, if it is not imposed by the voice of his own nation and of his own country, he will not, he cannot, and he _means_ not to be happy under its burden. there is not a civilized and intelligent man on earth that enjoys entire satisfaction in his condition, if he does not live under the government of his own nation--his own country, whose volitions and sentiments and sympathies are like his own. hence he cannot say "this is not my country; it is the country of another power; it is a country belonging to somebody else." therefore, i say that whenever there is a nation of sufficient intelligence and numbers and wealth to maintain a government, distinguished in its character and its history and its institutions, that nation cannot be happy but under a government of its own choice. then, sir, the next question is, whether hungary, as she exists in our ideas, as we see her, and as we know her, is distinct in her nationality, is competent in her population, is also competent in her knowledge and devotion to correct sentiment, is competent in her national capacity for liberty and independence, to obtain a government that shall be hungarian out and out? upon that subject, gentlemen, i have no manner of doubt. let us look a little at the position in which this matter stands. what is hungary? hungary is about the size of great britain, and comprehends nearly half of the territory of austria. [according to one authority its population is 14 millions and a half.] it is stated by another authority that the population of hungary is _nearly_ 14,000,000; that of england (in 1841) nearly 15,000,000; that of prussia about 16,000,000. thus it is evident that, in point of power, so far as power depends upon population, hungary possesses as much power as england _proper_, or even as the kingdom of prussia. well, then, there is population enough--there are people enough. who, then, are they? they are distinct from the nations that surround them. they are distinct from the austrians on the west, and the turks on the east; and i will say in the next place that they are an _enlightened_ nation. they have their history; they have their traditions; they are attached to their own institutions--institutions which have existed for more than a thousand years. gentlemen, it is remarkable that, on the western coasts of europe, political light exists. there is a sun in the political firmament, and that sun sheds his light on those who are able to enjoy it. but in eastern europe, generally speaking, and on the confines between eastern europe and asia, there is no political sun in the heavens. it is all an arctic zone of political life. the luminary, that enlightens the world in general, seldom rises there above the horizon. the light which they possess is at best crepuscular, a kind of twilight, and they are under the necessity of groping about to catch, as they may, any stray gleams of the light of day. gentlemen, the country of which your guest to-night is a native is a remarkable exception. she has shown through her whole history, for many hundreds of years, an attachment to the principles of civil liberty, and of law and order, and obedience to the constitution which the will of the great majority have established. that is the fact; and it ought to be known wherever the question of the practicability of hungarian liberty and independence are discussed. it ought to be known that hungary stands out from it above her neighbours in all that respects free institutions, constitutional government, and a hereditary love of liberty. gentlemen, my sentiments in regard to this effort made by hungary are here sufficiently well expressed. in a memorial addressed to lord john russell and lord palmerston, said to have been written by lord fitzwilliam, and signed by him and several other peers and members of parliament, the following language is used, the object of the memorial being to ask the mediation of england in favour of hungary. "while so many of the nations of europe have engaged in revolutionary movements, and have embarked in schemes of doubtful policy and still more doubtful success, it is gratifying to the undersigned to be able to assure your lordships that the hungarians demand nothing but the recognition of ancient rights and the stability and integrity of their ancient constitution. to your lordships it cannot be unknown that that constitution bears a striking family-resemblance to that of our own country." gentlemen, i have said that a national government, where there is a distinct nationality, is essential to human happiness. i have said that in my opinion, hungary is thus capable of human happiness. i have said that she possesses that distinct nationality, that power of population, and that of wealth, which entitles her to have a government of her own; and i have now to add what i am sure will not sound well upon the upper danube; and that is, that, in my humble judgment, the imposition of a foreign yoke upon a people capable of self-government, while it oppresses and depresses that people, adds nothing to the strength of those who impose that yoke. in my opinion, austria would be a better and a stronger government to-morrow if she confined the limits of her power to hereditary and german dominions. especially if she saw in hungary a strong, sensible, independent neighbouring nation; because i think that the cost of keeping hungary quiet is not repaid by any benefit derived from hungarian levies or tributes. and then again, good neighbourhood, and the goodwill and generous sympathies of mankind, and the generosity of character that ought to pervade the minds of governments as well as those of individuals, is vastly more promoted by living in a state of friendship and amity with those who differ from us in modes of government, than by any attempt to consolidate power in the hands of one over all the rest. gentlemen, the progress of things is unquestionably onward. it is onward with respect to hungary. it is onward everywhere. public opinion, in my estimation at least, is making great progress. it will penetrate all resources; it will come more or less to animate all minds; and in respect to that country, for which our sympathies to-night have been so strongly invoked, i cannot but say that i think the people of hungary are an enlightened, industrious, sober, well-inclined community; and i wish only to add, that i do not now enter into any discussion of the form of government which may be proper for hungary. of course, all of you, like myself, would be glad to see her, when she becomes independent, embrace that system of government which is most acceptable to ourselves. we shall rejoice to see our american model upon the lower danube, and on the mountains of hungary. but that is not the first step. it is not that which will be our first prayer for hungary. the first prayer shall be, that hungary may become independent of all foreign power, that her destinies may be entrusted to her own hands, and to her own discretion. i do not profess to understand the social relations and connections of races, and of twenty other things that may affect the public institutions of hungary. all i say is, that hungary can regulate these matters for herself infinitely better than they can be regulated for her by austria, and therefore i limit my aspirations for hungary, for the present, to that single and simple point hungarian independence:-"hungarian independence; hungarian control of her own destinies; and hungary as a distinct nationality among the nations of europe." the toast was received with enthusiastic applause. the president then announced the next toast-"the rights of states are only valuable when subject to the free control of those to whom they appertain, and utterly worthless if to be determined by the sword of foreign interference." mr. douglas of illinois, one of the candidates for the presidency, in responding, spoke at length, and denounced the injustice and folly of england. in the close he said:-he regarded the intervention of russia in the affairs of hungary as a palpable violation of the laws of nations, that would authorize the united states to interfere. if russia, or austria, or any other power, should interfere again, then he would determine whether or not we should act, his action depending upon the circumstances as they should then be presented. in the mean time, however, he would proclaim the principle of the laws of nations: he would instruct our ministers abroad to protest the moment there was the first symptom of the violation of these laws. he would show to europe that we had as much right to sympathize in a system of government similar to our own, as they had in similar circumstances. in his opinion, hungary was better adapted for a liberal movement than any other nation in europe. in conclusion, mr. douglas begged leave to offer the following sentiment:-"hungary: when she shall make her next struggle for liberty, may the friends of freedom throughout the world proclaim to the ears of all european despots, hands off, a clear field and a fair fight, and god will protect the right." the toast was received with the greatest applause. colonel florence submitted the following sentiment:-"the american minister to france, whose intervention defeated the quintuple treaty." general cass replied in a very energetic speech, in which he stated that he was approaching the age of three score years and ten. turning to kossuth, he said:-leader of your country's revolution--asserter of the rights of man--martyr of the principles of national independence--welcome to our shores! sir, the ocean, more merciful than the wrath of tyrants, has brought you to a country of freedom and of safety. that was a proud day for you, but it was a prouder day for us, when you left the shores of old hellespont and put your foot upon an american deck. protected by american cannon, with the stars of our country floating over you, you could defy the world in arms! and, sir, here in the land of washington, it is not a barren welcome that i desire to give you; but much further than that i am willing to go. i am willing to lay down the great principles of national rights, and adhere to them. the sun of heaven never shone on such a government as this. and shall we sit blindfolded, with our arms crossed, and say to tyranny, "prevail in every other region of the world?" [cries of "no, no!"] i thank you for the response. every independent nation under heaven has a right to establish just such a government as it pleases. and if the oppressed of any nation wish to throw off their shackles, they have the right, without the interference of any other; and, with the first and greatest of our presidents--the father of his country--i trust we are prepared to say, that "we sympathize with every oppressed nation which unfurls the banner of freedom." and i am willing, as a member of congress, to pass a declaration to-morrow, in the name of the american people, maintaining that sentiment. a toast was then proposed: "turkey: her noble hospitality extended to a fallen patriot, even at the risk of war, proves her to be worthy of the respect and friendship of liberal nations." kossuth replied as follows:-sir, i feel very thankful for having the opportunity to express in this place my everlasting gratitude to the sultan of turkey and to his noble people. i am not a man to flatter any one. before god, nations, and principles i bow--before none else. but i bow with warm and proud gratitude, before the memory of the generous conduct i met in turkey. and i entreat your kind permission to state some facts, which perhaps may contribute something to a better knowledge of that country, because i am confident that, when it is once better known, more attention will be bestowed on its future. firstly, as to myself. when i was in that country, and russia and austria, in the full pride of their victory, were imposing their will upon the sultan, and claiming the surrender of me and my associates, it is true that a grand divan was held at constantinople, and not very favourable opinions were pronounced by a certain party opposed to the existing government in turkey, whereby the sublime porte itself was led to believe that there was no help for us poor exiles, but to abandon our faith and become mohammedans, in order that turkey might be able to protect us. i thereupon made a declaration, which i believe i was bound in honesty to make. but i owe it to the honour of the sultan to say openly, that even before i had declared that i would rather die than accept this condition--before that declaration was conveyed to constantinople, and before any one there could have got knowledge that i had appealed to the public opinion of england in relation thereto--before all this was known at constantinople, when the decision of that great divan was announced to the sultan to be unfavourable to the exiles, he out of the generosity of his own heart, without knowing what we were willing to accept or not to accept, declared: "they are upon the soil; they have trusted to my honour, to my justice--to my religion--and they shall not be deceived. rather will i accept war than deliver them up." that is entirely his merit. but notwithstanding these high obligations which i feel towards turkey, i never will try to engage public sympathy and attention towards a country--towards a power--upon the basis of one fact. but there are many considerations in reference to turkey which merit the full attention of the united states of america. when we make a comparison between the turkish government and that of austria and russia in respect to religious liberty, the scale turns entirely in favour of turkey. there is not only toleration for all religions, but the government does not mix with their religious affairs, but leaves these entirely to their own control; whereas under austria, although self-government was secured by three victorious revolutions, by treaties which ensured these revolutions, and by hundreds of laws; still austria has blotted out from hungary the self-government of the protestant church, while turkey accords and protects the self-government of every religious denomination. russia (as is well known) taking religion as a political tool, persecutes the roman catholics, and indeed the greeks and jews, in such a manner that the heart of man must revolt against it. the sultan, whenever a fanatic dares to encroach on the religious freedom of any one at all in his wide dominions, is the inexorable champion of that religious liberty which is permitted everywhere under his rule. again, i must cite from the history of hungary this fact; that when one-half of hungary was under turkish dominion, and the other half under austrian, religious liberty was always encouraged in that part which was under the turkish rule; and there was not only a full development of protestantism, but unitarianism also was protected; yet by austria the unitarians were afterwards excluded from every civil right, because they were unitarians, although our revolution restored their natural rights. such was the condition in respect to religious liberty under the austrian and under the turkish dominion. now, in respect to municipal self-government, hungary and all those different provinces which are now opposed to the austrian empire,--if indeed an empire which only rests upon the goodwill of a foreign master, can be said to exist, or even to vegetate,--all those different provinces are absorbed by austria. there was not one which had not in former times a constitutional life, not one which austria did not deprive of it by centralizing all power in her own court. such is the principle of christian rule! take, on the other hand, the turk. in turkey i have not only seen the municipal self-government of cities developed to a very considerable degree, but i have seen administration of justice very much like the institution of the jury. i have seen a public trial in a case where one party was a turk, and the other party a christian; where the municipal authorities of the christian and of the turkish population were called together to be not only the witnesses of the trial, but mutually to control and direct it with perfect publicity. but more yet: there exist wallachia and moldavia, under turkish dominion; and the turkish nation, which has conquered that province and is dominant, yet, out of respect for national self-government, has prescribed to its own self not to have the right of a house to dwell in, or a single foot of soil in that land. in all the domestic concerns of the province--which for centuries has had a charter, by which the self-government of wallachia and moldavia was ensured--it is worthy to mention that the turk has never broken his oath. whereas in the european continent there is scarcely a single dynasty, whether king, prince, duke, or emperor, which has not broken faith before god and man. now, the existence of this turkey, great as the present power of europe is, is indispensable to the security of europe. you know that in the crimea, in the time of catherine, potemkin wrote the words, "here passes the way to constantinople." the policy indicated by him at that time is always the policy of st. petersburg; and it is of constantinople that napoleon rightly said, that the power which has it in command, if it is willing, is able, to rule three-quarters of the world. now, it is the intention, it is the consistent policy of the russian cabinet, to lay hold of constantinople; and therefore to protect the independent existence of turkey is necessary to europe: for if turkey be crushed, russia becomes not only entirely predominant, as she already is, but becomes the single mistress of asia and of europe. and to uphold this independence of turkey, gentlemen, nothing is wanted but some encouragement from such a place as the united states. since turkey has lost the possession of buda in hungary, its power is declining. but why? because from that time european diplomatists began to succeed in persuading turkey that she had no strength to stand by herself; and by and bye it became the rule in constantinople that every petty interior question needed european diplomacy. now i say, turkey has vitality such as not many nations have. it has a power that not many have. turkey wants nothing but a consciousness of its own powers and encouragement to stand upon its own feet; and this encouragement, if it comes as counsel, as kind advice, out of such a place as the united states, i am confident will not only be thankfully heard, but also very joyfully followed. that is the only thing which is wanted there. and besides this political consideration that the existence of turkey, as it is, is necessary to the future of europe, there are also high commercial considerations proper to interest and attract the united states. the freedom of commerce on the danube is a law of nations guaranteed by treaties; and yet there exists _no_ freedom. it is in the hands of russia. turkey, to be sure, is very anxious to re-establish freedom; but there is nobody to back her in her demands. turkey can also present to the manufacturing industry of such a country as the united states a far larger and more important market than all china, with her two hundred and fifty millions of inhabitants. but one consideration i can mention--and though it has no reference to the public opinion here, i beg permission to avail myself of this opportunity to pronounce it and give it publicity--and that is, that i hope in the name of the future freedom and independence of the european nations, those provinces of turkey which are inhabited by christians will not, out of theoretical passion, and out of attachment to a mere word, neglect that course of action which alone can lead them to freedom and independence. gentlemen, i declare that should the next revolutionary movement in europe extend to the turkish provinces of moldavia and servia,--and should turkey hereby fall,--this would not become a benefit to those provinces, but would benefit russia only; because then, turkey no more existing, all those provinces will be naturally absorbed by russia; whereas, to hold fast to turkey--that turkey, which respects religious liberty, gives them entirely and fully self-government. so much, gentlemen, i desired to express. i believe you will excuse me for the inappropriate manner in which i have acquitted myself of this, which i considered to be my duty in expressing my thanks to turkey. i declare before you that i am fully convinced of the identity of interest between hungary and turkey. we have a common enemy--therefore hungary and turkey are by natural ties drawn into a close alliance against that enemy. i declare that not only out of gratitude, but also out of a knowledge of this community of interest, i will never in my life let an opportunity escape where i in my humble capacity can contribute to the glory, welfare, and happiness of turkey, but will consider it the duty of honour toward my country to be the truest, most faithful friend of the turkish empire. * * * * * xviii.--aspects of america toward england. [_speech at the anniversary of the battle of new orleans, jan. 8_.] f.p. blair, esq., in the name of the democratic association, pronounced an elaborate address, vindicating the interposition of the king of france to aid the american colonies when they revolted from england, and pointing out that america, in defence of her institutions, may be called on to support the masses of the european nations as a breakwater between herself and despotism. he showed the certain danger to which english freedom would be exposed from the triumph of despotism, and asked:- what have we to expect from neutrality? we may anticipate the treatment which we received from both belligerents when napoleon pressed on to empire over all the nation as russia does now.... can we hope, that when the war is intended to exterminate the principle of which our government is the great exemplar, our people will be allowed the immunity of free trade with the belligerents to grow rich and strong by their calamities?... the impending danger can only be averted from us by the ability of the people of europe, now kept down by military mercenaries, to rise and assert their own rights. to encourage such efforts is the duty of every free people, and of all that would be free.... shall our government hesitate to denounce, as a violation of the law of nations, the intervention of the czar? shall it hesitate to declare it a justification of a counter-intervention?... our countrymen will not assent to the one-sided doctrine. they will intervene to lift up those stricken down by intervention,-the exiles from europe--_liberty_ and _louis kossuth_. the band struck up the well-known marseilles hymn, and kossuth, rising to respond, was received with prolonged cheers. the music having ceased, three hearty cheers were given, and louis kossuth responded to the toast and the address in the following remarks, which were received with warm enthusiasm:-gentlemen: i feel sincerely gratified with the honour of being invited to be present on this solemn occasion, dedicated to the memory of a glorious as well as highly responsible fact in your history. there is high political wisdom in the custom yearly to revive the memory of civil virtue and national glory in the mind of the living generation, because nothing else is so efficient to keep alive the spirit of patriotism--that powerful genius, which, like the angels of scripture, guards with flaming sword the paradise of national liberty and independence. happy the land where the history of the past is the history of the people, and not a mere flattery of kings; and doubly happy the land where the rewards of the past are brightened by present glory, present happiness; and where the noble deeds of the dead, instead of being a mournful monument of vanished greatness which saddens the heart, though it ennobles the mind, are a lasting source of national welfare to the age and to posterity. but where, as in this your happy land, national history is the elementary basis of education--where the very schoolboy is better acquainted with the history of his country than in monarchies almost the professors are--in such a country it would be indeed but a ridiculous parading of vanity for a stranger to dwell upon facts which every child is better acquainted with than he can be. allow me therefore, gentlemen, rather briefly to expound what is the practical philosophy of that great victory which you are assembled to celebrate--what is the moral of the strain as it presents itself to the inquirer's mind. as a man has to pass through several periods of age, each of them marked with its own peculiarities, before he comes to a settled position in life, even so a nation. a nation has first to be born, then to grow; then it has to prove its passive vitality by undergoing a trial of life. afterwards it has to prove its active force to rise within its own immediate horizon. at last, it must take its proper seat amongst the nations of the world as a power on earth. every one of these periods of national life must be gone through. there is no help for it. it is a necessary process of life. and every one of these life-periods has its own natural condition, which must be accepted as a necessity, even if we should not be pleased with it. gentlemen, having passed through the ordeal of an earnest life, with the prospect of yet having to steer through stormy gales, it is natural that, while i grasp my helm, i gaze at history, as my compass. and there is no history more instructive than yours, because you have concentrated within the narrow scope of a few years that natural process of national life, which elsewhere was achieved only through centuries. it would be a mistake, and a mistake not without danger, to believe that your nation is still in its youth because it has lived but seventy-five years. the natural condition of nations is not measured by years, but by those periods of the process of life which i have mentioned. and there is no nation on earth in whose history those periods were so distinctly marked as in yours. first, you had to be born. that is the period of your glorious struggle for independence. endless honour be to those who conducted it! you were baptized with blood, as it seems to be the destiny of nations; but it was the genius of freedom which stood god-father at your baptism, and gave to you a lasting character by giving you the christian name of "_republic_." then you had to grow, and, indeed, you have grown with the luxuriant rapidity of the virgin nature of the american soil. washington knew the nature of this soil, fertilized by the blood of your martyrs and warmed by the sun of your liberty. he knew it, when he told your fathers that you wanted but twenty years of peaceful growth to defy any power whatsoever in a just cause. you have grown through those twenty years, and wisely avoided to endanger your growth by undertaking a toil not becoming to your growing age; and there you stood about another twenty years, looking resolutely but unpretendingly around, if there be anybody to question that you were really a nation. the question was put in 1812, and decided by that glorious victory, the anniversary of which you celebrate to-day. that victory has a deeper meaning in your history than only that of a repulsed invasion. it marks a period in your national life--the period of acknowledged, unshakeable security of your national existence. it is the consummation of your declaration of independence. you have proved by it that the united states possess an incontestable vitality, having the power to preserve that independent national position which your fathers established by the declaration of independence. in reality, it was the victory of new orleans by which you took your seat amongst the independent nations of the world never to be contested through all posterity. if the history of new orleans showed the security of your national existence, the victorious war against mexico proved that also your national interests must be respected. the period of active vitality is attained. it remains yet to take your seat, not amongst the _nations_ of the earth, for _that_ you have since the day of new orleans, but amongst the _powers_ on earth. what is the meaning of that word "power on earth?" the meaning of it is, to have not only the power to guard your own particular interests, but also to have a vote in the regulation of the common interests of humanity, of which you are an independent member--in a word, to become a tribunal enforcing the law of nations, precisely as your supreme court maintains your own constitution and laws. and, indeed, all argument of statesmanship, all philosophy of history, would be vain, if i were mistaken that your great nation is arrived at this unavoidable period of life. the instinct of the people is in the life of a nation precisely that which conscience is in the life of man. before we, in our private life, arrive at a clear conviction what course we have to adopt in this or that occurrence, the conscience--that inexplicable spirit in our breast--tells us in a pulsation of our heart what is right or what is wrong. and this first pulsation of conscience is very trustworthy. then comes the reflective operation of the mind: it now and then lulls conscience to sleep, now and then modifies particulars, and now and then raises it to the degree of conviction. but conscience was in advance of the mind. so is the instinct of the people--the conscience of nations. nor needs the highest intellectual power of individuality to feel offended at the idea that the instinct of the people is always the first to feel the right and wrong. it is the pulsation of the heart of the nation; it is the advertisement of conscience, which never heaves without reason, without necessity. indeed, gentlemen, it is not my presence here which elicited that majestic interest for national law and international rights. nay, i had not been here, but for the pre-existence of this interest. it raised glorious interpreters during the struggles of greece, when, indeed, i was yet too young to be in public life. it flashed up, kindled by poland's heroic struggles, and it blazed high and broad when we were fighting the sacred battle of independence for the european continent. had this interest and sympathy not existed long ago, i were not now here. my very freedom is the result of it. and may i be permitted to mention that there were several concerns quite unconnected with the cause of hungary, which have much contributed to direct public opinion to feel interested in the question of foreign policy, so naturally connected with the question, what is international law? your relations with mexico and central america; the threatened intervention of european powers in the possible issue of a recent case which brought so much mourning into many families in the united states; the question about the sandwich islands, which european diplomacy appeared to contemplate as an appropriate barrier between your pacific states and the indian and chinese trade; the sad fate of an american citizen now condemned to the galleys in africa; and several other considerations of pressing concern, must necessarily have contributed to excite the interest of public opinion for the settlement of the question, what is and what shall be law amongst nations?--law not dictated by the whims of ambitious despots, but founded upon everlasting principles, such as republics can acknowledge who themselves live upon principles. the cause of hungary is implicated with the very questions of right, in which your country in so many respects is concerned. it happens to lie so broad across the principles of international law, as to occupy not only the instinct of the people but also the calm reflection of your statesmen, conspicuous by mature wisdom and patriotism; and herein is the key, besides the generosity congenial to freemen, why the cause which i plead is honoured with so rapid a progress in public sentiment. and let me entreat your permission for one topic more. i received, during my brief stay in england, some one hundred and thirty addresses from cities and associations, all full of the same warm sympathy for my country's cause, which you also have so generously testified. that sympathy was accorded to me, notwithstanding my frank declaration that i am a republican, and that my country, when restored to independence, can be nothing but a republic. now this is a fact gratifying to every friend of progress in public sentiment, highly proving that the people are everywhere honourable, just, noble, and good. and do you know, gentlemen, which of these numerous addresses were the most glorious to the people of england and the most gratifying to me? it was one in which i heard your washington praised, and sorrow avowed that england had opposed that glorious cause upon which is founded the noble fame of that great man; and the addresses--(numerous they were indeed)--in which the hope and resolution were expressed, that england and the united states, forgetting the sorrows of the past will in brotherly love go hand in hand to support the eternal principles of international law and freedom on earth. yes indeed, sir, you were right to say that the justice of your struggle, which took out of england's hand a mighty continent, is openly acknowledged even by the english people itself. the memory of the day of new orleans must of course recall to your mind the wrongs against which you so gloriously fought. oh, let me entreat you, bury the hatred of past ages in the grave where all the crimes of the past lie mouldering with the ashes of those who sinned, and take the glorious opportunity to benefit the great cause of humanity. one thing let me tell you, gentlemen. _people_ and _governments_ are different things in such a country as great britain is. it is sorrowful enough that the people have often to pay for what the government sinned. let it not be said in history, that even the people of the united states made a kindred people pay for the sins of its government. and remember that you can mightily react upon the public opinion of britain, and that the people of britain can react upon the course of its own government. it were indeed a great misfortune to see the government of great britain pushed by irritation to side with the absolutist powers against the oppressed nations about to struggle for independence and liberty. even ireland could only lose by this. and besides its own loss, this might perhaps be just the decisive blow against liberty; whereas if the government of england, otherwise remaining as it is, do but unite with you not to allow foreign interference with our struggles on the continent this would become almost a sure guarantee of the victory of those struggles; and, according as circumstances stand, that would be indeed the most practical benefit to the noble people of ireland also, because freedom, independence, and the principles of natural law could not fail to benefit their cause, which so well merits the sympathy of every just man and they have also the sympathy--i know it--of the better half of england itself. hatred is no good counsellor, gentlemen. the wisdom of love is a better one. what people has suffered more than my poor hungary has from russia? shall i hate the people of russia for it? oh never! i have but pity and christian brotherly love for it. it is the government, it is the principle of the government, which makes every drop of my blood boil and which must fall, if humanity is to live. we were for centuries in war against the turks, and god knows what we have suffered by it! but past is past. now we have a common enemy, and thus we have a common interest, a mutual esteem, and love rules where our fathers have fought. gentlemen, how far this supreme duty toward your own interest will allow you to go in giving life and effect to the principle which you so generously proclaim, and which your party (as i have understood) have generously proclaimed in different parts--_that_ you will in your wisdom decide, remaining always the masters of your action and of your fate. but that principle will rest; that principle is true; that principle is just; and you are just, because you are free. i hope therefore to see you cordially unite with me once more in the sentiment--"intervention for non-intervention." * * * * * xix.--meaning of recognizing. [_last speech at washington_.] in returning thanks to all the citizens here assembled, and to yourself, sir, in particular,[*] i beg to add some remarks. that i have not here been honoured with the same demonstrations of local cordiality as in other places, i do not, with you, attribute to diplomatic influences. i know well the skill of russian diplomacy, which indeed at moldovarica instructs all its representatives to marry moldovarican ladies. but i also know that the framers of your constitution wisely discouraged the development of municipal life in the district of columbia, lest local influences and pressure from without on the seat of the central legislature might unduly sway the national councils. just so, we have often known a single street in paris coerce the deliberations of the nation. columbia having, as i understand, by an exceptional arrangement, no true local self-government, is deficient in local movement. nevertheless, i have received _private_ expression of sentiment and of generous kind sympathy from various parts of this district, and chiefly from the city of washington. [footnote *: chancellor walworth of new york.] in respect to the declaration which you make as to nonintervention, i have only to thank you, and to express my earnest hope that all those in whose name you speak, will proceed to give effect to their principle in public life. the second right of nations,--that of mutual commerce--still more closely touches your domestic interests, regard it as a clear national right of your citizens to hold commerce with the thirty-five millions of men oppressed by austria, if those thirty-five millions desire it, though to emperor of austria, having occupied an immoral position refuse it to you: and if the people of hungary, bohemia, and italy take arms to punish his atrocities, that is no good reason why your citizens should submit to abstain from commerce with these injured nations. in regard to my third desire, to see the _legitimacy_ of our declaration of independence acknowledged by congress that did not mean that i (a poor exile!) am _de facto_ governor of hungary! you little conceive how valuable to us it would have been, if your envoy, who came to inquire and report, during our struggle, had been authorized to recognize the legitimacy of our cause and of our proceeding. and even now, the moral effect would be great; for such an act cannot stand alone, it points to your future policy towards every other nation. moreover, it would enlarge the lawful field of action for private sympathy, and would enable me to accept many things which i cannot now; i do not mean titles,--which i value not. i care only for my country's dignity; but it appertains to its dignity that its solemnly expressed will be recognized by your government. legislatures of your states (with warm gratitude i acknowledge) have declared these principles: cities and associations have received them; so have many eminent persons. but if you wish foreign powers to know that it is not mr. a. or mr. b. but the nation itself which pronounces them, i venture to suggest that it may be convenient in your various associations of every kind to make separate declarations to this effect, as by contributions of money ever so small; and this will really be _national_ aid. if the united states carry out this determination with their characteristic energy it will be effectual. * * * * * xx.--contrast of the american to the hungarian crisis. [_speech before the senate at annapolis, jan. 13_.] kossuth, having arrived at annapolis, capital of maryland, was entertained in the government house by governor lowe, and was next day introduced to the senate, who welcomed him with a cordial address. he responded as follows:-mr. president: in the changes of my stormy life, many occasions, connected with associations of historical interest, have impressed a deep emotion upon my mind: but perhaps never yet has the memory of the past made such a glowing impression upon me as here. i bow reverentially, senators of maryland, in this glorious hall, the sanctuary of immortal deeds, hallowed by immortal names. before i thank the living, let me look to those dead whose spirits dwell within these walls [looking at the portraits that hung upon the walls], living an imperishable life in the glory, freedom, and happiness of your great united republic, which is destined, as i confidently hope, to become the corner-stone of the future of humanity. yes, there they are, the glorious architects of the independence of this republic. there is _thomas stone_; there, your demosthenes, _samuel chase_; there, _charles carroll, of carrollton_, who designedly added that epithet to the significance of his name, that nobody should be mistaken about who was the _carroll_ who dared the noble deed, and was rewarded by being the last of his illustrious companions, whom god called to the heavenly paradise, after he had long enjoyed the paradise of freedom on earth; and here, _william paca_;--all of them signers of the declaration of american independence--that noblest, happiest page in mankind's history. how happy that man must have been [pointing to the portrait of governor paca] having to govern this sovereign state on that day when, within these very halls the act was ratified which, by the recognition of your very enemy, raised your country to an independent nation. ye spirits of the departed! cast a ray of consolation by the voice of your nation over that injured land, whose elected chief, a wandering exile for having dared to imitate you, lays the trembling hopes of an oppressed continent before the generous heart of your people--now not only an independent nation but also a mighty and glorious power. alas! what a difference in the success of two like deeds! have we not done what ye did? yes, we have. was the cause for which we did it not alike sacred and just as yours? it was. or have we not fought to sustain it with equal resolution as your brethren did? bold though it be to claim a glory such as america has, i am bold to claim, and say--yes, we did. and yet what a difference in the result! and whence this difference? only out of that single circumstance that, while you, in your struggle, meet with _assistance_, we in ours met not even with _"fair play:"_ since, when we fought, there was nobody on earth to maintain "the laws of nature's god." during our struggle, america was silent and england did not stir; and while you were assisted by a french king, we were forsaken by a french republic--itself now trodden down because it has forsaken us? well, we are not broken yet. there is hope for us, because there is a god in heaven and an america on earth. may be that our nameless woes were necessary, that the glorious destiny of america may be fulfilled; that after it had been an asylum for the oppressed, it should become, by regenerating europe, the pillar of manhood's liberty. oh! it is not a mere capricious change of fate, that the exiled governor of the land whose name, four years ago, was scarcely known on your glorious shores, and which now (oh, let me have the blessings of this belief!) is dear to the generous heart of america. it is not a mere chance that hungary's exiled chief thanks the senators of maryland for the high honour of public welcome in that very hall where the first continental congress met; where your great republic's glorious constitution was framed; where the treaty of acknowledged independence was ratified, and where you, senators, guard with steady hand the rights of your sovereign states which is now united to thirty others, not to make you less free, but to make you more mighty--to make you a power on earth. i believe there is the hand of god in history. you assigned a place in this hall of freedom to the memory of chatham, for having been just to america, by opposing the stamp act, which awoke your nation to resistance. now, the people of england think as once pitt the elder thought, and honours with deep reverence the memory of your washington. but suppose the england of lord chatham's time had thought as chatham did: and his burning words had moved the english aristocracy to be just towards the colonies: those our men there [turning to the portraits] had not signed your country's independence. washington were perhaps a name "unknown, unhonoured, and unsung," and this proud constellation of your glorious stars had perhaps not yet risen on mankind's sky--instead of being now about to become the sun of freedom. it is thus providence acts. let me hope, sir, that hungary's unmerited fate was necessary, in order that your stars should become such a sun. sirs, i stand, perhaps, upon the very spot where your washington stood, consummating the greatest act of his life. the walls which now listen to my humble words, listened to the words of his republican virtue, immortal by their very modesty. let me, upon this sacred spot, express my confident belief that if he stood here now, he would tell you that his prophecy is fulfilled; that you are mighty enough "to defy any power on earth in a just cause," and he would tell you that there never was and never will be a cause more just than the cause of hungary, being, as it is, the cause of oppressed humanity. sir, i thank the senate of maryland, in my country's name for the honour of your generous welcome. i entreat the senate kindly to remember my prostrate fatherland. sir, i bid you farewell, feeling heart and soul purified, and my resolution strengthened, by the very air of this ancient city of providence. * * * * * xxi.--thanks for his great success. [_speech at harrisburg, pennsylvania, on his reception in the capitol. jan. 14th_.] on jan. 14th kossuth was received in harrisburg, capital of pennsylvania, in the capitol. governor johnston in the name of the state, addressed to him a copious and energetic speech, in the course of which he said:-we have declared the law, that man is capable of self government, and possesses the inherent and indestructible right of altering, amending, and changing his form of government at his pleasure, and in furtherance of his happiness. we have sworn hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. these truths we have made a part of the laws of nations. despots combine and interfere by force and fraud, to prevent the erection of republican institutions by a nation struggling successfully against its local usurping oppressor, for independence. fidelity to our principles and institutions demands that we prevent such interference by solemnly proclaiming that the laws of nations and humanity shall be preserved inviolate and sacred. in the performance of this duty the faint-hearted may falter; the domestic despot and cold diplomatist may linger behind; the man of world-extended and fearful traffic may hesitate; but the warm and great heart of the american masses will feel no moment of hesitation and doubt in defence of truth. the great author of nations will find the means to carry out his wise designs. how glorious our destiny, if to us is given the solemn charge of carrying into effect the beneficent purpose of heaven in the establishment upon earth of universal liberty, universal education, universal happiness, and peace. when governor johnston had concluded with a very cordial welcome, kossuth replied as follows:-senators and representatives of pennsylvania.--i came with confidence, i came with hope to the united states--with the confidence of a man who trusts to the certainty of principles, knowing that where freedom is sown, there generosity grows--with the hope of a man who knows that there is life in his cause, and that where there is life there must be a future yet. still hope is only an instinctive throb with which nature's motherly care comforts adversity. we often hope without knowing why, and like a lonely wanderer on a stormy night, direct our weary steps towards the first glimmering window light, uncertain whether we are about to knock at the door of a philanthropist or of a heartless egotist. but the hope and confidence with which i came to the united states was not such. there was a knowledge of fact in it. i did not know what _persons_ it might be my fate to meet, but i knew that meet i should with two living _principles_--with that of freedom and that of national hospitality. both are political principles here. freedom is expansive like the light: it loves to spread itself: and hospitality here in this happy land, is raised out of the narrow circle of private virtue into political wisdom. as you, gentlemen, are the representatives of your people, so the people of the united states at large are representative of european humanity--a congregation of nations assembled in the hospitable hall of american liberty. your people is linked to europe, not only by the common tie of manhood--not only by the communicative spirit of liberty--not only by the commercial intercourse, but by the sacred ties of blood. the people of the united states is europe transplanted to america. and it is not hungary's woes alone--it is the cause of all europe which i am come to plead. where was ever a son, who in his own happy days could indifferently look at the sufferings of his mother, whose heart's blood is running in his very veins? and europe is the mother of the united states. i hope to god, that the people of this glorious land is and will ever be, fervently attached to this their free, great and happy home. i hope to god that whatever tongue they speak, they are and will ever be american, and nothing but american. and so they must be, if they will be free--if they desire for their adopted home greatness and perpetuity. should once the citizens of the united states cease to be americans, and become again english, irish, german, spanish, italian, danish, swedish, french--america would soon cease to be what it is now--freedom elevated to the proud position of a power on earth. but while i hope that all the people of the united states will never become anything but americans; and that even its youngest adopted sons, though fresh with sweet home recollections, will know here no south, no north, no east and no west--nothing but the whole country, the common nationality of freedom--in a word, america; still i also know that blood is blood--that the heart of the son must beat at the contemplation of his mother's sufferings. these were the motives of my confident hope. and here in this place i have the happy right to say, god the almighty is with me; my hopes are about to be realized. sir, it is a gratifying view to see how the generous sympathy of individuals for the cause which i respectfully plead is rising into public opinion. but nowhere had i the happy lot to see this more clearly expressed than in this great commonwealth of pennsylvania, the mighty "_keystone_ state" of the union. the people of harrisburg spoke first: no city before had so distinctly articulated the public sympathy into acknowledged principles. it has framed the sympathy of generous instinct into a political shape. i will for ever remember it with fervent gratitude. then came the metropolis--a hope and a consolation by its very name to the oppressed--the sanctuary of american independence, where the very bells speak prophecy--which is now sheltering more inhabitants than all pennsylvania did, when, seventy-five years ago, the prophetic bell of independence hall announced to the world that free america was born; which now, with the voice of thunder, will, i hope, tell the world that the doubtful life of that child has unfolded itself into a mighty power on earth. yes, after harrisburg, the metropolis spoke, a flourishing example of freedom's self-developing energy; and after the metropolis, now so mighty a centre of nations, and it ally of international law--next came pittsburg, the immense manufacturing workshop, alike memorable for its moral power and its natural advantages, which made it a link with the great valley of the west, a cradle of a new world, which is linked in its turn to the old world by boundless agricultural interests. and after the people of pennsylvania have thus spoken, here now i stand in the temple of this people's sovereignty, with joyful gratitude acknowledging the inestimable benefits of this public reception, where--with the elected of pennsylvania, entrusted with the legislative and executive power of the sovereign people, gather into one garland the public opinion, and with the authority of their high position, announce loudly to the world the principles, the resolution, and the will of the two millions of this great commonwealth. sir, the words your excellency has honoured me with will have their weight throughout the world. the jeering smile of the despots, which accompanied my wandering, will be changed, at the report of these proceedings, to a frown which may yet cast fresh mourning over families, as it has cast over mine; nevertheless the afflicted will wait to be consoled by the dawn of public happiness. from the words which your excellency spoke, the nations will feel double resolution to shake off the yoke of despotism. [footnote: philadelphia (_brotherly love_) is evidently intended. "metropolis" strictly means mother city, not chief city.] the proceedings of to-day will, moreover, have their weight in the development of public opinion in other states of your united republic. governor! i plead no dead cause, europe is no corpse: it has a future yet, because it wills. sir, from the window of your room, which your hospitality has opened to me, i saw suspended a musket and a powder horn, and this motto--"material aid." and i believe that the speaker of the house of representatives of pennsylvania is seated in that chair whence the declaration of american independence was signed. the first is what europe wants in order to have the success of the second. permit me to take this for a happy augury; and allow me with the plain words of an earnest mind, to give you the assurance of my country's warm, everlasting gratitude, in which, upon the basis of our restored independence, a wide field will be opened to mutual benefit, by friendly commercial intercourse ennobled by the consciousness of imparted benefit on your side, and by the pleasant duty of gratitude on the side of hungary, which so well deserves your generous sympathy. * * * * * xxii.--on the present weakness of despotism. [_speech at the harrisburg banquet_.] about three hundred persons sat down to dinner, a large portion of them members of the legislature. governor johnston presided, assisted by ex-senator cameron. a toast complimentary to governor johnston having been drunk with great enthusiasm, the governor briefly responded. after returning his thanks for the compliment, he alluded to the mission of kossuth. the great magyar came here not for _sympathy_ alone, but for _aid_ for the cause of republican freedom. he not only wanted that, but encouragement of our government in aid of the cause of down-trodden hungary. no profession, but action was wanted; and he exhorted his hearers never to cease acting, until the government took the high ground necessary to secure to hungary the simple justice she demanded. in conclusion he gave the third toast: "hungary--betrayed but not subdued; her constitution violated, her people in chains, her chief in exile. the star of freedom will yet shine through the dark night of her adversity." kossuth, in response, opened by lamenting that the perpetual claims upon his time, and the pressure of sorrowful feelings on his heart, made it impossible for him to study how to address them suitably. he proceeded to say: but to what purpose is eloquence here? have you not anticipated my wishes? have you not sanctioned my principles? are you not going on to action, as generous men do, who are conscious of their power and of their aim? well, to what purpose, then, is eloquence here? i have only to thank--and that is more eloquently told by a warm grasp of the hand than by all the skilful arrangement of words. i beg therefore your indulgence for laying before you some mere facts, which perhaps may contribute to strengthen your conviction that the people of the united states, in bestowing its sympathy upon my cause, does not support a dead cause, but one which has a life, and whose success is rationally sure. let me before all cast a glance at the enemy. and let those imposed upon by the attitude of despotism in 1852, consider how much stronger it was in 1847-8. france was lolled by louis philippe's politics, of "peace at any price," into apathy. men believed in the solidity of his government. no heart-revolting cruelty stirred the public mind. no general indignation from offended national self-esteem prevailed. the stability of the public credit encouraged the circulation of capital, and by that circulation large masses of industrious poor found, if not contentment, at least daily bread. the king was taken for a prudent man; and the private morality of his family cast a sort of halo around his house. the spirit of revolution was reduced to play the meagre game of secret associations; not seconded by any movement of universal interest--the spirit of radical innovation was restrained into scientific polemic, read by few and understood by fewer. there was a faith in the patriotic authority of certain men, whose reputation was that of being liberal. one part of the nation lived on from day to day without any stirring passion, in entire passiveness; the other believed in gradual improvement and progress, because it had confidence in the watchful care of partizan leaders. the combat of parliamentary eloquence was considered to be a storm in a glass of water, and the highest aspiration of parties was to oust the ministry and take their place. and yet the prohibition of a public banquet blew asunder the whole complex like mere chaff. germany was tranquil, because the honest pretensions of the ambition of her statesmen were satisfied by the open lists of parliamentary eloquence. the public life of the nation had gained a field for itself in legislative debates--a benefit not enjoyed for centuries. the professors being transferred to the legislative floor, and the college to the parliament, the nation was gratified by improvements in the laws, and by the oratory of her renowned men, who never failed to flatter the national vanity. it believed itself to be really in full speed of greatness, and listened contented and quiet--like an intelligent audience to an interesting lecture--even in respect to the unity of great germany. the custom-association (zollverein) became an idol of satisfied national vanity, and of cheerful hopes; science and art were growing fast; speculative researches of political economy met an open field in social life; men conscious of higher aims wandered afar into new homes, despairing to find a field of action in their native land. material improvement was the ruling word, and the lofty spirit of freedom was blighted by the contact of small interests. and yet a prohibited banquet at paris shook the very foundation of this artificial tranquillity, and the princely thrones of germany trembled before the rising spirit of freedom, though it was groping in darkness, because unconscious of its aim. italy--fair, unfortunate italy--looking into the mirror of its ancient glory, heaved with gloomy grief; but the sky of the heaven was as clear and blue above, as it ever was since creation's dawn: and it sung like the bird in a cage placed upon a bough of the blooming orange tree. and then pius ix, placing himself at the head of italian regeneration, became popular as no man in rome since rienzi's time, in 1848 men heard with surprise, on the coast of the adriatic, my name coupled in _vivas_ with the name of pius ix. but the sarcasm of madame de stael--that in italy men became women--was still believed true; so that too many of the italians themselves despaired of conquering austria without charles albert. austria had not for centuries, and prussia never yet has, experienced what sort of a thing a revolution is, and the falling of the vault of the sky would have been considered less improbable than a popular revolution in berlin or vienna, where metternich ruled in triumphant proud security. the house of austria was considered as a mighty power on earth; respected, because thought necessary to europe against the preponderance of russia. no people under the dominion of this dynasty, had a national army, and all were divided by absurd rivalries of language, kept up by metternich's machiavelism. the nations were divided; none of them was conscious of its strength, but all were aware of the united strength of a disciplined and large imperial army, the regiments of which had never yet fought one against another, and never yet had broken the spell of the black and yellow flag by tearing it to pieces with their own hands. and yet, when paris stirred and i made a mere speech in the hungarian parliament, the house of austria was presently at the mercy of the people of vienna; metternich was driven away, and his absolutism replaced by a promise of constitutional life. in gallicia the odium connected with the despotic austrian rule had, by satanic craft, been thrown upon those classes which represent the ancient polish nationality; and the well-deserved hatred of aristocratic oppression, though living only in traditional remembrances, had prevailed in the sentiments of the common people over the hatred against austria, though despotic and a stranger; so much so, that, to triumph over the ill-advised, untimely movement of 1846, austria had nothing to do but open the field to murder, by granting a two dollars' reward for every head of a polish land proprietor. and in hungary the people of every race was equally excluded from all political right--from any share of constitutional life. the endeavours of myself and my friends for internal improvements--for emancipation of the peasantry--for the people's restoration to its natural rights in civil, political, social, and religious respects, were cramped by the hapsburg policy. but the odium of this cramping was thrown by austria upon our own conservative party: and thus our national force was divided into antagonistic elements. besides, the idea of panslavism and of national rivalries, raised by russia and fostered by austria, diverted the excitement of the public mind from the development of common political freedom. and hungary had no _national_ army. its regiments were filled with foreign elements and scattered over foreign countries, while our own country was guarded with well-disciplined foreign troops. and what was far worse than all this, hungary, by long illegalities corrupted in its own character, deprived of its ancient heroic stamp, germanized in its saloons, sapped in its cottages and huts, impressed with the unavoidable _fatality_ of austrian sovereignty, and the knowledge of austrian power, secluded from the attention of the world, which was scarcely aware of its existence,--hungary had no hope in its national future, because it had no consciousness of its strength, and was highly monarchical in its inclinations, and generous in its allegiance to the king. no man dreamed of the possibility of a revolution there, and he who would have suggested it would only have gained the reputation of a madman. such was the condition of europe in the first half of february, 1848. never yet seemed the power of despots more steady, more sure. yet, one month later, every throne on the continent trembled except the czar's. the existence of dynasties depended upon the magnanimity of their people, and europe was all on fire. and in what condition is europe now? every man on earth is aware that things cannot endure as they are. _formerly millions believed that a peaceful development of constitutional monarchy was the only future reserved for europe. now nobody on the european continent any longer believes that constitutional monarchy can have a future there._ absolutist reaction goes with all that arrogance which revolts every sentiment, and infuriates the very child in its mother's arms. the promise, the word, the oath of a king are become equivalent to a lie and to perjury. faith in the morality of kings is plucked out, even to the last root, from the people's heart. the experiment of constitutional concessions was thought dangerous to the dynasties, as soon as they became aware that the people of europe is no imbecile child, that can be lulled to sleep by mockery; but that it will have reality. thus the kings on the greater part of the continent, throwing away the mask of liberal affectations, deceived every expectation, broke every oath, and embarked with a full gale upon the open sea of unrestricted despotism. they know that love they can no longer get; so we have been told openly, that _they will not have_ love, _but_ money, to maintain large armies, and keep the world in servitude. on the other hand, the nations, assailed in their moral dignity and material welfare, degraded into a flock of sheep kept only to be shorn--equally with the kings detest the mockery of constitutional royalty which has proved so ruinous to them. royalty has lost its sacredness in france, germany, italy, austria, and hungary. both parties equally recognize that the time has come when the struggle of principles must be decided. absolutism or republicanism--the czar or the principles of america--there is no more compromise, no more truce possible. the two antagonist principles must meet upon the narrow bridge of a knife-edge, cast across the deep gulf which is ready to swallow him who falls. it is a struggle for life and death. that is the condition of the european continent in general. a great, terrible, bloody uprising is unavoidable. that is known and felt by every one. and every sound man knows equally well that the temporary success of louis napoleon's usurpation has only made the terrible crisis more unavoidable. ye men of "peace at any price," do not shut your eyes wilfully to the finger of god pointing to the _mene, tekel, upharsin_ written with gigantic letters upon the sky of europe. despots never yield to justice; mankind, inspired with the love of freedom, will not yield up its manhood tamely. peace is impossible. gentlemen, the success of my mission here may ensure the victory of freedom; may prevent torrents of martyrs' blood; may weaken the earthquake of impending war; and restore a solid peace. but be sure, the certainty of the european struggle does not depend upon your generous support; nor would my failure here even retard the outbreak of the hurricane. should we, not meeting here with that support, which your glorious republic in its public capacity and your generous citizens in their private capacity can afford without jeopardizing your own welfare and your own interest (and assuredly it never came into my mind to desire more)--should we, meeting with no support here, be crushed again, and absolutism consolidate its power upon the ruins of murdered nations, i indeed cannot but believe that it would become a historical reproach of conscience, lying like an incubus upon the breast of the people of the united states from generation to generation. i mean, the idea, that had you not withheld that support which you might have afforded consistently with your own interest, hungary perhaps would be a free, flourishing country, instead of being blotted out from the map; and europe perhaps free, and absolutist tyranny swept from the earth. you then would in vain shed a tear of compassion over our sad fate, and mourn over the grave of nations: nor only so; but the victory of absolutism could not fail to be felt even here in your mighty and blessed home. you would first feel it in your commercial intercourse, and ere long you would become inevitably entangled; for as soon as the czar had secured the submission of all europe, he would not look indifferently upon the development of your power, which is an embodiment of republican principles. i am not _afraid_ to answer the question, as to what are our means and chances of success--but prudence commands me to be discreet. still, some considerations i may suggest. the spell of austria is broken. it is now notorious that the might of the dynasty, though disciplined, well provided, and supported by deluded races, which had been roused to the fury of extermination against us--it is now notorious that all this satanically combined power proved unable to withstand the force of hungary, though we were surprized and unprepared, and had no army and no arms, no ammunition, no money, no friends, and were secluded and forsaken by the whole world. it was proved that austria could not conquer us magyars, when we were taken unaware; who can believe that we could not match her now that we are aware and predetermined? yes, if unprepared in material resources, we are yet prepared in self-consciousness and mutual trust; we have learned by experience what is required for our success. in former times hungary was the strength of austria. now, austria is weak, _because_ it has occupied hungary. it was strong by the unity of its army, the power of which was founded upon the confidence in this unity. that confidence is broken, since one part of that army raised the tri-colour flag, and cast to the dust the double-headed eagle, the black and yellow flag, which was the emblem of the army's unity. formerly the austrian army believed that it was strong enough to uphold the throne; now it knows that it is nothing by itself, and rests only upon the support of the czar. that spirit-depressing sentiment is so diffused among the troops, that, only take the reliance upon russia away, or make it doubtful whether russia will interfere or not, and the austrian army will disperse and fall asunder almost without any fight; because it knows that it has its most dangerous enemies within its own ranks; and is so far from having any cement, that no man, himself attached to that perjured dynasty, can trust the man beside him in the ranks, but watches every movement of his arm. in such an army there is no hope for tyrants. the old soldiers feel humiliated by the issue of our struggle. they are offended by having no share in the reward thrown away on despised court favourites. the old croat regiments feel outraged in their national honour by being deceived in their national expectations. the recruits brought with them recollections of their bombarded cities and of the oppression of their families; and in that army are 140,000 hungarians who fought under our tri-coloured flag against austria, and whose burning feelings of national wrong are inspired by the glorious memory of their victories. oh, had we had in 1848 such an army of disciplined soldiers as austria itself keeps now for us, never had one cossack trod the soil of hungary, and europe would now be free. or, let austria dismiss them, and they will be disciplined soldiers at home. the trumpet of national resurrection will reach them wherever they are. hungary has the conviction of her strength. _the formerly hostile races, all oppressed like us, now feel themselves to have been deceived, and unite with us._ we have no opposite party in the nation. some there are, ambitious men, or some incorrigible aristocrats perhaps: but these are no party; they always turn towards the sun, and they melt away like snow in march. and besides hungary, the people in austria too, in italy, in prussia, in all germany, is conscious of its strength. every large city on the continent has been in the power of the people, and has had to be regained by bombardings and by martial law. italy has redeemed its heroic character, at milan, venice, brescia, and rome--all of them immortal pages in italian history, glorious sources of inspiration, heroism, and self-conscious strength. and now they know their aim, and are united in their aim, and burn to show to the world that the spirit of ancient rome again rises in them. and then to take into consideration the financial part. without money there is no war. now, the nations, when once engaged in the war, will find means enough for home-support of the war in the rich resources of their own land; whereas the despots lose the disposal of those resources by the outbreak of insurrection, and are reduced entirely to foreign loans, which no emperor of austria will find again in any new revolution. and, mark well, gentlemen, every friendly step by which your great republic and its generous people testifies its lively interest for our just cause, adding to the prospects of success, diminishes the credit of the despots, and by embarrassing their attempts to find loans, may be of decisive weight in the issue. though absolutism was much more favourably situated in 1847 than in 1851, it was overtaken by the events of 1848, when, but for the want of unity and concert, the liberal party must have triumphed everywhere. that unity and concert is now attained; why should not absolutism in 1852 be as easily shaken as in 1848! the liberal cause is stronger everywhere, because conscious of its aim and prepared. absolutism has no more bayonets now than in 1848. without the interference of russia our success is not only probable, but is almost sure. and as to russia--remember, that if at such a crisis she thinks of subduing hungary, she has poland to occupy, finland to guard, turkey to watch, and circassia to fight. herein is the reason why i confidently state, that if the united states declare that a new intervention of russia will be considered by your glorious republic a violation of the law of nations, that declaration will be respected, and russia will not interfere. be pleased to consider the consequence of such renewed interference, after the passive acceptance of the first has proved so fatal to europe, and so dangerous even to england itself. we can scarcely doubt, that, if ever russia plans a new invasion, england could not forbear to encourage turkey, not to lose again the favourable opportunity to shake off the preponderance of russia. i have lived in turkey. i know what enthusiasm exists there for that idea, and how popular such a war would be. turkey is a match for russia on the continent. the weak point of turkey lies in the nearness of sevastopol, the russian harbour and arsenal, to constantinople. well, an english fleet, or an american fleet, or both joined, stationed at the mouth of the bosphorus, may easily prevent this danger without one cannon's shot; and if this be prevented, turkey alone is a match for russia. and turkey would not stand alone. the brave circassians, triumphant through a war of ten years, would send down 80,000 of their unconquerable horsemen to the plains of moscow. and poland would rise, and sweden would remember finland and charles the xii. with hungary in the rear, screened by this very circumstance from her invasion, and austria fallen to pieces from want of foreign support, russia _must_ respect your protest in behalf of international law, or else she will fall never to rise again. gentlemen, i thank you for the patience with which you have listened to this exposition--long and tedious, because i had no time to be brief. and begging leave to assure you of my lasting gratitude for all the generous favours you have been and will yet be pleased to bestow upon my cause, let me proclaim my fervent wishes in this sentiment: "pennsylvania, the keystone state--may it, by its legitimate influence upon the destinies of this mighty power on earth, and by the substantial generosity of its citizens, soon become the keystone of european independence." hon. j. h. walker, speaker of the senate, and several other speakers followed, all decidedly sympathizing with the hungarians, and advocating intervention for non-intervention. the speaking continued until after midnight. * * * * * xxiii.--agencies of russian ascendancy and supremacy. [_pittsburg festival, jan. 26th_.] kossuth was received in the masonic hall, which was filled to overflowing. after an eloquent address to him from the chairman, a. w. loomis, esq., he replied: sir, the highly interesting instruction which your kindness has afforded me about that new and wonderful world of the west, in the entrance of which i now stand, impresses me with a presentiment of unlooked for events. since i have been in the united states, i have felt as if my guardian angel whispered, that in _the west_ the hopes of my bleeding country will be realized. it was an unconscious instinct,--a ray shooting above the horizon from the yet unseen sun. you, sir, have shown me the sun itself in full majesty. you have transformed my instinct into conviction. here then, upon the threshold of the west, i bow with awe and joy, as the fireworshipper of old persia to the source of life and light. it is indeed joyful, sir, as you said, to see politicians, sectarians, philanthropists of all classes uniting in spontaneous sympathy for a cause pleaded by a stranger. i recognize in it the bounty of providence. i see the truth revealed, that as magnetism pervades the universe, so there is a sentiment, which, independent of party affections and bubbling passion, pervades the breast of mankind; and that is, the love of freedom, justice, and right. the chord of freedom passes through all hearts, and whoever touches it, elicits harmony. the harmony is in the chord, not in him who touches it. there is no skill in the breeze which sweeps over the aeolian harp, yet a sweet harmony bursts forth from its vibrations. the harmony of sympathy which i meet is the most decisive proof, gentlemen, that the cause which i plead is indeed the cause of liberty, the love of which gushes up spontaneously in human bosoms. gentlemen, the cause of hungary, even were it _not_ the cause of europe and of all earthly freedom, deserves your sympathy and active protection. like other free nations, we were brave. the austrian dynasty was perjured and treacherous; and our bravest bled on the scaffold. tyrannies are cruel: only the people knows how to be generous in victory.--let me rather say, the people _was_ generous: for the future i hope it will be _just_. i hope this, not because there is any deep truth in the irish poet, who sang "revenge on a tyrant is sweetest of all:" not for that reason. but i hope that the oppressed nations will not again stop half way, and sacrifice their future to untimely generosity; for they have all paid too cruelly for the lesson, that _with tyrants there is no faith_. so there must be no dealing with them. yet, gentlemen, it is not for hungary's worth, nor for hungary's sufferings that i claim protection for her; but because as in _her_ the law of nations has been strikingly trampled down, so in _her_ this law must be vindicated. else, the league of despots will be able to enforce it as a precedent against all free nations; no law will henceforth be sure on earth, and oppression will rule the world. it is indeed a new doctrine that all despots have a right to interfere with every attempt of a people to regulate its own institutions; and that oppression in each separate nation is to be upheld by a foreign czar. according to this, freedom and independence are everywhere proscribed, as inconsistent with the security of absolutism,--to which every other consideration is to yield. i have been indeed astonished to meet the reply, that the cause which i plead is not worthy of much consideration, "since, after all, it is only the cause of _one country_!" i have read that the borgias were wont to say, that italy is like the artichoke, which must be eaten leaf by leaf. let me tell those, with whom hungary is but one leaf of the artichoke, that the despot who is allowed to nibble each leaf separately, will manage to dispose of the whole. my opponents say; i myself confess my cause to be that of one country only: for in claiming "non-interference," i show my desire to abandon all other countries but my own to their oppressors! i may be permitted to ask,--is there any truth in the world which may not be distorted into a mockery? russia is the strength of oppression. her force in the background emboldens every petty tyrant and makes every oppressed nation despond: _not_ because she is so very powerful, but because all foresee distinctly that she will act unshrinkingly in the tyrant's favour so soon as he needs it. we fought, beat, crushed the austrian emperor, of course not without sacrifice. you know that your own brave duquesne greys lost in one action more than half their men. now, if after a victory gained at such a price, russia steps in with a fresh force, well provided with every means of war, though that force be not such as one could not resist, it is formidable as a rearguard, falling fresh upon a nation exhausted with its very victories. suppose that at the close of your own mexican victories, you had to meet a fresh host of 100,000 well-disciplined men, what would have been the fate of your gallant army, which entered the city of montezuma? that is the key of russian preponderance. but consider the consequences of our defeat. austria was restored,--_not_ to its independent position--_that_ is lost forever; but, to the position of a tyrant at home, obedient to the wink of his master abroad. relying on the precedent established by russia,--naples, spain, and degraded france interfered in rome. after this, austria and prussia quarrelled for german supremacy, but before they drew the sword, went to the czar for permission. the czar at warsaw replied: "i forbid you to quarrel. reconstruct the german confederacy of 1815 and add to it no constitutional element. send your two armies to hesse cassel; crush the people who there resist by law the grand duke's attempt to overthrow the sworn constitution. as to schleswig holstein, i want to have it reserved to denmark, as a satrapy for my servant and nephew. the german confederacy having dared to countenance its rebellion, shall be punished by having to request austria to send an army against it." so ordered the czar, and so it was done. and after it was done, the czar ordered the withdrawal of the pageant of a constitution, which in the hour of need the emperor of austria had promised to his empire. it was withdrawn. when thus every popular movement was crushed, every shadow of freedom withdrawn, the scaffolds of hungary and italy saturated with blood, the prisons filled with martyrs, the exiles driven from every asylum in the european continent, and germany reduced to a condition worse than when the unholy alliance was at the full tide,--_then_ the czar wrote an autograph letter to louis napoleon, the perjured president of france, assuring him of his imperial grace and benevolent support, if he would strike a deathblow to the french republic. and louis napoleon struck the blow. such are the results of the overwhelming preponderance of russia, imposed upon europe by its interference in hungary. suppose now that i succeed in my sacred mission,--sacred, because it is the cause of law and of all the oppressed;--suppose russian interference checked; then hungary will crush the tottering austrian dynasty: italy, delivered from foreign dominion, will sportively dispose of its petty tyrants. the nation of austria will become free, and a valuable ingredient in german liberty. at the result of a glorious struggle in hungary, burning shame will mount to the cheek of the french, and louis napoleon will be shaken off. let interference by the combination of despots be checked, let nations become masters of their own fate,--and rely upon the magic power of your glorious example. republican institutions will spread as the light of the sun. yes, gentlemen. it is not for _one_ country that i ask your support. my ground is as broad as the world; for it is the ground of eternal principles, common to all humanity. no man, on the pretext that his heart is with some other nation,--german, italian, pole, french; no man, on the pretext that he is a universal philanthropist, ought to refuse his sympathies to hungary; for its cause happens in this crisis to comprise the rest. if i were a pole, a german, or an italian, egotistically patriotic, i could not serve my country better than by attacking russia, the only substantial enemy. what would the petty princes of germany have been in 1848 without prussia? and what was prussia, when her capital was in the hands of the people, but for the certainty of the czar's support? what were the petty despots of italy without austria? and what was austria, when her armies, driven from the soil of hungary in a series of pitched battles, were so demoralized, that nothing but the treacherous disobedience of a general prevented our brave militia from extinguishing in vienna and olmutz the decrepit absolutism of the hapsburgs? what hindered _me_ from afterwards crushing it? the intervention of russian despotism,--always the primal cause of evil. absolutism has understood and declared, that its repose is impossible, whilst a free press and free institutions exist any where. formerly the absolutists adhered to the principle of "legitimacy," or, the divine right of an hereditary dynasty; and provided this false principle was respected, they did not object to the development of constitutions which preserved attachment to monarchies. but now they have thrown away their own principle of dynastical legitimacy, and have no rule but to oppress freedom everywhere. whoever will join them in that work is welcome, though he be a usurper. thus it came to pass, that henry of bourbon was rejected by the despots, while louis napoleon has received from the czar an autograph letter of approval, and from austria complimentary gifts. will the united states remain inactive, while free institutions are systematically extinguished? can they look on indifferently, because seventy years ago it was a wise doctrine, appropriate to their childhood, not to care about european politics? it is publicly reported, that russia has decided to absorb turkey; and means to grant italy to austria; belgium, and the rhenish provinces to france; and the rest of germany to prussia. the czar, acting like the persian kings of old when they sent garments of honour to their satraps, flings in the addition of a few provinces of kingdoms to their satrapies. and oh! almighty father of humanity! is there no power on earth to stop this execrable annihilation of human and national rights, of freedom and independence?--though there is a republic powerful enough to do so--a republic founded upon the very principles which the despotic powers have put under an inexorable ban! gentlemen, i have dwelt perhaps too long on the condition of europe; but it was necessary to show that though there be no russian eagles, painted over the public offices in germany, italy, france, still the russian frontier is really extended to the atlantic. people of free america, beware, ere it be too late! hurriedly and by sudden violence, all civil and religious liberty must, for the repose of absolutism, be trampled out of europe; and by more deliberate perpetration, by diplomacy, persuasion, and gold, the way must be prepared to trample it out elsewhere by ulterior violence. and here i claim permission to say something about the most dangerous power of russia, its diplomacy. it is worthy of consideration that while russia starves her armies and underpays her officials, who live by peculation, still, abroad she devotes greater resources to her diplomacy than any other power has ever done. acting on the maxim that "men are not influenced by facts, but by opinions respecting facts"--not by "things as they are," but by "things as they are believed to be," she finds it easier and cheaper, through a diplomatic agency, to impress the world with a belief in a strength she has not, than to try to organize or attain that strength. and to come to that aim, russian diplomacy is not restricted to diplomatic proceedings. brilliant saloons of fascinating ladies, as well as marriages, are equally departments of russian diplomacy. the secret-service money at the disposal of all other diplomatists, is always limited, and has only been exceptionably used. but every russian diplomatist, in whom confidence is reposed, has _unlimited credit_, and is allowed to disburse any sum to achieve an adequate result. their traditional experience teaches them how to attain their point; their discretion can be relied on, and they understand every possible means of reaching men directly and indirectly, pulling frequently the strings of thoroughly unconscious puppets. constantinople is the great workshop of diplomatic skill, worthy of more close interest than has hitherto been bestowed upon it from america--because there will be struck the most dreadful blow to the independence of europe. in constantinople, when russia wishes to turn a grand vizier out of office, it does not attack him: it praises him rather, and spreads the rumour of having him in its pay; and it is sure that foreign influential diplomatists will then turn out for it the hated grand vizier. when on the other hand a grand vizier is wavering in his position, and russia likes him to continue in office, it attacks him with ostentatious publicity. russia hates not always the man whom it appears to hate, and loves not always the man whom it appears to love. russian diplomacy is a subterraneous power, slippery like a snake, burrowing like the mole; and when it has to come out in broad daylight, it watches to the left when it looks to the right. russia gives instructions never to allow her to be directly defended by the press. that would lead to discussion and further exposure. with regard to herself, she wants silence--the silence of the grave. but her agents devote months of scheming, and any sums required to attack her opponents, to get up discord, or the appearance of division amongst them, or to popularize any momentary view which suits her policy, and she delights in doing so through apparently hostile and therefore unsuspected agents. thus russia is powerful by an army held ready as a rearguard to support needy despots with; powerful by its ascendancy over the european continent; powerful by having pushed other despots into extremities where they have lost all independent vitality, and cannot escape throwing themselves into the iron grasp of the czar; but above all, russia is powerful by its secret diplomacy. still this colossus, gigantic as it appears to be--like to the idol "with front of brass but feet of clay," may be overturned--easily overturned, from its fragile pedestal, if the glorious republic of the united states opposes to it, with resolute attitude, the law of nations, and does not abandon principles in favour of _accomplished_ criminal _facts_. the mournful condition of hungary seems to be pointed out by providence to the united states as an opportunity to save mankind from russia without any sacrifice at all; whereas if this opportunity be lost--i say it with the inspiration of prophecy--there are many here in this hall who will yet see the day when the united states shall have to wrestle for life and death with all europe absorbed by russia. i know where i stand, gentlemen; i know your power and the indomitable, heroic spirit of your people. it is not with the intention to create apprehension that i say this: the people of the united states fears nobody on earth. it may be that russia, even after having absorbed europe, will not dare to attack the united states directly. but it may be that it will dare even this. some domestic dissension may come--(no nation is safe against it)--the passion of particular interest may cause some momentary discord. russia will foster it, by its secret diplomacy, to which nothing is sacred on earth; and when irritation comes to the pitch, and the ties of affection become for a moment loose, then perhaps russia may step in at a moment of interior weakness, from which not the greatest nations are exempt. russia will begin by "_divido_," and will perhaps come to "_impero_." all this may happen; i can say neither yes nor no; but one thing i am sure of, and that is, that russia triumphant in europe can and will attack you in your most vital interests, and can hurt you mortally, _without even resorting to war_. be sure, gentlemen, so soon as russia has consolidated its undisputed preponderance, the first step will be to exclude the commerce of america from europe by a prohibitory system of custom duties. it will do it; it must do it. firstly, because commerce is the convoyer of principles. that is more sure yet than what a gentleman of new york so eloquently said,--that "the _steam engine is a democrat_." absolutism could not for a single moment rule europe with security, if europe remained in commercial intercourse with republican america. and secondly, russia will exclude your trade from europe, because (and let the great valley of the west mark it) because your immensely expanding agriculture is the most dangerous competitor to russian wheat, or corn, in the markets of europe. either you must be excluded from the trade with europe, or russia cannot find a market for its corn. if you ask, _how soon_ is such an exclusion of your produce from europe by russian influence possible? i reply: possibly within a single year; for within a year, if we cannot recommence the struggle, russia may accomplish the partition of europe. principles can only be balanced by principles--absolutism by republican institutions--unrighteous interference by the law of nations--despotism by civil and religious liberty. this is the cause which i advocate. it is not the cause of hungary alone; it is yours--it is the world's. it has a determination as absolute and extreme as despotism. hungary would have been too content, if russia had not interfered, merely to defend herself against austria, the immediate instrument of her oppression. now the independence of europe, and the independence of hungary with it, can only be secured on the moskwa, and on the neva, in the kremlin, and in the great hall of st. george. for this purpose, in which you yourselves are so vitally interested, we do not claim for you to fight our battles for us. look to the nations of europe, groaning under russia's weight. look, in the first line to sweden, and from sweden, across poland to hungary, and from hungary to turkey, and to brave circassia. pronounce in favor of the law of nations, with the determination which shows that you mean to act, and i say, russia _will_ respect your declaration, or else it will have a war from sweden down to turkey and circassia. so soon as it moves with 160,000 to 200,000 men against hungary (and with less it could not), all those nations will be aware that there is the last opportunity afforded to them by providence to shake off russia's yoke, and they will avail themselves of this opportunity--be sure of it. the momentary fall of hungary was too painful a lesson to them. but again i am answered, "in case of such a war you will be entangled in it." to this i say that you will have to fight a war single-handed and alone, within less than five years against russia and all europe, if you do not take the position which i humbly claim. but if you take this position, the necessity of this war will be averted from you, and russian preponderance will be checked and your protestation respected, without having to go to war. because there is another sanction which you may add to your protestation--a sanction powerful as a threat of war, and yet no war at all. that sanction will be the declaration of congress, that, as the intervention of a foreign power in the domestic affairs of any nation is a violation of the laws of nations, by the fact of such intervention your neutrality laws of 1818 are suspended in as far as the interfering or interference-claiming power is concerned. in other words, that the citizens of the united states are at liberty to follow their own inclination in respect to such a foreign power which violates the laws of nations. this sanction would be sufficient, because the enterprizing spirit of your high-minded people is too well known not to be feared by all the despots of the world. your laws, which forbid your citizens to partake in an armed expedition abroad, are founded upon the sentiment, that to a foreign power with which you are on terms of _amity_ the regards of friendship are due. but you, without becoming inconsistent with your own fundamental principles, cannot consider yourself to be in good friendship with a power which violates the laws of nations: so you may well withdraw the regards of friendship from it without resorting to war. between friendship and hostility there is yet a middle position--that of being neither friend nor enemy--therefore permitting to every private individual to act as he pleases. thus the conditional recall of your neutrality laws would enforce the respect to your protestation without bringing your country into the moral obligation to maintain your protestation by war. i hope those who share my principles but hesitate to pronounce on account of the possibility of a war, will be pleased to consider this humble suggestion, and will see, that with my principles war will be averted from the united states, and by opposing my principles the united states will soon be forced into dangerous difficulties, out of which they cannot be extricated but by a war, which they will have to fight single-handed and alone. [after this, kossuth proceeded to speak on _catholicism;_ but this subject is treated afterwards more amply in his speech at st. louis against the jesuits.] * * * * * while kossuth was addressing his audience at pittsburg, a special envoy from massachusetts arrived, mr. erastus hopkins of northampton, one of the representatives of the state legislature. at the vote of the legislature, the governor (jan. 15th) deputed mr. hopkins to convey to kossuth a solemn public invitation; and at the close of kossuth's speech (jan. 27th) permission was granted by the president of the evening to allow mr. hopkins' credentials to be read; upon which that gentleman said:-"mr. president, after the soul-stirring proceedings of this afternoon, i dare hardly venture to obtrude upon your attention. it was indeed very far from my expectation, when i came a pilgrim on a toilsome journey at this inclement season of the year, that i would be enabled to mingle the congratulations of the citizens of the 'old bay state' to governor kossuth with those of the people of alleghany county. but sir, my message, although not addressed to this meeting, is addressed to one, whom we, in common with you, love, and whom we all delight to honour." turning to kossuth, mr. hopkins then addressed him as follows: "governor kossuth: i am directed by his excellency the governor of massachusetts to present to you the accompanying resolve of the legislature, inviting you to visit their capital during the present session. the resolve is _in fact_, no less than in its terms, _in the name and in behalf of the people of the commonwealth_. "having with this announcement delivered to you the documents entrusted to my charge, i must be considered as having exhausted my official functions. yet, sir, having had the honour of introducing the resolve to the legislature of massachusetts [cheers], and witnessing with pleasure the unanimous and instant concurrence of her four hundred representatives [renewed cheers], i will venture to add a few words beyond the record--only such words, however, as cannot fail to be consonant with the sentiment and hearts of her people. "the people of massachusetts would have you accept this act of her constituted authorities as _no unmeaning compliment._ never, in her history as an independent state, with one single and illustrious exception, has massachusetts tendered such a mark of respect to any other than the chief magistrates of these united states. and even in the present instance, much as she admires your patriotism, your eloquence, your untiring devotedness and zeal,--deeply as she is moved by your plaintive appeals and supplications in behalf of your native and oppressed land--greatly as she is amazed by the irrepressible elasticity with which you rise from under the heel of oppression, with fortitude increased under sufferings, with assurance growing stronger as the darkness grows deeper [cheers], still, it is not one or all these qualities combined that can lead her to swerve from her dignity as an independent state to the mere worship of man. [applause.] no! but it is because she views you as the advocate and representative of certain great _principles_ which constitute her own vitality as a state;--because she views you as the representative of human rights and freedom in another and far distant land,--it is because she views you as the rightful but exiled governor of a people, whose past history and whose recent deeds show them to be worthy of some better future than that of russian tyranny and austrian oppression,--that she seeks to welcome you to her borders: that she seeks to attest to a gazing world that to the cause of freedom she is not insensible, and that to the oppression of tyrants she is not indifferent." mr. hopkins then proceeded to recount the public glories of massachusetts, which he summed up in "religion, education, and freedom,--a tricolour for the world." he avowed massachusetts to be "the birth-place of american liberty;" and stated that her government is carried on in 322 cities and townships, literally democratic assemblies, which levy their own taxes, sustain their own schools, police, tribunals &c., and receive and pay local funds four or five times larger than those of the state treasury. "the seat of government," said he, "is a fiction in massachusetts, save as it signifies the hearts of the people. come to her borders; witness the truth of all and more than i have uttered; as you shall find it attested by our institutions, by the plenitude of our hospitality, and by the acclamations of one million souls." kossuth replied briefly, with thanks and cordial assent. * * * * * xxiv.--reply to the pittsburg clergy. [_jan. 26th_.] the substance of his speech is reported as follows:-he said that he received with a thankful heart this testimonial of respect and welcome from the reverend ministers of the gospel, whose hearts and minds were deeply imbued with regard and desire for _truth_. he had been taught to reverence the word of god, because it guaranteed freedom to man; and there was nothing more intimately associated with the idea of freedom than the right of every mind to search for truth in its own way--the right of private judgment. therefore in receiving the approbation of so reverend and learned a body, he felt that he received the approbation of religion itself; and as if an angel voice from heaven had declared to him--"the cause you plead has found favour before heaven. you may encounter hostility; you may be overtaken by calumny; you may endure sufferings, and trials, and temptations; you may even suffer martyrdom;--but the cause will triumph. trust to him who strengthened the arm of david against the mighty goliath; and learn to say in truth: lord, thy will be done!" when he thought thus, and felt thus, he was not weak, but strong. the sufferings and trials which he had endured had strengthened his body, even as the holy influences of religion had strengthened his soul. he was not left as the fragile flower, that remained bowed and bent before the blast; for he could now look forward with more of hope and of trust for the future of his own beloved land, when he heard such glorious truths so warmly proclaimed; and when he saw such evidences of real sympathy for the cause of hungary. they spoke of the protestant church. he claimed no merit on account of his belief; but he, too, was a protestant--not by education merely, but from his own studied convictions. he could believe nothing merely because he might be commanded to do so; but solely as the result of his own convictions. truth is as uncorruptible and imperishable as god himself; and he will spread it throughout all the world. but the triumph of truth cannot be achieved by persecution, opposition, or political oppression. this glorious principle can only be triumphant when the nations of the earth shall become free from oppression; because it is only under the protection of free institutions--a free press, free controversy, freedom of speech, and free popular education,--where it is your privilege to preach and that of the neighbour to hear,--that the political independence of a people can be preserved. oppression is everywhere accompanied by the demoralization of the masses, and their adoption of infidelity or fanaticism; while under the teachings of freedom religion becomes a growth of the soul. he would urge them to go on and support that cause which they believed to be sanctified by truth. it has been said that true religion can never cease to be republican. if this be true, he would ask what could more promote the glorious cause, than the influence of the united states exerted among the nations of the world, toward the general acknowledgment of that doctrine among nations which is laid down for the government of men,--"what ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them." this fundamental truth should be declared a part of the international law of the world; and the gospel would then become the bulwark of liberty to all mankind. thus we may see that the triumph of genuine liberty can best be secured by recognizing religion as the true basis of the law of nations. he who shall be instrumental in incorporating this grand doctrine among those laws, will be equal, or perhaps superior to, a luther, or a melancthon, a calvin, or a huss, a cranmer, or any other of the world's greatest reformers. the people of this republic have all this within their grasp; and he hoped the almighty would hasten the day when it shall be done. he had often heard that the people of this country loved to be called a great people, and he had many times heard them called a great people. to _be_ a great people, however, the people of this country must really _act_ as a great people. he urged upon the ministers of the gospel that they should warn their flocks against the horrid doctrines of _materialism_. nothing is more hostile to national greatness than when the poor see the rich governed only by pecuniary considerations--leaving nothing for the mind and the soul, or undervaluing virtue and talents. he thankfully acknowledged the deep solemnity of his feelings, when for his humble self, such solemn manifestations were observed; and while commending his bleeding country to their love, he could only refer them to the saviour's words as the guide for their prayers and their watchfulness. * * * * * xxv.--hungarian loan. [_melodeum, cleveland_.] kossuth having been presented at the melodeum to the mayor, was publicly addressed by mr. starkweather in a highly energetic speech, which ended by saluting him as "rightful governor of hungary." kossuth replied:-sir, if i am not mistaken it is now the 156th time [since i entered america], i am sure that it is the 34th time since i left washington on the 12th of january,--that i have had the honour to address an american audience in that tongue which i learned from shakespeare, while confined in an austrian prison for having dared to claim the right of a free press, which now, like the hundred-handed briareus of old, pours my words by thousands of channels into the hearts of millions of freemen, who comprize in their national capacity a mighty republic, destined to enforce the law of nations, upon which rests the deliverance of the world from an overwhelming despotism. the press is nobly recompensing me. the ways of providence are wonderful! may the free press never forget its living principle, "justice and truth." may it always be watchful with its thousand eyes, that the secret craft of diplomacy may never succeed to degrade one organ of the american press into an unconscious russian tool, acted on by blind animosity or by exclusive predilections. sir--after having spoken so often, and so much; and the free press having conveyed my principles, my arguments, and my prayers, in almost every homestead of this great republic; i may be well permitted to believe, that the stage of speaking is passed, and the stage of practical action has come. almost every packet brings such news of absolutist reaction in europe, and almost every new step of the despotic powers is accompanied by such incidents, that it were indeed unpardonable neglect, if, when providence has placed so much influence in my hands by the confidence of nations bestowed upon me, i should not use all possible energy to circumvent the influence of evil, to combine the efforts of the good, to check the plots of vile, and the waywardness of erring or weak characters--often the unconscious tools of the vile, to direct the action of inconsiderate friends, and above all, to accomplish those preparations which are indispensable to meet the exigencies of the future--in short, to attain that crisis, at which i humbly claim protection for principles from the people of the united states, in their public capacity, and substantial aid from their private generosity. you of course are aware that all these things together present a vast field, for which every moment of my time would scarcely suffice. often am i asked, what are the instrumentalities for this my activity? but this question cannot be answered publicly, as i am quite unwilling to let the enemy learn my secrets. however, so much i may state, that it is not without a definite aim and clear hope that i devote all that yet remains in me of energy and strength. if i did not hope,--if under certain conditions i had not an assurance of success,--i would prefer tranquillity to action, though it were the tranquillity of the grave. there are _two_ modes in which free nations may aid the cause of european independence,--namely, _politically_ and _privately_. as to the first, i avow with intense gratitude that the great national jury, the people, gave and gives incessantly its favourable verdict. your state legislature is pronouncing its vote, and the cause is moved before the high court of your national congress. in regard to aid by _private funds_ i rejoice to see local associations clustering round the central one of northern ohio, in cleveland; but i desire that such efforts may not be delayed until i come in person: for i can possibly come only to a few. already in new york i started the idea of a national hungarian loan, in shares of one, five and ten dollars, with the facsimile of my signature, and of larger shares of fifty and of a hundred dollars with my autograph. i prepared the smaller shares for generous men, who are not rich, yet desire to help the great cause of freedom. it is a noble privilege of the richer to do greater good. but remember, it is not a gift, it is a loan: for either freedom has no name on earth, or hungary has a future yet; and let hungary be once again independent, and she has ample resources to pay that small loan, if the people of the united states, remembering the aid received in their own dark hour, vouchsafe to me such a loan. hungary has no public debt, it has fifteen millions of population, a territory of more than one hundred thousand square english miles, abundant in the greatest variety of nature's blessings, if the doom of oppression be taken from it. the state of hungary has public landed property administered badly, worth more than a hundred millions of dollars, even at the low price, at which it was already an established principle of my administration to sell it in small shares to suit the poorer classes. hungary has rich mines of gold, silver, copper, quicksilver, antimony, iron, sulphur, nickel, opal, and other mines. hungary has the richest salt mines in the world--where the extraction of one hundred weight of the purest stone salt, amounts to but little more than one shilling of your money--and though that is sold by the government at the price of two to three and a half dollars, and thus the consumption is of course very restricted, this still yields a net revenue of five millions of dollars a year--to the government--but no! there is not government, it is usurpation now! sucking out the lifeblood of the people, crushing the spirit of freedom by soldiers, hangmen, policemen, and harassing the people in its domestic life and the sanctuary of its family with oppression worse than a free american can conceive. you see by this, gentlemen, that when hungary is once free--and free it will be--she has ample resources to repay your generous loan within a year without any taxation of the people itself; and pay it well, because every shilling of your generous aid will faithfully be employed for its restoration to freedom and independence. i may point to my whole life as a guarantee to that purpose. i had millions at my disposal, entrusted to me by my people's confidence, and here i stand penniless and poor, not knowing what my children will eat to-morrow, if i die to-day; and i am proud that i am poor, and i pledge my honour to you, that every shilling of what your generosity gives for hungary will be employed for hungary's benefit. in fact, as i have provided for the contingency of anything befalling me, so also i am ready, if it be your people's will, to admit any control, consistent with the necessary conditions of success. [after this, kossuth proceeded to speak on the aspect of republicanism towards catholicism and the fortunes of ireland; a subject more fully treated in other speeches.] * * * * * address to kossuth from the state committee of ohio. governor kossuth:--as chairman of the committee appointed for that purpose by a resolution of the general assembly of the state of ohio, i have the honour to tender to you, in the name and in behalf of the state, a cordial welcome to the capital. we proffer this greeting as a small tribute of that admiration which your courage, your integrity, and above all, your self-denying devotion to the cause of hungarian freedom has roused in our breasts. wonder not, sir, at the enthusiasm which your presence excites in a people who cherish, with fond recollection and reverence, the smallest relic of that time, when liberty wrestled with oppression in america, and who hail the anniversaries of her triumphs with such grateful remembrance of those brave and patriotic men who wrought out our full measure of national happiness. in you we behold a living embodiment of those great principles which we cherish with such tender affection. you are the realization of that virtue, that courage, that civil and military genius, which sheds such lustre on our early history. you call to mind more freshly than poetic or historic page, song, or speaking canvass, that glorious record which was graven more than two centuries ago by the first exiles from european oppression upon the granite rocks of new england,--_"resistance to tyrants is obedience to god."_ our affection is warmed by the lively interest which we feel in the spread of this cardinal principle, and the fitness for its championship which you have evinced, revealing constantly a resemblance to that immortal man, the impress of whose greatness you behold on every side. when liberty, scourged from the old, sought out a new world wherein to raise her sacred temple, it was to his master hand she confided the noble work. had he been less great, that glorious shrine might never have been beaconed in the sky, or at least its proportions might have been uncouth and insecure. now therefore, since liberty has secured the manifold blessings that flow from human equality, and proudly flung back the taunts of tyrants, it is a joyous reflection to the children of this her first home, that she has at length found a man in foreign lands fitly gifted to appreciate those blessings, industrious to search out and follow the path by which they were attained, and virtuous to take no selfish advantage from the thanksgiving that her mission will arouse. sir, it is a splendid characteristic of our national government, that ohioans are as keenly touched by the history of your wrongs as the borders of the atlantic states. yes, sir, the hearts of two millions of freemen at the centre of our country's population leap fast at the shrieks of freedom in every clime, believing in no cold, unbrother-like law of distance; and, sir, we yield to no state in the sincerity with which the following resolution was adopted: resolved,--that we declare the russian past intervention in the affairs of hungary a violation of the law of nations, which, if repeated, would not be regarded indifferently by the people of the state of ohio. in conclusion, sir, i present to you a copy of the resolutions of the general assembly, and again welcome you to the valley of the west, trusting that the warmth of your reception in ohio is but an earnest of that glorious sympathy which will spring in your path should you go still farther westward in your holy mission. * * * * * xxvi.--panegyric of ohio. [_speech at his reception at columbus, feb. 5th_.] kossuth was conducted by governor wood to the place fitted up for his reception, and was there addressed by the hon. samuel galloway in an ample and glowing speech, which opened by assuring him that the enthusiasm which he now witnessed was no new creation; inasmuch as, more than two years before, the general assembly of the state had resolved that congress be requested to interpose for kossuth's deliverance from captivity. kossuth replied:-sir, i thank you for the information of what i owe to ohio. i stood upon the ruins of vanquished greatness in asia, where tidings from young america are so seldom heard that indeed i was not acquainted with the fact. still, i loved ohio before i knew what i had yet to hear. now i will love her with the affection and tenderness of a child, knowing what part she took in my restoration to liberty and life. sir, permit me to decline those praises which you have been pleased to bestow on me personally. i know of no _merit_--i know only the word _duty_, and you are acquainted with the beautiful lines of the irish poet- "far dearer the grave or the prison, illumed by a patriot's name, than the glories of all who have risen, on liberty's ruins, to fame." i was glad to hear that you are familiar with the history of our struggles, and of our achievements, and of our aims. this dispenses me from speaking much,--and that is a great benefit to me, because indeed i have spoken very much. sir, entering the young state of ohio--though my mind is constantly filled with homeward thoughts and homeward sorrows, still my sorrows relax while i look around me in astonishment, and rub my eyes to ascertain that it is not the magic of a dream, which makes your bold, mighty, and flourishing commonwealth rich with all the marks of civilization and of life, here, where almost yesterday was nothing but a vast wilderness, silent and dumb like the elements of the world on creation's eve. and here i stand in columbus, which, though ten years younger than i am, is still the capital of that mighty commonwealth, which--again in its turn,--ten years before i was born, nursed but three thousand daring men, scattered over the vast wilderness, fighting for their lives with scalping indians; but now numbers two millions of happy freemen, who, generous because free, are conscious of their power, and weigh mightily in the scale of mankind's destiny. how wonderful that an exile from a distant european nation of asiatic origin, which, amidst the raging waves of centuries that swept away empires, stood for a thousand years like a rock, and protected christendom and civilization against barbarism--how wonderful that the exiled governor of that nation was destined to come to this land, where a mighty nation has grown up, as it were, over night, out of the very earth, and found this nation protecting the rights of humanity, when offended in his person,--found that youthful nation ready to stretch its powerful arm across the atlantic to protect all hungary against oppression,--found her pouring the balm of her sympathy into the bleeding wounds of hungary, that, regenerated by the faithful spirit of america, she may rise once more independent and free, a breakwater to the flood of russian ambition, which oppresses europe and threatens the world. citizens of columbus--the namesake of your city, when he discovered america, little thought that by his discovery he would liberate the old world.--and those exiles of the old world, who sixty-four years ago, first settled within the limits of ohio, at marietta, little thought that the first generation which would leap into their steps, would make despots tremble and oppressed nations rise. and yet, thus it will be. the mighty outburst of popular feeling which it is my wonderful lot to witness, is a revelation of that future too clear not to be understood. the eagle of america flaps its wings; the stars of america illumine europe's night; and the star-spangled banner, taking under its protection the hungarian flag, fluttering loftily and proudly, tells the tyrants of the world that the right of freedom must sway, and not the whim of despots but the law of nations must rule. gentlemen, i may not speak longer. [cries of _go on!_] yes, gentlemen, but i am ill, and worn out. give me your lungs, and then i will go on. citizens, your young and thriving city is conspicuous by its character of benevolence. there is scarcely a natural human affliction for which your young city has not an asylum of benevolence. to-day you have risen in that benevolence from alleviating private affliction to consoling oppressed nations. be blessed for it. i came to the shores of your country pleading the restoration of the law of nations to its due sway, and as i went on pleading, i met flowers of sympathy. since i am in ohio i meet fruits; and as i go on thankfully gathering the fruits, new flowers arise, still promising more and more beautiful fruits. that is the character of ohio--and you are the capital of ohio. if i am not mistaken, the birth of your city was the year of the trial of war, by which your nation proved to the world that there is no power on earth that can dare any more to touch your lofty building of independence. the glory of your eastern sister states is, to have conquered that independence for you. let it be your glory to have cast your mighty weight into the scale, that the law of nations, guarded and protected by you, may afford to every oppressed nation that "fair play" which america had when it struggled for independence. gentlemen, i am tired out. you must generously excuse me, when i conclude by humbly recommending my poor country's future to your generosity. * * * * * xxvii.--democracy the spirit of the age. [_reception by the two houses of legislature of ohio_.] kossuth, attended by the joint committee, was then introduced, and addressed by the president of the senate, hon. wm. medill, as follows: governor kossuth: on learning that you were about to visit the western portion of our country, the general assembly of this state adopted the following preamble and resolutions:-whereas, louis kossuth, governor of hungary, has endeared himself to the people of ohio by his great military and greater civic services rendered to the cause of liberty; by the transcendent power and eloquence with which he has vindicated the right of every nation to determine for itself its own form of government, by the perils he has encountered and the suffering he has endured to achieve the freedom of his native country: therefore, in the name, and on behalf of the people, _be it resolved by the general assembly of the state of ohio_, that the war in which hungary was lately seemingly overcome, was a struggle in behalf of the great principles which underlie the structure of our government, vindicated by the bloody battles of eight years, and that we cannot be indifferent to their fate, whatever be the arena in which the struggle for their vitality goes on. _resolved_, that an attack in any form upon them is implicitly an attack upon us, an armed intervention against them, is in effect an insult to us; that any narrowing of the sway of these principles is a most dangerous weakening of our own influence and power; and that all such combinations of kings against people should be regarded by us now as they were in 1776, and so far as circumstances will admit, the parallel should and will be so treated. _resolved_, that we are proud to recognize in louis kossuth constitutional governor of hungary, the heroic personification of these great principles, and that as such, and in token and pledge of our profound sympathy with him, and the high cause he so nobly represents, we tender to him, in behalf of two millions of freemen, a hearty welcome to the capital of the state of ohio. _resolved_, that we declare the russian past intervention in the affairs of hungary, a violation of the laws of nations which, if repeated, would not be regarded indifferently by the people of the state of ohio. _resolved_, that a joint committee of three on the part of the senate, and five on the part of the house of representatives, be appointed to tender governor kossuth, in the name and on behalf of the people of ohio, a public reception by their general assembly, now in the session of the capital of the state. this preamble, and these resolutions, set forth the views and sentiments of the people of ohio in a far more forcible, authoritative, and enduring form, than can possibly be done by any declaration or expression of mine. in no part of the united states has your course been more warmly approved or your great talents, persevering energy, and devoted patriotism, more universally admired. this, sir, is sufficiently evinced in the cordial and heartfelt welcome that has everywhere awaited you, since your entrance into the state. free and independent themselves, the people of ohio can not look with indifference on the great contest in which you are engaged. the history of that fearful struggle which resulted in the achievement of their own independence is still fresh in their recollection. always on the side of the oppressed, no cold or calculating policy can suppress or control their sympathies. the cause of hungary, which you so eloquently plead, and which it is your high and sacred mission to maintain, is the cause of freedom in every quarter of the world. the principles involved in that cause, form the basis of our own institutions, the source of our present prosperity and greatness, and the foundation of all our hopes and anticipations of the future. it would be strange, indeed, if a cause so pure and holy, or a champion so gifted, should fail to command the highest regard and admiration of freemen. in the name, then, and on behalf of the general assembly of ohio, i bid you welcome to our midst. i welcome you, sir, to the capital of a great and flourishing commonwealth--to its halls of legislation, which, in your own fatherland, were the scenes of some of your proudest triumphs, and to the hearts of a free, generous, and sympathizing people. kossuth's reply. mr. president--the general assembly of ohio, having magnanimously bestowed upon me the high honour of this national welcome, it is with profound veneration that i beg leave to express my fervent gratitude for it. were even no principles for the future connected with the honour which i now enjoy, still the past would be memorable as history, and not fail to have a beneficial influence, continuously to develop the spirit of the age. almost every century has had one predominant idea, which imparted a common direction to the activity of nations. this predominant idea is the spirit of the age, invisible yet omnipresent; impregnable, all-pervading; scorned, abused, opposed, and yet omnipotent. the spirit of our age is democracy. all _for_ the people and all _by_ the people. nothing _about_ the people _without_ the people. that is democracy, and that is the ruling tendency of the spirit of our age. to this spirit is opposed the principle of despotism, claiming sovereignty over mankind, and degrading nations from the position of a self-conscious, self-consistent aim, to the condition of tools subservient to the authority of ambition. one of these principles will and must prevail. so far as one civilization prevails, the destiny of mankind is linked to a common source of principles, and within the boundaries of a common civilization community of destinies exists. hence the warm interest which the condition of distant nations awakes now-a-days in a manner not yet recorded in history because humanity never was yet aware of that common tie as it now is. with this consciousness thus developed, two opposite principles cannot rule within the same boundaries--democracy and despotism. in the conflict of these two hostile principles, until now it was not right, not justice, but only success which met approbation and applause. unsuccessful patriotism was stigmatized with the name of crime. revolution not crowned by success was styled anarchy and revolt, and the vanquished patriot being dragged to the gallows by victorious despotism, men did not consider _why_ he died on the gallows; but the fact itself, that _there_ he died, imparted a stain to his name. and though impartial history, now and then, casts the halo of a martyr over an unsuccessful patriot's grave, yet even this was not always sure. tyrants have often perverted history by adulation or by fear. but whatever that late verdict might have been; for him who dared to struggle against despotism at the time when he struggled in vain, there was no honour on earth.--victorious tyranny marked the front of virtue with the brand of a criminal. even when an existing "authority" was mere violence worse than that of a pirate, to have opposed it unsuccessfully was sufficient to ensure the disapproval of all who held any authority. the people indeed never failed to console the outcast by its sympathy, but authority felt no such sympathy, and rather regarded this very sympathy as a dangerous symptom of anarchy. when the idea of justice is thus perverted--when virtue is thus deprived of its fair renown, and honour is thus attacked--when success like that of louis napoleon's is gained through connivance--all this becomes an immeasurable obstacle to the freedom of nations, which never yet was achieved but by a struggle,--a struggle, which success raised to the honour of a glorious revolution, but failure lowered to the reputation of a criminal outbreak. mr. president, i feel proud at the accident, that in my person public honours have been restored to that on which alone they ought to be bestowed--righteousness and a just cause; whereas, until now, honours were lavished only upon success. i consider this as a highly important _fact_, which cannot fail to encourage the resolution of devoted patriots, who, though not afraid of death, may be excused for recoiling before humiliation. senators, representatives of ohio, i thank you for it in the name of all who may yet suffer for having done the duty of a patriot. you may yet see many a man, who, out of your approbation, will draw encouragement to noble deeds; for there are many on earth ready to meet misfortune for a noble aim, but not so many ready to meet humiliation and indignity. besides, in honouring me, you have approved what my nation has done. you have honoured all hungary by it, and i pledge my word to you that we will yet do what you have approved. the approbation of our conscience we have--the sympathy of your generous people has met us--and it is no idle thing, that sympathy of the people of ohio--it weighs as the sovereign will of two millions of freemen. you have added to it the sanction of your authority. your people's sympathy you have framed into a law, sacred and sure in its consequences, on which humanity may rely. but, sir, high though be the value of this noble approbation, it becomes an invaluable benefit to humanity by these resolutions by which the general assembly of ohio, acknowledging the justice of those principles which it is my mission to plead in my injured country's name, declares that the mighty and flourishing commonwealth of ohio is resolved to resist the eternal laws of nations to their due sway, too long contemned by arbitrary power. it was indeed a sorrowful sight to see how nations bled, and how freedom withered in the iron grasp of despotisms, leagued for universal oppression of humanity. it was a sorrowful sight to see that there was no power on earth ready to maintain those eternal laws, without which there is no security for any nation on earth. it was a sorrowful sight to see all nations isolating themselves in defence, while despots leagued in offence. the view has changed. a bright lustre is spreading over the dark sky of humanity. the glorious galaxy of the united states rises upon oppressed nations, and the bloody star of despotism fading at your very declaration, will soon vanish from the sky like a meteor. legislators of ohio, it may be flattering to ambitious vanity to act the part of an execrated conqueror, but it is a glory unparalleled in history to protect rights and freedom on earth. the time draws near, when, by virtue of such a declaration as yours, shared by your sister states, europe's liberated nations will unite in a mighty choir of hallelujahs, thanking god that his paternal cares have raised the united states to the glorious position of a first-born son of freedom on earth. washington prophesied, that within twenty years the republic of the united states would be strong enough to defy any power on earth _in a just cause_. the state of ohio was not yet born when the wisest of men and purest of patriots uttered that prophecy; and god the almighty has made the prophecy true, by annexing, in a prodigiously short period, more stars to the proud constellation of your republic, and increasing the lustre of every star more powerfully, than washington could have anticipated in the brightest moments of his patriotic hopes. rejoice, o my nation, in thy very woes! wipe off all thy tears, and smile amidst thy tortures, like the dutch hero, de wytt. there is a providence which rules. thou wast, o my nation, often the martyr, who by thy blood didst redeem the christian nations on earth. even thy present nameless woes are providential. they were necessary, that the star-spangled banner of america should rise over a new sinai--the mountain of law for all nations. thy sufferings were necessary, that the people of the united states, powerful by their freedom and free by the principle of national independence, that common right of all humanity, should stand up, a new moses upon the new sinai, and shout out with the thundering voice of its twenty-five millions--"hear, ye despots of the world, henceforward this shall be law, in the name of the lord your god and our god. ye shall not kill nations. ye shall not steal their freedom. and ye shall not covet what is your neighbour's." ohio has given its vote by the resolutions i had the honour to hear. it is the vote of two millions, and it will have its constitutional weight in the councils of washington city, where the delegates of the people's sovereignty find their glory in doing the people's will. sir, it will be a day of consolation and joy in hungary, when my bleeding nation reads these resolutions, which i will send to her. they will flash over the gloomy land; and my nation, unbroken in courage, steady in resolution, and firm in confidence, will draw still more courage, more resolution from them, because it is well aware that the legislature of ohio would never pledge a word to which the people of ohio will not be true in case of need. sir, i regret that my illness has disabled me to express my fervent thanks in a manner more becoming to this assembly's dignity. i beg to be excused for it; and humbly beg you to believe, that my nation for ever, and i for all my life, will cherish the memory of this benefit. * * * * * xxviii.--the miseries and the strength of hungary. [_columbus, feb. 7th, to the association of friends of hungary_.] on feb. 7th was held the first regular meeting of the ohio association of the friends of hungary, in the city hall of columbus. governor wood addressed the association, as its president; and in the course of his speech said:-this is a cause in which the people of the united states feel much interest. much has been said on the doctrine of intervention and non-intervention. there was a time when if i ventured to speak a word on any question in this state it was received with authority. the opinions i now express have been formed with the same deliberation as those i expressed with authority in another capacity. there has seemed to be a combined effort on the part of despots in europe to put down free institutions. it is the duty of freemen to oppose this effort--to resist the principle that every civic community has not a right to regulate its own affairs. whenever one nation interferes with the internal concerns of another, it is a direct insult to all other nations. there is a combined effort in continental europe to overthrow all free and liberal institutions. this accomplished, what next?--the efforts of tyrants will be directed to our institutions. it will be their aim to break us down. must not we prevent this event--_peaceably if we can--forcibly if we must?_ no power will prevail with tyrants and usurpers but the power of gunpowder or steel. kossuth in reply, turning to governor wood, said: before addressing the assembly, i humbly entreat your excellency to permit me to express, out of the very heart of my heart, my gratitude and fervent thanks for those lofty, generous principles which you have been pleased now to pronounce. i know those principles would have immense value even if they were only an individual opinion; but when they are expressed by him who is the elect of the people of ohio, they doubly, manifoldly increase in weight. the restoration of hungary to its national independence is my aim, to which i the more cheerfully devote my life, because i know that my nation, once master of its own destiny, can make no other choice, in the regulation of its institutions and of its government, than that of a republic founded upon democracy and the great principle of municipal self-government, without which, as opposed to centralization, there is no practical freedom possible. other nations enjoying a comparatively tolerable condition under their existing governments--though aware of their imperfections, may shrink from a revolution of which they cannot anticipate the issue, while they know that in every case it is attended with great sacrifices and great sufferings for the generation which undertakes the hazard of the change. but that is not the condition of hungary. my poor native land is in such a condition that all the horrors of a revolution, when without the hopes of happiness to be gained by it, are preferable to what it lives to endure now. the very life on a bloody battle-field, where every whistling musket-ball may bring death--affords more security, more ease, and is less alarming than that life which the people of hungary has to suffer now. we have seen many a sorrowful day in our past, we have been by our geographical position, destined as the breakwater against every great misfortune, which in former centuries rushed over europe from the east. it is not only the turks, when they were yet a dangerous, conquering race, which my nation had to stay, by wading to the very lips in its own heroic blood. no. the still more terrible invasion of batu khan's (the mongol) raging millions, poured down over europe from the steppes of tartary,--who came not to conquer but to destroy, and therefore spared not nature, not men, not the child in its mother's womb. it was hungary which had to stay its flood from devouring the rest of europe. nevertheless, all which hungary has ever suffered is far less than it has to suffer now from the tyrant of austria, himself in his turn nothing but the slave of ambitious russia. oh! it is a fair, beautiful land, my beloved country, rich in nature's blessings as perhaps no land is rich on earth. when the spring has strewn its blossoms over it, it looks as the garden of eden may have looked, and when the summer ripens nature's ocean of crops over its hills and plains, it looks like a table dressed for mankind by the lord himself; and still it was here in columbus that i read the news that a terrible dearth, that famine is spreading over the rich and fertile land. how should it not? where life-draining oppression weighs so heavily, that the landowner offers the use of all his lands to the government, merely to get free from the taxation--where the vintager cuts down his vineyards and the gardener his orchard, and the farmer burns his tobacco seed to be rid of the duties, and their vexations--there of course must dearth prevail, and famine raise its hideous head. yet the tyrant adds calumny to oppression, by attributing the dearth to a want of industry, after having created it by oppression. there exists no personal security of property. nor is the verdict "not guilty," when pronounced by an austrian court, sufficient to ensure security against prison, nay, against death by the executioner--through a new trial ordered to find a man guilty at any price. poor louis bathyanyi was thus treated. even now persecution is going on--hundreds are arrested secretly and sent to prison and their property confiscated, though they were already acquitted by the very haynaus. _even to whisper that a man or woman was arrested in the night is considered a crime_, and punished by prison, or if the whisperer be a young man, by sending him to the army, there to taste, when he dares to frown, the corporal's stick. _no man knows what is forbidden, what not_, because there exists no law but the arbitrary will of martial courts--no protecting institution--no public life--free speech forbidden--the press fettered--complaint a crime,--when we consider all this, indeed it is not possible not to arrive at the conviction, that, come what may, a new war of revolution in hungary is not a matter of choice, but a matter of unavoidable necessity, because all that may come is not by far so terrible as that which is! but i am often asked,--"what hope has hungary should she rise again?" pardon me, gentlemen, for saying, that i cannot forbear to be surprized as often as i hear this question. why! the emperor of austria, fresh with his bloody victories over italy, vienna, lemberg, prague, attacked us in the fulness of his power, when we had no expectation, and were least in the world prepared to meet it. we were assaulted on several sides; our fortresses were in the hands of traitors, we had as yet no army at all. we were secluded from all the world--forsaken by all the world--without money--without arms--without ammunition--without friends--having nothing for us but the justice of our cause and the people burning with patriotism--men who went to the battlefield almost without knowing how to cock their guns; but still, within less than six months, we beat all the force of austria,--we crushed it to the dust, and in despair, the proud tyrant fled to the feet of the czar, begging his assistance for his sacrilegious purpose, and paying him by the sacrifice of honour, independence, and all his future! in contemplating these facts, who can doubt that we are now a match for austria. then we had no army--now we have 120,000 brave magyars, who fought for freedom and motherland, enlisted in the ranks of austria, forming their weakness and our strength. then hostile nations were opposed to us, now they are friendly, and are with us. then no combination existed between the oppressed nations--now the combination exists. then our oppressor took his own time to strike--when he was best and we were worst prepared:--now we will take our time and strike the blow when it is best for us and worst for him. in a word, then every chance was against us, and we almost in a condition that the stoutest hearts faltered; and we only took up the gauntlet because our very soul revolted against the boundless treachery;--now every chance is for us, and it is the native which throws the gauntlet into the tyrant's face. our very misfortune ensures our success--because then we had some something to lose, now we have nothing. we can only gain--for i defy the sophistry of despotism to invent anything of public or private oppression which is not already inflicted upon us. but i was upon the question of success.--when i moot that question--upon what reposes the success of hungary, it always occurs to my mind that the last administration of the united states sent a gentleman over to europe during the hungarian struggle, _not_ with orders to recognize the independence of hungary, but just to look to what chance of success we had. now, suppose that the united states, taking into consideration the right of every nation to dispose of itself, and true to that policy which it has always followed to take established facts as they are, and not to investigate what chances there might or might not be for the future, but always recognize every new government everywhere--suppose that it had sent that gentleman with such an instruction to hungary: what would have been the consequence? if the government of hungary which existed then and indeed existed very actively, for it had created armies, had beaten austria, and driven her last soldier from hungarian territory,--if that government had been recognized by the united states, of course commercial intercourse with the united states, in every respect, would have been lawful, according to your existing international laws. the emperor of austria, the czar of russia, because they are recognized powers, have full liberty to buy your cannons, gunpowder, muskets--everything. that would have been the case with hungary. that legitimate commerce with the people of the united states with hungary, of course would have been protected by the navy of the united states in the mediterranean. now, men we had enough--but arms we had none. that would have given us arms, and having beaten austria already, we would have beaten russia, and i, instead of having now the honour of addressing you here, would perhaps have dictated a peace in moscow. but the gentleman was sent to _investigate the chances_ of success. upon his investigation hungary perished. let me entreat you, friends of hungary, do not much hesitate about success. while rome deliberated, saguntum fell. i fear that by too long investigating what chances we have, the chances of success will be compromised, which by speedy help could have been ensured. well, i am answered--"there is no doubt about it.--hungary is a match for austria. you have beaten austria, it is true; but russia--there is the rub." precisely, because there is the rub, i come to the united states, relying upon the fundamental principles of your great republic, to claim the protection and maintenance of the law of nations against the armed interference of russia. that is precisely what i claim. that accorded, no intervention of russia can take place; the word of america will be respected, not out of consideration for your dignity, but because the czar and the cabinet of russia, atrocious and unprincipled as they are, are no fools, and will not risk their existence. therefore your word will be respected. you have an act of congress, passed in 1818, by which the people of the united states are forbidden by law to take any hostile steps against a power with which the united states are at amity. well, suppose congress pronounces such a resolution--that in respect to any power which violates the laws of nations we recall this neutrality law and give full liberty to follow its own will. (applause.) now, in declaring this, congress has prevented a war, because it has been pointed out to the people in what way that pronunciation of the law of nations is to be supported, and the enterprizing spirit of the people of the united states is too well known as its sympathy for the cause of hungary is too decidedly expressed, not to impart a conviction to the czar of russia that though the united states do not wish to go to war, so the law of nations will be enforced, _peaceably if possible_ (turning to governor wood) _forcibly if necessary_. but as i again and again meet the doubt whether your protest even with such sanction will be respected, i farther answer--let me entreat you to try. it costs nothing. you are not bound to go farther than you will;--try. _perhaps_ it will be respected, and if it be, humanity is rescued, and freedom on earth reigns where despotism now rules. it is worth a trial. besides, i beg to remind you of my second and third requests, either of which might bring a practical solution of this doubt. at present, whoever will may sell arms to austria, but you forbid your own citizens to sell arms to hungary; and this, though the rule of austria has no legitimate basis, but rests on unjust force; while you have avowed the cause of hungary to be just. such a state of your law is not neutrality, and is not righteous towards _us_ nor is it fair towards your _own people_. if venice were to-day to shake off the yoke of austria, austria will forthwith forbid all of you to buy and sell with venice. well: i say that is not fair towards your own citizens, any more than to the venetians. true; you have not the right to open any market by force, towards a nation which is unwilling to deal with you, but you have a clear right to deal with one which desires it, in spite of any belligerent who chooses to forbid you. how could the fact of hungary or venice rising up against their oppressor justify austria in damaging the lawful commerce of america with those nations? on this turns my second principle, which i consider of high importance for the coming struggle; that the united states would declare their resolve to uphold their commercial intercourse with every nation which is ready to accept it. thirdly, i claimed that you would recognize the hungarian declaration of independence as having been legitimate. my enemies have misrepresented this, as if i desired to be recognized as _de facto_ the governor of hungary. this is mere absurdity. that is not the question--_am_ i governor or not governor? the question is--_was_ the declaration of independence of hungary, in the judgment of the people of the united states, a legitimate one, to which my nation had a right--or was it not? i believe america cannot answer no, because your very existence rests on a similar act. and if that declaration is made, what will be the consequence of it? what will be the practical result? why, that very moment when i or whoever else, upon the basis of this declaration, recognized to be legitimate by your republic, shall take a stake upon hungarian independence, and issue a proclamation declaring that a national government exists, that very moment the existence of the government will be recognized, and the gentleman who will be sent to europe will not be sent to investigate what chances we have of success, but into what diplomatic relation we shall come. and what will be the consequence? a legitimate commercial intercourse of america. then i can fit out men of war--steamers and everything--and your laws will not prevent me. the government of hungary will then be a friendly power, and therefore according to your laws everything might be done for the benefit of my country--and who knows what a benefit it might secure to yourselves? as regards my use of any pecuniary aids, i declare that i will respect the laws of every nation where i have the honour even temporarily to be. i will employ that aid, which the friends of hungary may place at my disposal, for the benefit of my country, to be sure, but only in such a way as is not forbidden by, or contrary to, your laws. now, to make an armed expedition against a friendly power--that is forbidden. but if hungary rises upon the basis of a recognized, legitimate independence, then what is necessary for it to prepare for coming into that position is lawful. i have taken the advice of the highest authorities in that respect. i was not so bold as to become the interpreter of your laws, but i have asked, is that lawful, or is it not? from the highest authorities in law matters of the united states. now to return to hungary. in what condition is it! in the beginning of my talking i mentioned the invasion of tartarian hordes. then the wild beasts spread over the land, and caused the few remnants of the people to take refuge in some castles, and fortresses, and fortified places and in the most remote and sterile ground. the wild beasts fed on human blood. now again the wild beasts are spreading terribly; and why? because to have a single pistol, to have a sword, or a musket, is a crime which is punished by several years' imprisonment. such is now the condition of hungary! therefore, you may now see that the country is disarmed, and of what importance is it for that success, about which i hear now and then doubts, to have arms prepared in a convenient lawful manner. [after this, kossuth spoke in some detail concerning the pecuniary contributions; and closed with complaints of his painfully over-worked chest, which had much impeded his speech.] * * * * * xxix.--ohio and france contrasted as republics. [_reception at cincinnati_.] kossuth having been received by a vast assemblage of the people of cincinnati was addressed in their name by the honourable caleb smith, from whose speech the following are extracts:-your progress through a portion of the whole states which originally constituted the american confederacy, has called forth such manifestations of public feeling as leave no doubt that the liberty enjoyed by the people of those states, has created in their hearts a generous sympathy for the advocates of civil liberty who have endeavoured to establish free institutions in europe. the brilliant success which attended the first efforts of the hungarian patriots, excited the hope that the tricoloured flag unfurled on the shores of the danube, would, like the stars and stripes of our own republic, become the emblem and the hope of freedom. the intervention of russia, in violation of the law of nations, in defiance of justice and right, and in disregard of the public sentiment of the civilized world, for a time, at last, disappointed this hope; and the exultation it excited was followed by a mournful sadness, when russian arms and domestic treason combined, caused the hungarian flag to trail in the dust. hungary failed to establish her independence, but failed only, when success was impossible. the efforts she has made have not been wholly lost. the seed which she has sown in agony and blood, will yet sprout and bring forth fruit. the memory of her devoted sons who have fallen in the cause of liberty, will be perpetuated upon the living tablets of the hearts of freedom's votaries throughout the world. the spirits of the martyrs shall whisper hope and consolation to the hearts of her surviving children; and from out the dungeons of her captive patriots shall go forth the spirit of liberty to cheer and animate their countrymen. you are engaged in a high and holy mission. the redemption of your fatherland from oppression is worthy of your efforts, and may god prosper them; and may you find in this free land such sympathy and aid as will strengthen your heart for the stern trials which await you in your own country. kossuth replied:-sir,--before i answer you, let me look over this animated ocean, that i may impress upon my memory the look of those who have transformed the wilderness of a primitive forest into an immense city, of which there exists a prediction that, by the year of our lord 2000, it will be the greatest city in the world. "the west! the west! the region of the father of rivers," there thou canst see the cradle of a new-born humanity. so i was told by the learned expounders of descriptive geography, who believe that they know the world, because they have seen it on maps. the west a cradle! why? a cradle is the sleeping place of a child wrapped in swaddling clothes and crying for the mother's milk. people of cincinnati, are you that child which, awakening in an unwatched moment, liberated his tender hands from the swaddling band, swept away by his left arm the primitive forest planted by the lord at creation's dawn, and raised by his right hand this mighty metropolis. why, if that be your childhood's pastime, i am awed by the presentiment of your manhood's task; for it is written, that it is forbidden to men to approach too near to omnipotence. and that people here which created this rich city, and changed the native woods of the red man into a flourishing seat of christian civilization and civilized christianity--into a living workshop of science and art, of industry and widely spread commerce; and performed this change, not like the drop, which, by falling incessantly through centuries, digs a gulf where a mountain stood, but performed it suddenly within the turn of the hand, like a magician; that people achieved a prouder work than the giants of old, who dared to pile ossa upon pelion; but excuse me, the comparison is bad. those giants of old heaped mountain upon mountain, with the impious design to storm the heavens. you have transformed the wilderness of the west into the dwelling-place of an enlightened, industrious, intelligent christian community, that it may flourish a living monument of the wonderful bounty of divine providence--a temple of freedom, which glorifies god, and bids oppressed humanity to hope. and yet, when i look at you, citizens of cincinnati, i see no race of giants, astonishing by uncommon frame: i see men as i am wont to see all my life, and i have lived almost long enough to have seen cincinnati a small hamlet, composed of some modest log-houses, separated by dense woods, where savage beast and savage indian lurked about the lonely settlers, who, as the legend of jacob wetzel and his faithful log tells, had to wrestle for life when they left their poor abode. what is the key of this rapid wonderful change? the glorious cities of old were founded by heroes whom posterity called demi-gods, and whose name survived their work by thousands of years. who is your hero? who stood god-father at the birth of the queen of the west? i looked to history and found not his name. but instead of one mortal man's renowned name, i find in the records of your city's history an immortal being's name, and that is, _the people_. the word sparkles with the lustre of a life invigorating flame, and that flame is liberty. freedom, regulated by wise institutions, based upon the great principle of national independence and self-government; this is the magical rod by which the great enchanter, "_the people_," has achieved this wonderful work. sir, there is a mighty change going on in human development. formerly great things were done by great men, whose names stand in history like milestones, marking the march of mankind on the highway of progress. it was mankind which marched, and still it passed unnoticed and unknown. of him history has made no record, but of the milestones only, and has called them great men. the lofty frame of individual greatness overshadowed the people, who were ready to follow but not prepared to go without being led. humanity and its progress was absorbed by individualities; because the people which stood low in the valley got giddy by looking up to the mountain's top, where its leaders stood. it was the age of childhood for nations. children cling to the leading strings as to a necessity, and feel it a benefit to be led. but the leaders of nations changed soon into kings. ambition claimed as a right what merit had gained as a free offering. arrogance succeeded to greatness; and out of the child-like attachment for benefits received, the duty of blind obedience was framed by the iron hand of violence, and by the craft of impious hypocrisy, degrading everything held for holy by men--religion itself--into a tool of oppression on earth. it was the era of uncontroverted despotism, which, with sacrilegious arrogance, claimed the title of divine rank; and mankind advanced slowly in progress, because it was not conscious of its own aim. oppression was taken for a gloomy fatality. the scene has changed. nations have become conscious of their rights and destiny, and will tolerate no masters, nor will suffer oppression any longer. the spirit of freedom moves through the air; and remember, that you are morally somewhat responsible for it, inasmuch as it is your glorious struggle for independence which was the first upheaving of mankind's heart roused to self-conscious life. even by that first effort she gloriously achieved the national independence of america. though gifted with all the blessings of nature's virginal vitality, you would never have succeeded to achieve this wonderful growth which we see, if you had employed your conquered national independence merely to take a new master for the old one. and mark well, gentlemen! a nation may have a master even if it has no king--a nation may be called a republic, and yet be not free--_wherever centralization exists, there the nation has either sold or lent, either alienated or delegated its sovereignty_; and wherever this is done, the nation has a master--and he who has a master is of course not his own master. power may be centralized in many--the centralization by and by will be concentrated in few, as in ancient venice, or in one, as in france at the time of the "_uncle_," some forty years ago, and again in france, now that the "_nephew_" has his bloody reign for a day. yes, gentlemen, if that generation of devoted patriots who achieved the independence of the united states, had merely changed the old master for a new one with the name of an emperor or a king, or of an omnipotent president, your country were now just something like brazil or mexico, or the republic of south america, all of them independent, as you know, and all except brazil even republics, and all rich with nature's blessings, and offering a new home to those who fly from the oppression of the old world--and yet all of them old before they were young, and decrepit before they were strong. had the founders of your country's independence followed this direction which led the rest of america astray, cincinnati would be a hamlet yet as it was in jacob wetzel's time; and ohio, instead of being a first-rate star in the constellation of your republic, would be an appendage of neighbouring eastern states--a not yet explored desert, marked in the map of america only by lines of northern latitude and western longitude. the people, a real sovereign; your institutions securing real freedom, because founded on the principles of self-government; union to secure national independence and the position of a power on earth; and all together, having no master but god; omnipotence not vested in any man, in any assembly,--and an open field to every honest exertion--because civil, political, and religious liberty is the common benefit to all, not limited but by itself (that is, by the unseen, but not unfelt, influence of self-given law); that is the key of the living wonder which spreads before my eyes. let me recall to your memory a curious fact. it is just a hundred years ago, that the first trading house upon the great miami was built by daring english adventurers, at a place later known as laramie's store, then the territory of the twigtwee indians. the trade house was destroyed by frenchmen, who possessed then a whole world on the continent of america. well, twenty-four years later, france aided your america in its struggle for independence; and oh! feel not offended in your proud power of to-day, when i say that independence would not then have been achieved without the aid of france. since that time, france has been twice a republic, and changed its constitutions thirteen times; and, though thirty-six millions strong, it has lost every foot of land on the continent of america, and at home it lies prostrated beneath the feet of the most inglorious usurper that ever dared to raise ambition's bloody seat upon the ruins of liberty. and your republic? it has grown a giant of power. and ohio? out of the ruins of a trading-house into a mighty commonwealth of two millions of free and happy men, who shout out with a voice like the thunderstorm, to the despots of the old world, "ye shall stop in your ambitious way before the power of freedom, ready to protect the common laws of all humanity." what a glorious triumph of your institutions over the principles of centralized government! oh! may all the generations yet unborn, and all the millions who will yet gather in this new world of the west, which soon will preponderate in the scale of the union, where all the west weighed nothing fifty years ago--may they all ever and ever remember the high instruction which the almighty has revealed in this parallel of different results. sir, you say that ohio can show no battle field connected with recollections of your own glorious revolution. let me answer, that the whole west is a monument, and cincinnati the fair cornice of it. if your eastern sister states have instructed the world how nations become independent and free, the west shows to the world what a nation once independent and really free can become. allow me to declare, that by standing before the world as such an instructive example, you exercise the most effective revolutionary propaganda; for if the mis-result of french revolutions discourage the nations from shaking off the 'oppressors' yoke, your victory,--and still more, your unparalleled prosperity,--has encouraged oppressed nations to dare what you dared. egotists and hypocrites may say that you are not responsible for it; you have bid nobody to follow you:--and it may be true that you are not responsible before a tribunal. still, you are sufficiently free not to feel offended by a true word; therefore i say you are responsible before your own conscience, for, your example having started a new doctrine, the teacher of a new doctrine is morally bound not to forsake his doctrine when assailed in the person of his disciples. * * * * * xxx.--war a providential necessity against oppression. [_to the clergy of cincinnati_.] the clergy of cincinnati addressed kossuth by the mouth of the rev. mr. fisher. among other topics, this gentleman said:-we wish to _you_ first, and through you, to the world, to express our respect for those heroic clergymen who dared to offer public prayers to almighty god for the success of your arms. we have not forgotten the manner in which austria attempted to dragoon their tongues into silence, and their souls into abject submission. nor can we believe that a country with such pastors--that a country whose religious interests are confided to men ready to pray against the despot, will be suffered by our heavenly father to remain trodden down, and to have her name blotted out of the history of nations. if in the great battle of freedom, the heart of the minister of religion at the altar, beats in sympathy with the heart of the minister at the council board, and the soldier in the battle-field, there is then a union of the moral, intellectual, and physical forces of a nation, which we have been taught to believe would generally and ultimately be victorious. we frankly confess to you that our hope that hungary is not to share the fate of unhappy poland, is grounded first on the large element of a protestant ministry she embraces, and secondly on the advance which the nations are making in a true understanding of the principles of republican freedom. we believe the cause of hungary to be just. against the usurpations of kings and perjured princes--against the interference of foreign powers to assist in treading on the sparks of liberty anywhere on the earth, and especially in such a land as yours, we claim the privilege at the fit time of entering our protest and expressing toward such acts our deepest abhorrence. and while we desire most earnestly the advent of universal peace, and rejoice that the power of moral principles is increasing in the world, and anticipate the day when the nations shall learn war no more, yet we are fully convinced, both from the holy scriptures and the history of the past, that under the overruling providence of god wars occasioned by the oppression, the ambition, and the covetousness of men, are often the means of breaking up the stagnant waters of superstition and irreligion, and securing to the truth a position from which it may most successfully send abroad its light, and mould the heart of a nation to religion and peace. _despotism is_ in our view _a perpetual war of a few upon the many_; and we must unlearn some of the earliest lessons that our mothers taught us and our fathers illustrated in their lives, before we can cease to sympathize with the assertors of their rights against the force or the fraud of their fellow-men. and since the sad issue of revolution after revolution in infidel france, there are not a few of us, who have indulged the hope (especially since your visit to our shores), that in central europe, in your native land, among an undebauched and a bible-reading people, a government might arise that would accord freedom of conscience to all, and shine as a light of virtuous republicanism upon the darkness around. in meeting you thus we design no mere display, no ineffective parade of words. we wish to give whatever weight of influence we may bear in this community, to the cause of freedom in your native land, to assist in securing to you and your nation, such aid as a nation situated as we are can _wisely_ give, so as best to subserve the interests of liberty and humanity in all the world. we regard the moral influence of this country as of the first importance; and the peaceful working of republican institutions as a daily protest against despotism. and for ourselves we pledge to you and your country, that we will, in public and private, bear your cause upon our hearts, and invoke in your behalf, the intervention of an arm that no earthly power can resist. kossuth replied at length. the following is an extract from his speech:-you have been pleased to refer to war as, under certain circumstances, an instrumentality of divine providence--and indeed so it is. great things depend upon the exact definition of a word. there is, i suppose, nobody on earth who takes war for a moral or happy condition. every man must wish peace; but peace must not be confounded with oppression. it is our duty, i believe, to follow the historical advice of the scriptures, which very often have pointed out war as an instrumentality against oppression and injustice. you have very truly said that despotism is a continued war of the few against the many, of ambition against mankind. now if that be true--(and true it is--for war is nothing else than an appeal to force)--then how can any persons claim of oppressed nations not to resort to war? who makes war? those who defend themselves? or those who attack others? now if it be true that despotism is a continued attack upon mankind, then war comes from that quarter, and i have no where in the world heard that an unjust attack should not be opposed by a just defence. it is absurd to entreat nations not to disturb a peace which does not exist. what would have become of christianity in europe (and in further consequence, also in america), if in those times, when mohammedanism was yet a conquering power, hungary out of love of peace had not opposed mohammedanism in defence of christianity? what would have become of protestantism when assailed by charles v, by philip ii, and others? did luther or others forbid the use of arms against arms, to protect for men the right of private judgment in matters of salvation. i have seen war. i know what an immense machine it is. what an immense misfortune and with what sufferings it is connected. believe me, there is no nation which loves war, but many that fear war less than they hate oppression, which prevents both their happiness on earth and the development of private judgment for salvation in eternity. you have been pleased to assure me that you take the cause of hungary for a just cause. i most respectfully thank you for it. i consider your judgment of immense value in that respect. why? because you are too deeply penetrated by the sacred mission to which you have devoted your lives, ever to approve anything which you would not consider consistent and in harmony with your position as ministers of the gospel; and therefore when you give me the verdict of justice for the cause of hungary, i take your approbation as a sanction from the principles of the christian religion. let me therefore entreat you, gentlemen, to bestow your action, your prayers, and that which in the gospel is connected with prayers--watchfulness, upon my country's cause. it is not without design that i mention this word watchfulness; for it would be not appropriate for me to speak any word which might excite mere passion. i rely upon principles in their plainness, and make no appeal to blind excitement; but i venture to throw out the hint, that in certain quarters even the word _religion_ is employed as a tool against that cause which you pronounce to be just; and therefore i may be permitted to claim from ministers of christ--from protestant clergymen--from american protestant clergymen, that they will not only pray for that cause, but also be watchful against that abuse of religion for the oppression of a just cause. you have farther stated that as american clergymen, you entertain the conviction that a free gospel can only be permanently enjoyed under a free civil government. now what is free gospel? the trumpet of the gospel is of course sounded from the moral influence of the truths, which are deposited by divine providence in the holy scriptures. no influence can be more powerful than that of the truth which god himself has revealed, and nevertheless you say, that for permanent enjoyment of this moral influence, the field of free civil government is necessary. so it is. now, let me make the application of these very truths in respect to the moral institutions of your country. i entirely trust that all other institutions which we know now will by and bye disappear before the moral influence of _your_ institutions, as is proved by the wonderful development of this country--but under one condition, that the nations be restored to national independence: since, so long as absolutist power rules the world, there is no place, no field _for_ the moral influence of your institutions. precisely as the moral influence of the gospel cannot spread without a free civil government, so the influence of your institutions can spread only upon the basis of national independence, as a common benefit to every nation. you will, i hope, generously excuse me for having answered your generous sentiments in such a plain manner. my indisposition has given me no time to prepare for the honour of meeting you in such a way as i would have wished. you have given joy, consolation, and hope to my heart, and encouragement to go on in that way which you honour with your welcome and your sympathy; and i shall thank this your generosity in the most effective manner, by following your advice and by further using those exertions which have met your approbation. * * * * * xxxi.--on washington's policy. [_speech on the anniversary of washington's birthday, cincinnati_.] a splendid entertainment was prepared, to which six hundred persons sat down. after the toasts many energetic speeches were made. mr. corry said:-the time has come for our mighty republic to stand by its friends and brave its enemies. there is a confederation of tyrants now marching across the cinders of europe. are we to take no heed of their aggressions at our doors? it is for us to aid the people of the old world against their tyrants, as we were aided to get rid of ours. ohio will not fail in her duty. the president of the evening, mr. james j. foran, observed:-in 1849 we held in this city the first meeting, i believe, in the united states on this subject, and expressed our indignation at the unwarrantable interference of russia. we declared it to be our duty, as a free and powerful government, to notify to russia, that her interference in the affairs of hungary must cease, or the united states would cast their strength on the side of justice and right against tyranny and oppression.... in the great struggle which is approaching between liberty and absolutism we shall be compelled to act a part. it will not do to rely altogether on either a just cause or the interposition of providence. it is well to have both of these; but to add to them our own exertions, is indispensable to human success. here, "in the wilderness," in the bosom of the great west, in the city of one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, whence emanated the first public move in america for his personal cause, and also his liberation from captivity, do we welcome louis kossuth, the champion of self-government in europe. kossuth in response said:-mr. president: i consider it a particular favour of providence that i am permitted to partake, on the present solemn occasion, in paying the tribute of honour and gratitude to the memory of your immortal washington. an architect having raised a proud and noble building to the service of the almighty, his admirers desired to erect a monument to his memory. how was it done? his name was inscribed upon the wall, with these additional words: "you seek his monument--look around." let him who looks for a monument of washington, look around the united states. the whole country is a monument to him. your freedom, your independence, your national power, your prosperity, and your prodigious growth, is a monument to washington. there is no room left for panegyric, none especially to a stranger whom you had full reason to charge with arrogance, were he able to believe that his feeble voice could claim to be noticed in the mighty harmony of a nation's praise. let me therefore, instead of such an arrogant attempt, pray that that god, to whose providential intentions washington was a glorious instrument, may impart to the people of the united states the same wisdom for the conservation of the present prosperity of the land and for its future security which he gave to washington for the foundation of it. allow me, sir, to add, washington's wisdom consisted in doing all which, according to the circumstances _of his time_ and the condition of his country, was necessary to his country's freedom, independence, welfare, glory, and future security. i pray to god that the people of this republic, and all those whom the people's confidence has entrusted with the honourable charge of directing the helm of the commonwealth, may be endowed with the same wisdom of doing all which _present_ circumstances and the _present_ condition of your country point out to be not only consistent with but necessary to your country's present glory, present prosperity, and future security. surely, that is the fittest tribute to the memory of washington, that is the most faithful adherence to the doctrine which he bequeathed to you, by far a better tribute, and by far a more faithful adherence, than to do, literally, the same that he did, amid circumstances quite different from those you are now surrounded with, and in a condition entirely different from that in which you and the world are now. the principles of washington are for ever true, and should for ever be the guiding star to the united states. but to imitate literally the accidental policy of washington, would be to violate his principles. if the spirit of washington could raise its voice now, in this distinguished circle of american patriots, it would loudly and emphatically protest against such a course, and would denounce it as not only injurious to his memory, but also as dangerous to the future of this republic which he founded with such eminent wisdom and glorious success. i have seen, sir, the people of the united states advised to regard the writings of washington as the mahommedan regards the koran, considering everything which is not to be found in the koran as useless to heed. now this parallel i, indeed, take for a very curious compliment to the _memory of washington_--a compliment at which his immortal spirit must feel offended, i am sure. why? to what purpose is the immortal light of heaven beaming in man's mind, if it be wise not to make any use of it? to what purpose all that assiduous care about public instruction, and about the propagation of knowledge and intelligence, if the writings of washington are the koran of america; forbidding the right of private judgment, which the great majority of your nation claim as a natural right, even in respect to the holy bible, that book of divine origin? look to the east where the koran rules, obstructing with its absolutism the development of human intellect: what do you behold there? you behold mighty nations, a noble race of men, interesting in many respects, teeming with germs of vitality, and still falling fast into decay, because doomed to stagnation of their intelligence by that blind faith in their koran's absolute perfection, which we see recommended as a model to the people of this republic, whose very existence rests on progress. indeed, gentlemen, i dare to say that i yield to nobody in the world, in reverence and respect to the immortal memory of washington. his life and his principles were the guiding star of my life; to that star i looked up for inspiration and advice, during the vicissitudes of my stormy life. hence i drew that devotion to my country and to the cause of national freedom, which you, gentlemen, and millions of your fellow-citizens and your national government, are so kind as to honour by unexampled distinction, though you meet it not brightened by success, but meet it in the gloomy night of my existence, in that helpless condition of a homeless wanderer, in which i must patiently bear the title of an "_imported rebel_" and of a "_beggar_" in the very land of washington, for having dared to do what washington did; for having dared to do it with less skill and with less success, but, heaven knows, not with less honesty and devotion than he did. well, it is useless to remark that washington would probably have ended with equal failure, had his country not met that foreign aid for which they honourably _begged_. it is useless to remark that he would undoubtedly have failed, if after the glorious battle of yorktown he had met a fresh enemy of more than two hundred thousand men, such as we met, and had been forsaken in that new struggle by all the world. it is useless to remark that success should not be the only test of virtue on earth, and fortune should not change the devotion of a patriot into an outrage and a crime; and particularly not, when success is only torn out of the hands of patriotism by foreign violence, and by the most sacrilegious infraction of the common laws of all humanity. all this is useless to say. i must bear many things--must bear even malignity--but can bear it more easily, because against the insult of some who plead the cause of despots in your republic, i have for consolation the tranquillity of my conscience, the love of my countrymen, the approbation of generous friends, and the sympathy of millions in that very land where i meet the title of an "_imported rebel_." i was saying, sir, that i yield to no man on earth in reverence to the memory of the immortal washington! indeed, i consider it not inconsistent with this reverence to say: never let past ages bind the life of future;--let no man's wisdom be _koran_ to you, dooming progress to stagnation, and judgment to the meagre task of a mere rehearsing memory. thus i would speak, should even that which i advocate, be contrary to what washington taught--even then i would appeal from the thoughts of a man, to the spirit of advanced mankind, and from the eighteenth century to the present age. but fortunately i am not in that necessity; what i advocate is not only not in contradiction, but in strict harmony with washington's principles, so much so that i have nothing else to wish than that washington's doctrine should be quoted fairly as a system, and not by picking out single words, and concealing that which gives the interpretation to these words. indeed i can wish nothing more than that the _principles_ of washington should be followed. and i may also be permitted to say, that not every word of washington is a principle, and that what he recommended as a policy according to the exigencies of his time, he never intended to recommend as a rule for ever to be followed even in such circumstances which he, with all his wisdom, could neither foresee nor imagine. and i may be perhaps permitted to wish the people of the united states should take for a truth, even in respect to the writings of washington, what we are taught by the ministers of the gospel in respect to the holy scriptures--that, by the discretion of private judgment, a distinction must be made between what is essential and what is not, between what is substantial and what is accidental, between what is a principle and what is but a history. [kossuth proceeded to argue concerning the just interpretation of washington's words, as in his new york speech; and continued:] but what is the present condition upon the basis of which i humbly plead? allow me, in answer, to quote the words of one of your most renowned statesmen, the present secretary of state. you will find then, gentlemen, that every word he then spoke, is yet more true and more appropriate to-day. "the holy alliance," says mr. webster, "is an alliance of crowns against the people--of sovereigns against their own subjects;--the union of the physical force of all governments against the rights of all people, in all countries. its tendency is to put an end to all nations as such. extend the principles of that alliance, and the nations are no more. there are only kings. it divides society horizontally, and leaves the sovereigns above, and all the people below; it sets up the one above all rule, all restraint, and puts down the others to be trampled beneath our feet." this is the condition of things to which i claim the attention of republican america: moreover, for its own interest's alike, i claim its attention to the following words from the same statesman, worthy of the most earnest consideration precisely now-a-days to every american. "the declaration of ---says: the powers have an undoubted right to take a hostile attitude in regard to those states in which the overthrow of the government may operate as an example." mark! oh! mark! gentlemen, how this abominable doctrine is carried out in hungary, in prussia, in schleswig holstein, and in hesse cassel. now, the american statesman proceeds to maintain, that every sovereign in europe who goes to war _to repress an example_, is monstrous. indeed, if this principle be allowed, what becomes of the united states? are you not as legitimate objects for the operation of that principle as any we attempt to set an example on the other side of the atlantic. you thought that when oppressed you might lawfully resist oppression. we, in hungary, thought the same; but against us is that monstrous principle of armed intervention _against setting up an example_. so let me therefore ask with mr. webster: are you so sick of your liberty and its effects, as to be willing to part with that doctrine upon which your very existence rests? do you forget what you, as a people, owe to _lawful resistance_? and are you willing to abandon the law and rights of society to the mercy of the allied despots, who have united to crush them everywhere? neutrality? why, indeed, that would be a strange explanation of neutrality, if you would sanction by your indifference, the hostile alliance of all despots against republican, nay, against constitutional principles on earth. but suppose hungary rises once more to do what washington did (and be sure it will), and russia interferes again and you remain again (what some of you call) neutral--that is, you remain indifferent--what is the consequence? czar nicholas and emperor francis-joseph may buy and carry away arms, ammunition, armed ships--nay, even armed sympathizers (if they find them)--to murder hungary with and you will protect that commerce, and consider it a lawful one. but if i buy the same, you don't protect that commerce; and if i would enlist an "armed expedition," for what the czar may do against hungary, you would send me to prison for ten years. is that neutrality? the people of hungary crushed by violence, shall be nothing, its sovereign right nothing; but the piracy of the czar, encroaching upon the sacred rights of mine and many other nations, shall be regarded as legitimate, against which the united states, though grown to mighty power on earth, able without any risk of its own security to maintain the law of nations and the influence of its glorious example, should still have nothing to object, only because washington, more than half a century ago, declared neutrality appropriate to the infant condition of his country then; and was anxious to gain time, that your country might settle and mature its recent institutions, and progress to that degree of strength, when it would be able to defy any power on earth in a just cause. no, gentlemen, my principles may be rejected by the united states, but never will impartial history acknowledge that by doing thus the united states followed the principles of washington. the ruling policy of washington may be summed up in the word "_national self-preservation_," to which he, as the generous emotions of his noble breast prompted, was ever inclined to subordinate everything. and he was right. self-preservation must be the chief principle of every nation. but the _means_ of this self-preservation are different in different times. to-day, i confidently dare state, the duty of self-preservation commends to the united states, not to allow that the principle of absolutism should become omnipotent by having a charter guaranteed to violate the laws of nature and of nature's god, which washington and his heroic associates invoked, when they proclaimed the independence of this republic. a second principle of washington, and precisely in regard to foreign nations, is, to extend your commercial relations. that is, again, a principle, gentlemen, which i boldly can invoke to the support of my humble claims; because if the league of despots becomes omnipotent in europe, it is certain that the commerce of republican america will very soon receive a death blow on the other side of the atlantic; whereas, the maintenance of the law of nations, by affording a fair field to hungary, italy, and germany, to settle their accounts with their own domestic oppressors, would open a vast field to your commercial relations, larger than imagination can conceive. the third principle of washington is to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world. well, sir, i do not solicit alliances; i solicit the maintenance of the laws of nations, that the unholy alliance of despots may not interfere with the natural right of nations, upon which yourselves have established the lofty hall of your national independence. it is on the stream of these rights that you are borne on in a rapid and irresistible course of prosperity. believe me, gentlemen, that course you cannot check--you could not abandon the privileges upon which you embarked, without exposing to a shipwreck the glorious future of your existence and allow me to state that my poor country has some particular claim to be protected by the consistency of your principles, because _we are the first nation towards which you have not exercised your principles._ you say you recognize every _de facto_ government. well, why was this not done with hungary? we shook off the yoke of the austrian dynasty, we declared our national independence, and did thus not in an untimely movement of popular excitement, but after we became _de facto_ independent, after we had, by crushing our enemy in our struggle of legitimate defence and driving him out from our country, proved to the world that we have sufficient strength to take our position amongst the independent nations of the earth. and still the united states (which they never yet have done) withheld the benefit of their recognition, which we have full reason to believe would have been immediately followed by other recognitions, and thus would have prevented the foreign interference of russia, by encouraging our national independence within those boundaries of diplomatic communication which no isolated power dared yet to disregard. sir, i have studied the history of your immortal washington and have, from my early youth, considered his principles as a living source of instruction to statesmen and to patriots. i now ask you to listen to washington himself. when, in that very year, in which washington issued his farewell address, m. adet, the french minister, presented him the flag of the french republic, washington, as president of the united states, answered officially, with these memorable words: "born in a land of liberty, having early learned its value, having engaged in a perilous conflict to defend it, having devoted the best years of my life to secure its permanent establishment in my country, my anxious recollections, my sympathetic feelings, and my best wishes, are irresistibly attracted, whensoever in any country i see an oppressed nation unfurl the banner of freedom." thus spoke washington. have i not then full reason to say, that if he were alive his generous sympathy would be with me, and the sympathy of a washington never was, and never would be, a barren word. washington who raised the word "honesty" as a rule of policy, never would have professed a sentiment which his wisdom as a statesman would not have approved. sir! here let me end. i consider it already as an immense benefit that your generous attention connected the cause of hungary with the celebration of the memory of washington. spirit of the departed! smile down from heaven upon this appreciation of my country's cause; watch over those principles which thou hast taken for the guiding star of thy noble life, and the time will yet come when not only thine own country, but liberated europe also, will be a living monument to thy immortal name. [many other toasts, and highly energetic speeches followed, which our limits force us to exclude.] * * * * * xxxii.--kossuth's credentials. [_farewell to ohio, feb. 25th_.] sir,--i am about to bid an affectionate farewell to cincinnati, and through cincinnati to the commonwealth of ohio--that bright morning star of consolation and of hope risen from the west over the gloomy horizon of hungary's and of europe's dark night! ohio! how that name thrills through the very heart of my heart, with inexpressible pleasure, like the first trumpet sound of resurrection in the ears of the chosen just! ohio! how i will cherish that very name, the dearest of my soul, after the name of my beloved own dear fatherland. how i long for words of flame to express all the warmth of my heartfelt gratitude! and still how poor i feel in words, precisely because my heart is so full; so full, that i can scarcely speak--because every pulsation of my blood is fervent prayer to god for ohio's glory and happiness. let me dispense with empty words--let what ohio _did_, _does_, and _will do_, for the cause of european freedom, be its own monument! i have met many a fair flower of sympathy in this great united republic, but all ohio has been to me a blooming garden of sympathy. from the first step on ohio's soil to the last,--along all my way up to cleveland down to columbus, and across to cincinnati, and also beyond the line of my joyful way,--in every city, in every town, in every village, in every lonely farm, i have met the same generosity, the same sympathy. the people, penetrated by one universal inspiration of lofty principles, told me everywhere that hungary must yet be free; that the people of ohio will not permit the laws of nations, of justice, and of humanity, to be trampled down by the sacrilegious combination of despotism; that the people of ohio takes the league of despots against liberty and against the principle of national self-government, for an insult offered to the great republic of the west; that it takes it for an insult which ohio will not bear, but will put all the weight of its power into the political scale. would that all the united states with equal resolution might spurn that insult to humanity. that is the language which ohio spoke to me through hundreds of thousands of freemen--that is the language which ohio spoke to me through her senators and representatives in their high legislative capacity--that is the language which ohio spoke to me through her chief, whom it has elevated to govern the commonwealth and to execute the people's sovereign will. the executive power, the legislature, the people, all united in that harmony of generous protection to the just cause which i humbly plead; but that is not all yet. sympathy and political protection i have met also everywhere; and have met it as well in the public opinion of the people as in the executive and legislative departments of several states, though it is a due tribute of acknowledgment to say, that nowhere to that extent and in equal universality as in ohio, but that is yet not all. the sympathy of ohio was rich in fair fruits of substantial aid--from the hall of the state legislature down to the humble abode of noble-minded working men--and associations of the friends of hungary, spread through that powerful commonwealth, promise a permanent, noble protection to the cause i plead. even the present occasion of bidding farewell to ohio is of such a nature as to entitle me, by its very organization to the hope that you consider your noble task of aiding the cause of hungary not yet done; but that you have determined to go on in a practical direction, till the future, developed by your active protection, proves to be richer yet in fruit than the present is. considering the almost universal pronouncement of public opinion in this great and prosperous commonwealth--considering the practical character of the people of the west, the natural efficiency of this organization, and _who_ are those who with generous zeal have devoted themselves to carry it out on a large extent,--i may be well excused for entertaining some expectations of no common success--of a success which also in other parts of this great union, may prove decisive in its effects. no greater misfortune could be met with than disappointment in such expectations, which we have been by the strongest possible motives encouraged to conceive. to be disappointed in hopes we have justly relied on, would be beyond all imagination terrible in its consequences. i shudder at the very idea of the boundless woes it could not fail to be attended with, not for myself--i attach not much value to my own life,--but for thousands, nay for millions of men. i know, gentlemen, that _here_ the question is entirely matter of time. but in regard to time, i am permitted to say so much. the outbreak of the unavoidable, decisive struggle between the two opposite principles of freedom and despotism is hurried on in europe by two great impulses. the first is the insupportability of oppression connected with the powerfully developed organization of the oppressed, which by its very progress imposes the necessity of no delay. be pleased earnestly to reflect upon what i rather suggest than explain. and be pleased also to read between the lines. i, of course, speak not of anything relating to your country. i state simply european fact, of which every thinking man, the czars and their satellites themselves, are fully aware, though the how and the where they cannot grasp. the second impulse, hurrying events to a decision, is that very combined scheme of activity which the despots of europe too evidently display. they know full well that they are on the brink of an inevitable retribution; that their crimes have pushed them to the point, where either their power will cease for ever to exist, or they must risk all for all. in former times they relied at the hour of danger upon the generous credulity of nations. by seemingly submitting, when the people arose irresistible, they conjured the fury of the storm they saved themselves by promises, and when the danger was over, they restored their abused power by breaking their oath and by deceiving their nations. by this atrocious impiety you have seen several victorious revolutions in europe deprived of their fruits and sinking to nothing by having made compromise with royal perjury. i am too honest, gentlemen, not to confess openly, that i myself shared this error of the old world--i myself plead guilty of that fatal european credulity. the tyrants who by falsehood have gained their end, are aware that they have no security; that the nations have lost faith in their oaths, and will never be cheated again. hence, gentlemen, a very essential novelty in the present condition of europe. formerly every revolution was followed by some slight progress in the development of constitutionalism. a little more liberty to the press, some sort of a trial by jury, a nominal responsibility of ministers, or a mockery of popular representation in the legislature--something of that sort always resulted, momentarily, out of former revolutions; and then the consciousness of being deceived by vile mockery led to new revolutions. but when in 1848 and 1849, our victories in hungary had shaken to the very foundation the artificial building of oppression, so that there was no more hope left to tyranny, but to shelter itself under the wings of russia, the czar told them--well, i accept the part of becoming your master, ye kings, and i will help you, but _you must be obedient_ you, yourselves have encouraged revolutions, by making concessions to them. i like not this everlasting resurrection of revolutions; it disturbs my sleep. i am not sure not to find it at my own home some fine morning. i therefore will help you, my servants, but under the condition, that it is not only the bold hungarians who must be crushed, it is _revolution_ which must be crushed, its very spirit, in its very vitality, everywhere; and to come to this aim, you must abandon all shame as to sworn promises; withdraw every concession made to the spirit of revolution; not the slightest freedom, no privilege, no political right, no constitutional aspirations must be permitted; all and everything must be levelled by the equality of passive obedience and absolute servitude. "look to my russia; i make no concessions, i rule with an iron rod, and i am obeyed. all you must do the same and not govern, but domineer by universal oppression. that is my sovereign will--obey." thus spoke the czar. it is no opinion which i relate. it is a fact, a historical fact, which the czar openly proclaimed on several occasions, particularly in that characteristic declaration, to which the high-minded general cass alluded in his remarkable speech on "_non-intervention_" in the senate of the united states, on the 10th day of february. the czar nicholas, complaining, that "_insurrection has spread in every nation with an audacity which has gained new force in proportion to the concessions of the governments_" declares that he considers it his divine mission to crush the _spirit of liberty_ on earth, which he arrogantly terms the spirit of insurrection and of anarchy. by this you have the definition of what is meant by the words of "war for what principle shall rule." _the issue must be felt, not only in europe, but here also and everywhere_; the issue will not leave a chance for a new struggle, either to kings or to nations, for a long time perhaps, and probably for centuries. in that condition you can see the key of the remarkable fact, that when i left my asiatic prison under the protection of the star-spangled flag--nations of different climates, different languages, different institutions, different inclinations, united in the pronunciation of sympathy, expectation, encouragement, and hope around my poor humble self,--italians, french, portuguese, the people of england, belgians, germans, swiss and swedes. it was the instinct of common danger, it was the instinct of necessary union. it was no mere tribute of recognition paid to the important weight of hungary in the scale of this intense universal struggle. it was still more a call of distress, entrusted by the voice of mankind to my care, to bring it over to free america, as to the natural and most powerful representative of that "spirit of liberty" against which the leagued tyrants are waging a war of extermination with inexorable resolution. yes, it was a call of distress entrusted to my care, to remind america that there is a tie in the destinies of nations; and that those are digging a bottomless abyss who forsake the spirit of liberty, when within the boundaries of common civilization half the world utters in agony the call of universal distress. that is the mission with which i come to your shores; and believe me, gentlemen, that is the key of that wonderful sympathy with which the people of this republic answers my humble appeal. there is blood from our blood in these noble american hearts; there is the great heart of mankind which pulsates in the american breast; there is the chord of liberty which vibrates to my sighs. let ambitious fools, let the pigmies who live on the scanty food of personal envy, when the very earth quakes beneath their feet, let even the honest prudence of ordinary household times, measuring eternity with that thimble with which they are wont to measure the bubbles of small party interest, and, taking the dreadful roaring of the ocean for a storm in a water glass, let those who believe the weather to be calm because they have drawn a nightcap over their ears, and, burying their heads into pillows of domestic comfort, do not hear satan sweeping in a hurricane over the earth; let envy, ambition, blindness, and the pettifogging wisdom of small times, artistically investigate the question of my official capacity, or the nature of my public authority; let them scrupulously discuss the immense problem whether i still possess, or possess no longer, the title of my once-governorship; let them ask for credentials, discuss the limits of my commission, as representative of hungary. i pity all such frog and mouse fighting. i claim no official capacity--no public authority--no representation; boast of no commission, of no written and sealed credentials. i am nothing but what my generous friend, the senator of michigan, has justly styled me, "a private and banished man." but in that capacity i have a nobler credential for my mission than all the clerks of the world can write, the credential that i am a "man,"--the credential that i am "a patriot"--the credential that i love with all sacrificing devotion my oppressed fatherland and liberty; the credential that i hate tyrants, and have sworn everlasting hostility to them; the credential that i feel the strength to do good service to the cause of freedom; good service as perhaps few men can do, because i have the iron will, in this my breast, to serve faithfully, devotedly, indefatigably, that noble cause. i have the credential that i trust to god in heaven, to justice on earth; that i offend no laws, but cling to the protection of laws. i have the credential of my people's undeniable confidence and its unshaken faith, to my devotion, to my manliness, to my honesty, and to my patriotism; which faith i will honestly answer without ambition, without interest, as faithfully as ever, but more skilfully, because schooled by adversities. and i have the credential of the justice of the cause i plead, and of the wonderful sympathy, which, not my person, but that cause, has met and meets in two hemispheres. these are my credentials, and nothing else. to whom this is enough, he will help me, so far as the law permits and is his good pleasure. to whom these credentials are not sufficient, let him look for a better accredited man. i have too lively a sentiment of my own modest dignity, ever to condescend to polemics about my own personal merits or abilities. i believe my life has been public enough to appertain to the impartial judgment of history, but it may have perhaps interested you to hear, how, in a small and inconsiderable circle of the hungarian emigration, the idea was started that i must be opposed, because i have declared against all compromise with the house of austria, or with royalty, and because by declaring that my direction will be in every case only republican, i make every arrangement, without revolution, impossible. that i should be thus attacked at this crisis, does look like an endeavour to check a benefit to my country, but i cannot forbear humbly to beseech you, do not therefore think less favourably of my nation and of the hungarian emigration, for which i am sorry that i can do very little, because i devote myself and all the success i may meet with to a higher aim--to my country's freedom and independence. believe me, gentlemen, that my country and its exiled martyr sons are highly worthy of your generous sympathy, though some few of the number do not always act as they should. they are but few who do so, and it would be unjust to measure all of us by the faults of some few. upon the whole, i am proud to say that the hungarian emigration was scrupulous to merit generous sympathy, and to preserve the honour of the hungarian name. remember that though you are republicans, still here, in the very metropolis of ohio, a man was found to lecture for russo-austrian despotism, and to lecture with the astonishing boldness of an immense ignorance. but that good man i can dismiss with silence, the more because it is with high appreciation and warm gratitude that i saw an honourable gentleman, animated with the most generous sentiments of justice and right, take immediately upon himself the task of refutation. i may perhaps be permitted to remark, that that learned and honourable gentleman, besides having nobly advocated the cause of freedom, justice, and truth, has also well merited of his co-religionaries, who belong together with himself, _to the roman catholic church_. gentlemen, i have but one word yet, and it is a sad one--the word of farewell. cincinnati, ohio, farewell! may the richest blessings of the almighty rest upon thee! in every heart, and in the hearts of my people, thy name will for ever live, a glorious object for our everlasting love and gratitude. * * * * * xxxiii.--harmony of the executive and of the people in america. [_speech at indianapolis_.] kossuth was received at the state house of indianapolis by governor wright, who, in the course of his address said: although i participate with my fellow-citizens in the pleasure occasioned by your presence among us, yet it is not as an _individual_ that i greet you with the words of welcome and hospitality. no, sir,--it is in the name of the people of the state, whom i represent, and whose warrant i feel that i have; and i bid you welcome to-day, and assure you not only of my own but of their sympathy and encouragement in the great cause you so ably represent. he closed with the words: if it shall be your fortune to lead your countrymen again in the contest for liberty, be assured that the people of the united states, at least, will not be indifferent, nor, if need be, inactive spectators of a conflict that may involve, not only the independence of hungary, but the freedom of the world. again i bid you a most cordial welcome to the state of indiana. kossuth replied:-governor,--amongst all that i have been permitted to see in the united state's, nothing has more attracted my attention than that part of your democratic institutions which i see developed in the mutual and reciprocal relations between the people and the constituted public authorities. in that respect there is an immense difference between europe and america, for the understanding of which we have to take into account the difference of the basis of the political organization, and together with it what the public and social life has developed in both hemispheres. the great misfortune of europe is, that the present civilization was born in those cursed days when republicanism set and royalty rose. it was a gloomy change. nearly twenty centuries have passed, and torrents of blood have watered the red-hot chains, and still the fetters are not broken; nay--it is our lot to have borne its burning heat--it is our lot to grasp with iron hand the wheels of its crushing car. destiny--no; providence--is holding the balance of decision; the tongue is wavering yet; one slight weight more into the one, or into the other scale, will again decide the fate of ages, of centuries. upon this mischievous basis of royalty was raised the building of authority; not of that authority which commands spontaneous reverence by merit and the value of its services, but of that authority which oppresses liberty. hence the authority of a public officer in unfortunate europe consists in the power to rule and to command, and not in the power to serve his country well--it makes men oppressive downwards, while it makes them creeping before those who are above. law is not obeyed out of respect, but out of fear. a man in public office takes himself to be better than his countrymen, and becomes arrogant and ambitious; and because to hold a public office is seldom a claim to confidence, but commonly a reason to lose confidence; it is not a mark of civic virtue and of patriotic devotion, but a stain of civic apostacy and of venality; it is not a claim to be honoured, but a reason to be distrusted; so much so, that in europe the sad word of the poet is indeed a still more sad fact.- "when vice prevails and impious man bears sway the post of honour is a private station." so was it even in my own dear fatherland. before our unfortunate but glorious revolution of 1848, the principle of royalty had so much spoiled the nature and envenomed the character of public office, that (of course except those who derived their authority by election--which we for our municipal life conserved amongst all the corruption of european royalty through centuries) no patriot accepted an office in the government: to have accepted one was to have resigned patriotism. it was one of the brightest principles of our murdered revolution--that public office was restored to the place of civic virtue, and opened to patriotism, by being raised from the abject situation of a tool of oppression, to the honourable position of serving the country well. alas! that bright day was soon overpowered by the gloomy clouds of despotism, brought back to our sunny sky by the freezing gale of russian violence. and on the continent of europe there is night again. there is scarcely one country where the wishes and the will of the people are reflected in the government. there is no government which can say: "my voice is the echo of the people's voice--i say what my people feels; i proclaim what my people wills; i am the embodiment of his principles, and not the controller of his opinion: the people and myself--we are one." no, on the continent of europe people and governments are two hostile camps. what immense mischief, pregnant with oppression and with nameless woe, is encompassed within the circle of this single fact! how different the condition of america! it is not _men_ who rule, but _the law;_ and law is obeyed, because the people is respecting the general will by respecting the law. public office is a place of honour, because it is the field for patriotic devotion. governments have not the arrogant pretension to be the masters of the people; but have the proud glory to be its faithful servants. a public officer ceases not to be a citizen; he has doubly the character of a citizen, by sharing in and by executing the people's will. and whence this striking difference? it is because the civilization of america is founded upon the principle of democracy. it was born when royalty declined, and republicanism rose. hence the delightful view, not less instructive than interesting, that here in america, instead of the clashing dissonance between the words "government" and "people" we see them melting into one accord of harmony. thus here the public opinion of the people never can fail to be a direct rule for the government, and reciprocally the word of the government has the weight of a fact by the people's support. when your government speaks, it is the people which speaks. sir, i most humbly thank your excellency, that you have been pleased to afford to me the benefit of hearing and seeing that delightful as well as happy harmony between the people and the government of the state of indiana, in the support of that noble and just cause which i plead, on the issue of which, not the future of my country only depends, but together with it, the future condition of all those parts of our globe which are confined within the boundaries of christian civilization, which, be sure of it, gentlemen, in the ultimate issue, will have the same fate. sir, it is not without reason, that at indianapolis in particular,--and to your excellency, the truly faithful, the high-minded, and the deservedly popular chief magistrate of this commonwealth, i speak that word. it is not the first time that your excellency, surrounded as now, has spoken as the honoured organ of the public opinion of indiana. it is not yet two years since your excellency did the same on the occasion of a visit of the favourite son of kentucky, governor crittenden. i well remember the topic of your eloquence. it was the solicitude of indiana in regard to the glorious union of these republics. may god preserve it for ever! but precisely because you, the favourite son of indiana and the honoured representatives of the sovereign people of indiana--in one accord of perfect harmony esteem the gordian knot of the union above all, allow me to say once more, that if the united states permit the principle of non-interference to be blotted out from the code of nations on earth, foreign interference mingling with some domestic discord, perhaps with that which two years ago called forth your patriotic solicitude for the union; yes, foreign interference mingling with some of your domestic discords, will be the alexander who will cut asunder the gordian knot of your union, in this our present century. republics exist upon principles: they are secure only when they act upon principles. he who does not accept a principle, asserted by another, will not long enjoy the benefit of it himself; and nations always perish by their own sin. oh may those whom your united people entrusted with the noble care to be guardians of your union--be pleased to consider that truth ere it be too late. sir, to the state of indiana i am in many respects particularly obliged. true, i have had invitations to visit many other states, but the invitation from the state of indiana was first received. please to accept my warmest thanks. i have seen in other states a harmony between the people and the government, but nowhere has the governor of a state condescended to represent the people in a public welcome, nowhere stepped out as the orator of the people's sympathy and its sentiment. i most humbly thank you for this honour. in maryland, the governor introduced me to the legislature. in pennsylvania the chief magistrate was the organ of a common welcome of the legislature and citizens. in massachusetts he took the lead as the people's elect in recommending my principles to the legislature--and in ohio the chief magistrate, by accepting the presidency of the association of the friends of hungary, became generally the executive of the people's practical sympathy, which so magnanimously responded to the many political manifestations of its representatives in the legislature. let me hope, sir, that as you have been generously pleased to be the interpreter of indiana's welcome and sympathy, you will also not refuse to become the chief executive magistrate to the practical development of the same. i may cordially thank, in the name of my cause, the people of indiana, its governor, and representatives, for the high honour of the legislature's invitation, and of this public welcome. * * * * * xxxiv.--importance of foreign policy, and of strengthening england. [_speech at louisville, march 6th_.] at the court house, louisville, kossuth was addressed by bland ballard, esq., and replied as follows: whatever be the immediate issue of that discussion about foreign policy, which now so eminently occupies public attention throughout the united states, from the capitol and white-house at washington down to the lonely farms of your remotest territories, one fact i have full reason to take for sure, and that is: that when the trumpet-sound of national resurrection is once borne over the waves of the atlantic announcing to you that nations have risen to assert those rights to which they are called by nature and nature's god--when the roaring of the first cannon-shot announces that the combat is begun which has to decide which principle is to rule over the christian world--absolutism or national sovereignty--there is no power on earth which could induce the people of the united states to remain inactive and indifferent spectators of that great struggle, in which the future of the christian world--yes, the future of the united states themselves is to be decided. the people of the united states will not remain indifferent and inactive spectators and will not authorize, will not approve, any policy of indifference. you yourself have told me so, sir. in the position of every considerable country there is a necessity of a certain course, to adopt which cannot be avoided, and may be almost called destiny. the duty as well as the wisdom of statesmen consists in the ability to steer, in time, the vessel into that course, which, if they neglect to do in time, the price will be higher and the profit less. there is scarcely anything which has more astonished me than the fact--that, for the last thirty-seven years, almost every christian nation has shared the great fault of not caring much about what are called foreign matters, foreign policy. precisely the great nations, england, france, america, which might have regulated the course of their governments for a very considerable period, abandoned almost entirely that part of their public concerns, which with great nations is the most important of all, because it regulates the position of the country in its great national capacity. the slightest internal interest was discussed publicly and regulated previously by the nation, before the government had to execute it; but, as to the most important interest--the national position of the country and its relations to the world, secret diplomacy, a fatality of mankind, stepped in, and the nations had to accept the consequences of what was already done, though they subsequently reproved it. in england, i four months ago, avowed that all the interior questions together cannot equal in importance the exterior; _there_ is summed up the future of britain: and if the people of england do not cut short the secrecy of diplomacy--if it do not in time take this all absorbing interest into its own hands, as it is wont to do with every small home interest, it will have to meet immense danger very soon, as this danger has already seriously accumulated by former neglect. here too, in the united states, there is no possible question equal in importance to foreign policy, and especially in regard to european matters. and i say that, if the united states do not in due time adopt such a course, as will prevent the czar of russia, and his despotic satellites, from believing that the united states give them entirely free field to regulate the condition of europe, which cannot fail to react morally and materially on your condition, then indeed embarrassments, sufferings, and danger will accumulate in a very short time over you. great britain, it is clear as matters now stand, can avoid a war with the continental powers of europe only by joining their alliance, or at least by giving them security, that england will not only not support the liberal movement on the continent, but that it will submit to the policy of the absolutist powers. it is not impossible that england will yield. do not forget, gentlemen, that an english ministry, be it tory or whig, is always more or less aristocratic, and it is in the nature of aristocracy that it may love its country well, but indeed aristocracy more. there is therefore always some inclination to be on good terms with whoever is an enemy to what aristocracy considers its own enemy, that is, democracy. this consideration, together with the above mentioned carelessness of the people about foreign policy, gives you the key to many events which else it would be impossible to understand. people against another people should never feel hatred, but brotherly sympathy. the memory of oppression suffered from governments should never be imparted to nations, and children should never be hated, despised, or punished, because their fathers have sinned. we hungarians wrestled for centuries with turkey, and now we are friends, true friends, and natural allies against a common enemy. several of my own ancestors lost their lives in turkish wars, or their property in ransom out of turkish captivity; yet to me it is a turkish sultan who saved my life and gave bread to thousands of my countrymen, which no other power did on earth. such is the change of time. it is russia which crushed my bleeding fatherland, yet the inexorable hatred of my heart does not extend to the people of russia. i love that people--i pity its poor, unfortunate instruments of despotism. wherever there is a people, there is my love. therefore, let the passionate excitement of past times subside before the prudent advice of present necessities. you are blood from england's blood, bone from its bone, and flesh from its flesh. the anglo-saxon race was the kernel around which gathered this glorious fruit--your republic. every other nationality is oppressed. it is the anglo-saxon alone which stands high and erect in its independence. you, the younger brother, are entirely free, because republican. they, the elder brother, are monarchical, but they have a constitution, and they have many institutions which even you retained, and, by retaining them, have proved that they are institutions congenial to freedom, and dear to freemen. the free press, the jury, free speech, the freedom of association, the institution of municipalities, the share of the people in the legislature, are english institutions; the inviolability of person and the inviolability of property are english principles. england is the last stronghold of these principles in europe. is this not enough to make you stand side by side with those principles in behalf of oppressed humanity? if the united states and england unite in policy now and make by their imposing attitude a breakwater to the ambitious league of despotism, the anglo-saxon race, with all who gathered around that kernel, will not only have the glorious pleasure of having saved the christian world from being absorbed by despotism, but you especially will have the noble satisfaction of having contributed to the progress and to the development of freedom in england, scotland, and ireland themselves: for the principles of national sovereignty, independence, and self-government, when restored on the continent of europe, must in a beneficent manner reach upon those islands themselves. they may remain monarchical, if it be their will to do so, but the parliamentary omnipotence, which absorbs all that _you_ call _state_ rights and self-government, will yield to the influence of europe's liberated continent. england will govern its own domestic concerns by its own parliament, and scotland its own, and ireland its own, just as the states of your galaxy do; the three countries are destined to mutual connection, by their geographical relations, by far more than new york with louisiana or carolina with california. by conserving the state-rights of self-government to all of them they will unite in a common government for the common interest, as you have done. _union, and not unity, must be the guiding star of the future_ with every power composed of several distinct bodies, and though i am a republican more perhaps than thousands who are citizens of a republic, inasmuch as i have known all the curse of having had a king--still such a development of great britain's future, were it even connected with monarchy, i, a true republican, would hail with fervent joy. to contribute to such a future, i indeed should consider more practical support to the cause of freedom, to the cause of ireland itself, than, out of passionate aversions either for past or present wrongs, to discourage, nay, almost force great britain to submit to the threatening attitude of despots or even to side with them against liberty. out of such a submission there can never result any good to any one in the world, and certainly none to you--none to the nations of europe--none to ireland--but increased oppression to europe and ireland, and danger to you yourselves. i therefore say that a war side by side with england against the leagued despots, if war should become a necessity, is not an idea to look on in advance with aversion. you have united with england on a far less important occasion. and should england _not_ yield to the despots, i most confidently ask whoever in the united states inclines to judge matters according to the true interests of his country and not by private passion, whether you _could_ remain indifferent in a struggle, the issue of which either would make england omnipotent on earth, or crush liberty down throughout the world, leave america exposed to the pressure of victorious despotism, and before all, exclude republican america from every political and commercial relation with all europe. should england see that she will not stand alone in protesting against interference, she will, she must protest against it, because it is the condition of her own future. but if the united states should again adhere to the policy of indifference (which is no policy at all), then indeed england may perhaps yield to the threatening attitude of the absolutist powers. the policy of the united states may now decide the direction of the policy of england, and thus prevent immense mischief, incalculable in its consequences, even for the future of the united states themselves. it is here i take the opportunity briefly to refer to an assertion of an american statesman, who holds a high place in your affections and in my respect. he advances the theory, that, should, you now take the course which i humbly claim, the despots of europe would be provoked by your example to interfere with your institutions and turn upon you in the hour of your weakness and exhaustion, because you have set an example of interference. i indeed am at a loss to understand that. is it interference i claim? no; precisely the contrary, if you now declare "that your very existence being founded on that principle of the eternal laws of nature and of nature's god--that every nation has the independent right to regulate its domestic concerns, to fix its institutions and its government"--you cannot contemplate with indifference that the absolutist powers form a league of mutual support against this principle of mankind's common law. you therefore protest against this principle of "foreign interference." i indeed cannot understand by what logic such a protest could be taken up by the despotic powers as a pretext for interference in your domestic concerns. my logic is entirely different. it runs thus; if your country remains an indifferent spectator of the violation of the laws of nations by foreign interference, _then_ it has established a precedent--it has consented that the principle of interference become interpolated into the book of international law, and you will see the time when the league of despots commanding the whole force of oppressed europe will remind you thus: "russia has interfered in hungary, because it considered the example set up by hungary dangerous to russia. america has silently recognized the right of that interference. france has interfered in rome, because the example of the roman democracy was dangerous to prance. america has silently agreed. the absolutist governments, in protection of their divine right, have leagued in a saintly alliance, with the openly avowed purpose to aid one another by mutual interference against the spirit of revolution and the anarchy of republicanism. america has not protested against it; therefore the principle of foreign interference against every dangerous example has, by common consent of every power on earth--contradicted by none, not even by america--become an established international law." and reminding you thus, they will speak to you in the very words of that distinguished statesman to whom i respectfully allude. "you have quitted the ground upon which your national existence is founded. you have consented to the alteration of the laws of nations--the existence of your republic is dangerous to us; _we therefore, believing that your anarchical (that is, republican) doctrines are destructive of, and that monarchical principles are essential to, the peace and security and happiness of our subjects, will obliterate the bed which has nourished such noxious weeds; we will crush you down as the propagandists of doctrines too destructive to the peace and good order of the world."_ i have quoted the very words, very unexpectedly given to publicity,--words, which i out of respect and personal affection, did not answer then, precisely because i took the interview for a private one. even now i refrain from entering into further discussion, out of the same considerations of respect, though i am challenged by this unlooked for publicity. i will say nothing more. but after having quoted the very words, i leave to the public opinion to judge whether their authority is against or for a national protest against the principle of foreign interference. let once the principle become established with your silent consent and you will soon see it brought home to you, and brought home in a moment of domestic discord, which russian secret diplomacy and russian gold will skilfully mix. you may be sure of it; and this mighty union will be shaken by that very principle of foreign interference which you silently let be established as an uncontroverted rule for the despots of the earth. great countries are under the necessity of holding the position of a power on earth. if they do not thus, foreign powers dispose of their most vital interests. indifference to the condition of the foreign world is a wilful abdication of their duty, and of their independence. neutrality, as a constant rule, is impossible to a great power. only small countries, as switzerland and belgium, can exist upon the basis of neutrality. great powers may remain neutral in a particular case, but they cannot take neutrality for a constant principle, and they chiefly cannot remain neutral in respect to principles. great powers can never play with impunity the part of no power at all. neutrality when taken _as a principle_ means indifference to the condition of the world. indifference of a great power to the condition of the world is a chance given to foreign powers to regulate the interests of that indifferent foreign power. look in what light you appear before the world with your policy of indifference. look at the instructions of your navy in the mediterranean, recently published, forbidding american officers even to speak politics in europe. look at the correspondences of your commodores and consuls, frightened to their very souls that a poor exile on board an american ship is cheered by the people of italy and france, and charging him for the immense crime of having met sympathy without any provocation on his part. look at the cry of astonishment of european writers, that americans in europe are so little republican. look how french napoleonist papers frown indignantly at the idea that the congress of the united states dare to honour my humble self. look how they consider it almost an insult, that an american minister, true to his always professed principles, dares to speak about european politics. look how one of my aristocratical antagonists, who quietly keeps house in france, where i was not permitted to pass, and who, a tool in other hands, would wish to check my endeavours to benefit my country, because he would like to get home in some other way than by a revolution and into a republic--look how he, from paris in london papers, dares to scorn the idea that america could pretend to weigh anything in the scale of european events. do you like this position, free republicans of america? and yet that is your position in the world now, and that position is the consequence of your adhering to your policy of indifference, at a time when you needed to act like a power on earth. remember the sibylline books. the first three were burned when you silently let russian interference be accomplished in hungary, and did not give us your recognition when we had achieved and declared our independence. six books yet remain. the spirit of the age, the sibylla of opportunity, holds a second three books over the fire. do not allow her to burn them--else only the last three remain, and i fear you will have, without profit, more to pay for them than would have bought all the nine, and with them the glory and happiness of an _eternal, mighty republic!_ gentlemen, i humbly thank you for your kindness, and bid you an affectionate farewell. * * * * * xxxv.--catholicism _versus_ jesuitism. [_at st. louis, (missouri.)_] mr. kasson addressed kossuth in an ample speech; in which he said:-everywhere have the untrammelled masses of this people, as you passed, lifted up their hands and voices, and supplicated the almighty to give to you blessing, and to your country redemption. let this be some recompense for the privations you have encountered, while, like aeneas, you have been wandering an exile from your native, captured, prostrate troy. i should not do my whole duty without saying, in behalf of the thousands assembled here, that we have an unshaken confidence in hungary's chosen leader. we are not so blind that we cannot observe how no envenomed shaft was fixed to the bow-string against him, in england and america, while he was yet a helpless and powerless refugee, within turkish hospitality. but when the people were gathering around him in free countries, shoulder to shoulder--when even the hearts of statesmen began to open to him, and hope dawned in the hungarian sky once more, then it was these arrows of detraction darkened the air, shot from the court of the french usurper, or from the pensioners of autocratic bounty. your patient labours and forbearance in your country's cause, while thus assailed, have won for you, sir, our sincere respect, and another wreath at the hand of the muse of history. kossuth replied: gentlemen,--during my brief sojourn in your hospitable city, i have heard so much local pettiness and so much hypocritical tactics of men imported from austria to advocate the cause of russo-austrian despotism in republican america, and chiefly in your city here, that indeed i began to long for the pure air where the merry sunshine, as well as the melancholy drop of rain, the roaring of the thunder storm, equally as the sigh of the breeze, tell to the oppressors and their tools, and not only to the oppressed, that there is a god in heaven who rules the universe by eternal laws; the almighty father of humanity, omnipotent in wisdom, bountiful in his omnipotence, just in his judgment, and eternal in his love; the lord who gave strength to the boy david against goliath, who often makes out of humble individuals efficient instruments to push forward the condition of mankind towards that destiny which his merciful will has assigned to it--his will, against which neither the proud ambition of despots, nor the skill of their obsequious tools can prevail--in him i put my trust and go cheerfully on in my duties. i am in the right way to benefit the cause, noble and just and great, to which i devoted my life; for if there were no success in what i am engaged, the despots would neither fear, nor hate, nor persecute me. their persecution imparts more hope to my breast than all your kindness; and i give you my word that if i have the consciousness of having well merited in my past the hatred and the fear of tyrants and their instruments, so may god bless me as i will do all a mortal man can do to merit that hatred and that fear still more. why? am i not standing on the banks of the mississippi, cheered, welcomed, and supported, as warmly and as heartily as when i stepped first upon your glorious shores? opposition, hostility, venomous calumny, have exhausted all means to check the sympathy of the people. and has that sympathy subsided? has it abated? is it checked? no, it rolls on swelling as i advance--here i have again an imposing evidence before my eyes, here in st. louis, my namesake city, where so much, and that so perseveringly, was done to prevent this evidence. yes, it rolls, and will roll on, swelling till it will finally submerge all endeavours to mislead the instincts of freemen, to fetter the energies of the nation, to stifle its spirit, and to check the growing aspirations of the people's upright heart. when the struggle is about principles, indifference is suicide. nay, indifference is impossible: for indifference about the fate of that principle upon which your national existence and all your future rests--is passive submission to the opposite principle--it is almost equivalent to an alliance with the despots. _he who is not for freedom is against freedom_. there is no third choice. the people's instinct feels the danger of losing an irreparable opportunity, and hence the fact, never yet met in history, that a homeless exile becomes an object of such sympathy, rolling on like a sea, in spite of all the passionate rage of my enemies, and all the christian tolerance of the reverend father jesuits, which they in such an evident manner show to me. it is time to advertise them by a few remarks that i am aware of their hostility, and ready to meet it openly. i make this advertisement by design here, because it is not my custom to attack from behind or in the dark. mine is not the famous doctrine, _that the end sanctifies the means_. i like to meet the enemy face to face--a fair field and fair arms. and in one thing more i will not imitate my reverend opponents. i will never indulge in any personalities, never act otherwise than becoming to a gentleman. if they choose to pursue a different course, let them do so, and let them earn the fruits of it. my humble person i entirely submit to the good pleasure of their passion. if they tell you, gentlemen, that i am no great man, they speak the truth. being on good terms with my conscience, i do not much care to be on bad terms with czars and emperors, their obedient servants, and the reverend father jesuits. nay, if i were on good terms with them, i scarcely could remain on good terms with my conscience. so much for myself--now a few words as to the question between us. i am claiming moral and material aid against that czar of russia who is the most bloody persecutor of roman catholics. the present pope himself, before the revolution, when he was yet more of a high priest than of an italian despot, and cared more about spiritual than temporal business, openly and bitterly complained in the councils of the cardinals against that bloody persecution which the roman catholics have suffered from the czar of russia. now, considering that i plead for republican principles, to which the reverend father jesuits should be _here_ warmly attached, if they are willing to have the reputation of good citizens, and not to be traitors to your republic, which affords to them not only the protection of its laws, but also the full enjoyment of all the privileges of your republican freedom;--it is indeed a strange, striking fact, to see these reverend fathers here in a republic so warmly advocating the cause of despotism, and so passionately persecuting the cause i humbly plead, which at the same time is the cause of political freedom and religious liberty for numerous millions of roman catholics throughout europe. as i am somewhat acquainted with the terrible history of that order, i thought to find the explanation of this striking fact, in the historical ambition of that order to rule the world--this, their everlasting standard idea, to which they in all times sacrificed everything, and misused even the holiest of all religion, as an instrument to that ambition. but here in st. louis i got hold of a definite circumstance which makes the matter quite clear. i hold in my hand the printed catalogue of the society of jesuits in the province of missouri, as they term your state. herein i see that amongst the thirty-five members officiating in the college of the father jesuits, in st. louis, there are not less than _eight_ reverend father jesuits imported from austria. now you see why i am so persecuted here. this plain fact tells the story of a big book. but amongst all that the reverend gentlemen oppose to me there are only two considerations to which the honour of my cause and of my nation forces me to answer in a few remarks. they charge against me that my cause is hostile to the roman catholic religion, and to get the irish citizens to side with them for the support of russo-austrian despotism they charge me that i am no friend of ireland. i. as to the catholic religion--i indeed am a protestant, not only by birth, but also by conviction; and warmly penetrated by this conviction, i would delight to see the same shared by the whole world. but before all, i am mortally opposed to intolerance and to sectarism. i consider religion to be a matter of conscience which every man has to arrange between god and himself. and therefore i respect the religious conviction of every man. i claim religious liberty for myself and my nation, and must of course respect in others the right i claim for myself. there is nothing in the world capable to rouse a greater indignation in my breast than religious oppression. but particularly i respect the catholic religion, as the religion of some seven millions of my countrymen, to whom i am bound in love, in friendship, in home recollections, in gratitude, and in brotherhood, with the most sacred ties. and i am proud to say, that as in general it is a pre-eminent glory of my country, to be attached to the principle of full religious liberty without any restriction, for all to all, so it is the particular glory of my roman catholic countrymen not to be second to any in the world, on the one side in attachment to their own religion, and on the other side in toleration for other religions. the austrian dynasty having been continually encroaching upon the chartered right of protestantism, who were those who struggled in the first rank for our rights? our roman catholic countrymen! it was a glorious sight, almost unparalleled in history, but was also fully appreciated by the hungarian protestants. all of us, man by man, would rather sacrifice life, and blood, and goods, than to allow that a hair's breadth should be crushed from the religious liberty of our roman catholic countrymen. now, what position took the roman catholics of hungary in our past struggle? there was not only no difference between them and the protestants in their devotion for our country's freedom and independence, but they, according to the importance of their number, took in the struggle a very pre-eminent part. the roman catholic bishops of hungary protested against the perjurious treachery of the dynasty; many of them suffer even now for their devotion to justice, liberty, and right; and who is the jesuit who dares to affirm that he is more devoted to the catholic religion than the bishops of hungary? our battalions were filled with roman catholic volunteers; catholic priests led their faithful flocks to the battle field; our national convention was composed in majority of catholics--all the catholic population, without any exception, consented to and cheered enthusiastically my being elected governor of hungary, though i am a protestant. i had and i have their friendship, their devotion, their support; and when i formed the first ministry of independent hungary, not only a full half of the new ministry i entrusted to roman catholics, but especially i nominated a roman catholic bishop to be minister of public instruction, and all the protestants of my country hailed the nomination with applause. such is the cause of hungary. who dares now to charge me that that cause is hostile to the roman catholic religion? but i am allied with mazzini, with the romans, and with the italians; thus goes on the charge: and these cursed italians are enemies to the pope. not to the pope as high priest of the roman catholic church, but as despotic sovereign of rome and his corrupted temporal government--the worst of human inventions. how long has it been a principle of the roman catholic religion, that the romans should not be republicans? and that the high priest of the roman church should be a despotic sovereign over the roman nation? and in that capacity be a devoted ally and obedient servant to the czar of russia, the sworn enemy and bloody persecutor of roman catholicism? why, when in 1849, the french republic sent an army against the roman republic to restore the pope, not to his spiritual authority, because that was by nobody contradicted, but to his temporal despotism, the whole danger could have been averted by the romans by becoming, _en masse_, protestants. the idea was pronounced in rome and not a single roman accepted it. they preferred to struggle without hope of victory--they preferred to bleed and to die rather than to abandon their faith. now, who can dare to insult that people--who can dare to insult the roman catholics of hungary, croatia, italy, germany, poland, france--who can dare to insult the thousands of thousands of roman citizens of the united states--senators, governors, judges--men of all public and private positions--who can dare to insult them, as hostile to their own religion, because they unite to support that cause which i plead? and because they side with republican freedom, with civil and religious liberty, against russo-austrian despotism? who can dare to affirm that he represents the catholic religion, if three millions of catholic romans do not represent it? the reverend father jesuits perhaps! i take the liberty to say in a few words: they are that society which clement xiv, the high priest of the roman catholic church, abolished as dangerous to the roman catholic religion; they are those whom every roman catholic king excluded from his territories as dangerous to religion and social order; they are those, the ascendancy of whom has always been a period of disaster and confusion to the roman catholic church; they are those who now make an alliance or rather a compact of submission with the czar of russia, like that which evil-doers, according to the superstition of past ages, made with the evil spirit. and here, in free republican america, they plead the cause of russian despotism; the cause of that czar, who is the relentless persecutor of catholicism; who forced the united greek catholics, in the polish provinces, by every imaginable cruelty, to abjure their connection with rome, and carried out, at a far greater expense of human life than ferdinand and isabella or louis xiv, the most stupendous proselytism which violence has yet achieved. more than a hundred thousand human beings had died of misery, or under the lash, as the minsk nuns were proved to have been killed, before he terrified these unhappy millions into a submission against which their consciences revolted. yet with this man, red with catholic blood, and damned with the million curses of their co-religionists, the rev. father jesuits are in alliance; and why? because it is a characteristic of that order, to be ambitious to rule the world. to achieve this, they have now made the pope the obedient satrap of the czar. into the enormity of this, enlightened catholics see clearly. roman catholics of hungary, of poland, of italy, germany, and france have understood this. is it possible that those of this republic should less understand it? why, in italy and rome itself, a majority of the catholic clergy are hostile to the temporal authority of the pope, and sympathize with mazzini so generally, that of _seventeen_ conspirators recently arrested for conspiring in favour of the republic against austria, _sixteen_ were _priests_ belonging to the humbler orders of the clergy. gentlemen, i am sorry to have to argue such a question in the united states. if it be indeed true, that amongst the roman catholics here an opposition is got up against our cause, let them remember that in opposing me, they oppose the independence and freedom of millions of hungarian catholics,--of catholic italy,--of the catholic half of germany, and of catholic france; they are supporting the czar, the most bloody enemy of their religion. yet i am glad to be able to say, that not all the roman catholics here are opposed to me. i have warm friends and kind protectors among them. the gallant general shields,--mr. downs, the senator from louisiana,--the warm-hearted governor of maryland,--judge le grand at baltimore, and many other of my kindest friends, are roman catholics. from new york onward, multitudes of roman catholics have shared the general sympathy. and why not? surely freedom is a treasure to every religious denomination whatsoever.[*] [footnote *: some sentences have been added from the pittsburg speech, at the end of which the same subject was treated.] so much for the charge that the cause which i plead--the cause of millions of roman catholics--is hostile to the roman catholic religion. should i be forced to enter upon this topic once more, i will take the heart-revolting history of those who have thus calumniated our cause, into my hands, and recall to the memory of public opinion the terrible pages of blood, ambition, countless crimes, and intolerance; but i hope there will be no occasion for it. ii. now as to ireland. where is a man on earth, with uncorrupted soul and with liberal instincts in his heart, who would not sympathize with poor, unfortunate ireland? where is a man, loving freedom and right, in whom the wrongs of green erin would not stir the heart? who could forbear warmly to feel for the fatherland of the grattans, of o'connells, and of wolfe tones? i indeed am such, that wherever is oppression and a people, there is my love. but why do i not plead erin's wrongs? i am asked. my answer is: am i not pleading the principle of liberty? and is the cause of freedom not the cause of ireland? i see all the despots of the european continent united in a crusade against liberty; there are two powers still neutral, the position of which may well decide for or against despotism; these two powers are great britain and america. if the almighty blessed my endeavours--if i could succeed to contribute something, that america, and by its influence over the public opinion of the people of england, great britain itself, should side with liberty, from whatever consideration-from whatever interest, against despotism--then indeed i boldly declare before god and men, that i have achieved a greater benefit and done a better service to the future of ireland, than all who go about loudly crying about erin's wrongs, and not doing anything for the triumph of that cause which is about to be decided, and is the cause of all nations, who are oppressed, and of all who are, or will be free. whereas, if, by uniting in the chorus of empty words, i should contribute to alarm not only the government, but also the people of england, and to force that government to side with despotism in the decisive struggle against liberty, (to which that government, being as it is, aristocratical, feels but too much inclined,) then indeed i am sure i should do such a wrong to the future of ireland, as the sacrifice of my life and torrents of blood, and the sufferings of generations, could not expiate. be sure therefore, gentlemen, that every man who pleads for liberty, pleads for ireland; be sure, that every blow stricken for liberty is stricken also for ireland; that not always the most noisy are the best friends; and prudent activity is often better service than any show of eloquent words. and so let me hope, that while it is sure that he who is for freedom is for ireland, it also will be found that irish blood can never be against liberty. and as to you all, gentlemen, let me hope that, however the advocates of despotism may try to mislead public opinion in free america, the uncorrupted noble instinct of the people will prove to the world that it is not in vain, that the down-trodden spirit of liberty raises the sign of distress towards you, and that the wronged and the oppressed can confidently appeal for help, for justice and for redress, to the free and powerful republic of america. i thank you, gentlemen, for the patience with which you have listened during this torrent of rain. it shows that your sympathy is warm and sincere--one which cannot be cooled down or washed away. * * * * * xxxvi.--the ides of march. [_farewell speech at st. louis, march 15th_.] ladies and gentlemen: to-day is the fourth anniversary of the revolution in hungary. anniversaries of revolutions are almost always connected with the recollection of some patriots, death-fallen on that day, like the spartans at thermopylae, martyrs of devotion to their fatherland. almost in every country there is some proud cemetery, or some modest tomb-stone, adorned on such a day by a garland of evergreen, the pious offering of patriotic tenderness. i past the last night in a sleepless dream. and my soul wandered on the magnetic wings of the past, home to my beloved bleeding land, and i saw in the dead of the night, dark veiled shapes, with the paleness of eternal grief upon their brow, but terrible in the tearless silence of that grief, gliding over the churchyards of hungary, and kneeling down to the head of the graves, and depositing the pious tribute of green and cypress upon them; and after a short prayer rising with clenched fists, and gnashing teeth, and then stealing away tearless and silent as they came--stealing away, because the blood-hounds of my country's murderer lurks from every corner on that night, and on this day, and leads to prison those who dare to show a pious remembrance to the beloved. to-day, a smile on the lips of a magyar is taken for a crime of defiance to tyranny, and a tear in his eye is equivalent to a revolt. and yet i have seen, with the eye of my home-wandering soul, thousands performing the work of patriotic piety. and i saw more. when the pious offerers stole away, i saw the honoured dead half risen from their tombs, looking to the offerings, and whispering gloomily, "still a cypress, and still no flower of joy! is there still the chill of winter and the gloom of night over thee, fatherland? are we not yet revenged? and the sky of the east reddened suddenly, and quivered with bloody flames, and from the far, far west, a lightning flashed like a star-spangled stripe, and within its light a young eagle mounted and soared towards the quivering flames of the east, and as he drew near, upon his approaching, the flames changed into a radiant morning sun, and a voice from above was heard in answer to the question of the dead: "sleep yet a short while; mine is the revenge. i will make the stars of the west, the sun of the east; and when ye next awake, ye will find the flower of joy upon your cold bed." and the dead took the twig of cypress, the sign of resurrection, into their bony hands and lay down. such was the dream of my waking soul, and i prayed, and such was my prayer: "father, if thou deemest me worthy, take the cup from my people, and give it in their stead to me." and there was a whisper around me like the word "amen." such was my dream, half foresight and half prophecy; but resolution all. however, none of those dead whom i saw, fell on the 15th of march. they were victims of the royal perjury which betrayed the 15th of march. the anniversary of our revolution has not the stain of a single drop of blood. we, the elect of the nation, sat on that morning busily but quietly in the legislative hall of old presburg, and without any flood of eloquence, passed our laws in short words, that the people shall be free; the burdens of feudality cease; the peasant become free proprietor; that equality of duties, equality of rights, shall be the fundamental law; and civil, political, social, and religious liberty, the common property of all the people, whatever tongue it may speak, or in whatever church pray, and that a national ministry shall execute these laws, and guard with its responsibility the chartered ancient independence of our fatherland. two days before, austria's brave people in vienna had broken its yoke; and summing up despots in the person of its tool, old metternich, drove him away, and the hapsburgs, trembling in their imperial cavern of imperial crimes, trembling, but treacherous, and lying and false, wrote with yard-long letters, the words, "constitution" and "free press," upon vienna's walls; and the people in joy cheered the inveterate liars, because the people knows no falsehood. on the 14th i announced the tidings from vienna to our parliament at presburg. the announcement was swiftly carried by the great democrat, the steam-engine, upon the billows of the danube, down to old buda and to young pesth, and while we, in the house of representatives, passed the laws of justice and freedom, the people of pesth rose in peaceful but majestic manifestation, declaring that the people should be free. at this manifestation, all the barriers raised by violence against the laws, fell of themselves. not a drop of blood was shed. a man who was in prison because he had dared to write a book, was carried home in triumph through the streets. the people armed itself as a national guard, the windows were illuminated, and bonfires burnt; and when these tidings returned back to presburg, blended with the cheers from vienna, they warmed the chill of our house of lords, who readily agreed to the laws we proposed. and there was rejoicing throughout the land. for the first time for centuries the farmer awoke with the pleasant feeling that his time was now his own--for the first time went out to till his field with the consoling thought that the ninth part of his harvest will not be taken by the landlord, and the tenth by the bishop. both had fully resigned their feudal portion, and the air was brightened by the lustre of freedom, and the very soil budding into a blooming paradise. such is the memory of the 15th of march, 1848. one year later there was blood, but also victory, over the land; the people, because free, fought like demi-gods. seven great victories we had gained in that month of march. on this very day, the remains of the first 10,000 russians fled, over the frontiers of transylvania, to tell at home how heavily the blow falls from free hungarian arms. it was in that very month that one evening i lay down in the bed, whence in the morning windischgrätz had risen: and from the battle-field (isaszeg) i hastened to the congress at debreczin, to tell the representatives of the nation: "it is time to declare our national independence, because it is really achieved. the hapsburgs have not the power to contradict it more." nor had they. but russia, having experienced by the test of its first interference, that there was no power on earth caring about the most flagrant violation of the laws of nations, and seeing by the silence of great britain and of the united states, that she may dare to violate those laws, our heroes had to meet a fresh force of nearly 200,000 russians. no power cheered our bravely won independence, by diplomatic recognition; not even the united states, though they always professed their principle to be that they recognise every de-facto government. we therefore had the right to expect a speedy recognition from the united states. our struggle rose to european height, but we were left alone to fight for the world; and we had no arms for the new battalions, gathering up in thousands with resolute hearts and empty hands. the recognition of our independence being withheld, commercial intercourse for procuring arms abroad was impossible--the gloomy feeling of entire forsakedness spread over our tired ranks, and prepared the field for the secret action of treachery; until the most sacrilegious violation of those common laws of nations was achieved and the code of "nature and of nature's god," was drowned in hungary's blood. and i, who on the 15th of march, 1848, saw the principle of full civil and religious liberty triumphing in my native land--who, on the 15th of march, 1849, saw this freedom consolidated by victories--one year later, on the 15th of march, 1850, was on my sorrowful way to an asiatic prison. but wonderful are the works of divine providence. it was again in the month of march, 1851, that the generous interposition of the united states cast the first ray of hope into the dead night of my captivity. and on the 15th of march, 1852, the fourth anniversary of our revolution, guided by the bounty of providence, here i stand in the very heart of your immense republic; no longer a captive, but free in the land of the free, not only not desponding, but firm in confidence of the future, because raised in spirits by a swelling sympathy in the home of the brave, still a poor, a homeless exile, but not without some power to do good to my country and to the cause of liberty, as my very persecution proves. such is the history of the 15th of march, in my humble life. who can tell what will be the character of the next 15th of march? nearly two thousand years ago the first caesar found a brutus on the ides or 15th of march. may be that the ides of march, 1853, will see the last of the caesars fall under the avenging might of a thousand-handed brutus--the name of whom is "the people"--inexorable at last after it has been so long generous. the seat of caesars was first in the south, from the south to the east, from the east to the west, and from the west to the north. that is their last abode. none was lasting yet. will the last, and worst, prove luckier? no, it will not. while the seat of caesars was tossed around and thrown back to the icy north, a new world became the cradle of a new humanity, where in spite of the caesars, the genius of freedom raised (let us hope) an everlasting throne. the caesar of the north and the genius of freedom have not place enough upon this earth for both of them; one must yield and be crushed beneath the heels of the other. which is it? which shall yield?--america may decide. allow me to add a few remarks in dry and plain words, on other subjects. it is not necessary to explain why i am attacked by russia, austria, and their allies. but some of you, gentlemen, may have felt surprised to see that two hungarians have joined in the attack, both of whom accepted of the office of ministers from my hands, and held that office under my good pleasure, and from my will, till we all three proceeded into exile on the same evening. my two assailants now live and act under the protection of louis napoleon, who did not permit me even to pass through france. you may yet find perhaps some more joining them, but the number will not be large. oh! the bitter pangs of an exile's daily life are terrible. i have seen many a character faltering under the constant petty care of how to live, which stood firm like a rock under the storm of a quaking world, therefore i should not be surprised to find yet some few joining in those attacks, as i have neither means nor time to care for the wants of individuals, not even of my own children. what i get is not mine, but my country's; and must be employed to secure its future prospects; and it may be that others may avail themselves of this circumstance, and show some temporary compassion to private misfortune, _under the condition of secession from me_, with the purpose of being then able to say that the cause of hungary is hopeless, because not even the hungarian exiles live in concord. that may happen thus with some few; for hunger is painful: but few they will be. the immense majority of my brother exiles will rather starve than yield to such a snare. there may be some also that will fall victims to the craft of skilful aristocratic diplomatists, who would fain keep or get the reputation of liberal men, but without the necessity of becoming really liberal. that class of influential persons may give some hope--even some half indefinite promise of support to the cause of hungary (which they never intend to fulfil), under the condition of a peaceful compromise with the house of austria upon a monarchical-aristocratical basis, and not in that way which i have proclaimed openly in england, knowing that every root of the monarchical principle is torn out from the breasts of the people of hungary, so that we can never be knit again. therefore the future of hungary can only be republican, and there is no door to that future, but to continue the struggle. there may perhaps be some few honest but weak men, who, weary of a homeless life, would fain return home, even under the condition of monarchical-aristocratical compromise which some skilful diplomatists make glitter into their eyes. but as to those two who do good service to the tyrant of their and my country, the very circumstance that they were silent when i (because a prisoner) was not able to work much, but are trying to check my endeavours, now that i am about to achieve something which can only prove to be a benefit to hungarians,--smaller or greater, but only a benefit and in no case a harm; this very circumstance shows the nature of their attacks. but as to the pretence, by which they try to lull to sleep their own consciences, that was revealed to me by a copy of a confidential communication of one of their silent associates to a private circle of friends, where it is stated, that, as i have declared exclusively for a republic, a party must be got up under the nominal leadership of bathyanyi, on a monarchical basis, _because my views leave no hope to get home in an honourable manner, otherwise than by a revolution_. that is the key of the dispute. as to myself, i am a republican, and will never be a subject to a king, any more than be a king myself. but i love my country too sincerely to favour the course i would pursue, on my own private sentiments alone. i know the hapsburg, and i know my country. i have weighed my people's revolution, wishes and will, and weighed the condition of the only possible success. upon this basis i act, and am happy to say that the considerate prudence of a statesman, and the duties of a patriot, not only act in full harmony with my own personal republican convictions, but indeed cannot allow me in any other course. either freedom and our popular rights have no future, not only in hungary, but indeed in europe, or that future will be, can be, and shall be only republican for the hungarians. it is more than foolish to think that either an insurrectionary war can be prevented in europe, or that that war can terminate otherwise than either by a consolidated despotism or republicanism. no other issue is possible. therefore, however mean be the private motives of the hostility of those, my very few hungarian enemies, i pity them. out of too great a desire to get home, they have made their return in every case impossible. not all the power of earth could afford them security at home against the indignation of the people. not, if i succeed to liberate my country, for the people will consider them as traitors, who have done all they could to prevent that liberation; not, if i should fail, because then the people will believe that their counter-machinations are what caused me to fail. so much for them. but the confidence with which i look to the republican freedom of hungary has been confirmed, by considering how weak must the case be of those who urge you to indifference, when they are forced to resort to the argument that we have no chance of success. i have often answered that objection, which in itself is a distrust in god, in justice, in right, and in the blessings of humanity. allow me to-day in addition, only one remark. two days ago the rumour was spread that louis napoleon was killed. it was remarkable to see how those who countenance despotism, grew livid by despair, and how those who doubt about our success rose in spirits and in confidence. some time ago a similar false rumour caused almost a commercial crisis in the cotton market of new orleans. now how can the security of that cause be trusted, where the mere possible death of a single individual, and of such an individual, can so crush every calculation upon the solidity of the peace of oppression? allow me to draw your attention to a circumstance which one of your countrymen, william henry trescott, of south carolina, has recommended to public attention, already in the year 1849, in his pamphlet, entitled 'a few thoughts on the foreign policy of the united states.' the position of the united states underwent an immense change, as soon as your boundaries extended to the pacific; extensive commercial relations with asia became a necessity. you feel it--the very movements now commenced in respect to japan bear witness to it. let those movements be completed, and whom will you meet? russia. that is the old story. everybody who is willing to have some influence in the east must meet russia, whose sterling thought is to exclude all other powers from the east. england is to you the competitor in the commerce of the east; and competitors may well have a fair field for them both; but russia is not a competitor there, she is an _enemy_. look to the mediterranean sea, and remember the everlasting thought of russia to crush turkey, and to get hold of constantinople. what is the key of this eternal fond desire, inherited from peter the great? it is not the mere desire of territorial aggrandizement; the real key is, that it is only by the possession of constantinople that russia, a great territorial power already, can become also a great maritime power. the mediterranean is what russia wants, to be the mistress of europe, asia, of africa, and of the world. but the sultan, sitting on the bosphorus, confines the navy of the czar to the black sea, an interior lake, without any outlet but by the beautiful bosphorus. constantinople taken, it is russia which controls the mediterranean:--a circumstance of such immense importance, that mr. trescott says, it would be a sufficient reason for direct and positive interference--that is, for war. there--there--_in turkey, will be decided the fate of the world_. perhaps there will be not only the end, but also the beginning of the end; and some american politicians say, the united states can do nothing for europe's liberty, but turkey can,--holding only the bosphorus against an inroad from sebastopol!--turkey, with its brave four hundred thousand men--the natural ally of all those european nations who will, who must, struggle against russian preponderance. how wonderful! the bosphorus in the hands of the sultan, saves the world from russian dominion; and yet i am asked, what can america do for europe? how many men-of-war have you in the mediterranean? i would you had more. would you had some other anchorage in the mediterranean for your glorious flag! turkey has many a fine harbour, and a great deal of good will. the turkish aghas now would not be afraid to see cheered, for instance, by the inhabitants of mytilene, the american flag, should it ever happen that that flag were cast in protection around my humble self; nay, i am sure they would smilingly join in the harsh but cordial "_khôsh guelden, sepa gueldin_," which is more than a thrice welcome in your language. but the word welcome reminds me that i have to say to you farewell--and that is a sad word in the place where i have met so warm a welcome, but it must be done. can i hope to have the consolation of knowing that in bidding farewell to my namesake city, i leave high-minded men, who, remembering that they have seen the hungarian exile on the ides of march, will have faith in the future of freedom's just cause, and make the central city of the great united republic the centre of numerous associations of the friends of hungary in the great west, whence i confidently hope the sun of freedom will move towards the east. ladies and gentlemen, i bid you farewell, a heartfelt, affectionate farewell. [from st. louis, kossuth proceeded farther south; but we do not find any novelty in his speech at new orleans, march 30th. the most notable thing in that meeting, is the cordial pronouncement of the hon. e. w. moise, in the name of the city authorities and people of new orleans, in favour of hungary and governor kossuth: thus distinctly showing that the commercial metropolis of the south sympathizes with european liberty equally as the north. but it is sufficient here to have indicated the fact.] * * * * * xxxvii.--history of kossuth's liberation. [_jackson, mississippi--(visit to senator foote) april 1st_.] kossuth had felt it a duty of gratitude, on his return from new orleans, to visit jackson, the chief city of mississippi, in order to express his thanks in person to senator foote, then governor of the state, for having moved a resolution in the senate to send a steamer to constantinople for kossuth, and afterwards, a resolution tendering to him a cordial national welcome at washington. on his proposing this visit, he received an enthusiastic invitation from the citizens at large, as was expounded to him by governor foote in a very cordial speech, which ended with the words: in the name of the sovereign people of mississippi, and by the special request of those of our citizens whom you see before you and around you, i now bid you welcome to our own capital, and pray that a bounteous providence may vouchsafe to you and the sacred cause of which you are the advocate, its most auspicious countenance and protection. kossuth replied: your excellency has been pleased to bestow a word of approbation upon the manner in which i have spoken and acted since i am here in the united states, especially as to frankness: which frankness, on another side, has occasioned much hostility toward me. allow me, on the present occasion, to exercise that same frankness. if i were less frank, i should perhaps tell you i had a fond desire to see mississippi, and thank the citizens for sympathy to my country. but i claim not a merit which i do not possess. i did not come to meet the people. my only motive was one of gratitude toward you, sir. one anxiety has weighed upon my breast ever since i have been in the united states, and that is, lest i lose the opportunity to say to you, with a warm grasp of the hand, and in a few but heartfelt words, how thankful i feel for the important part you have been pleased to take in my liberation from captivity. i hope to god, you will never have reason to regret what you have done for me. allow me to state that there was something providential in the fact, and in the time of intercession in my behalf. the sultan is a generous man; i can bear testimony to that. when russia and austria, proudly relying upon their armies and the flush of victory, arrogantly demanded that we should be surrendered to the hangman of my fatherland; and when the majority of the divan (the great council of turkey) taking a shortsighted view of the case, and influenced by the impending danger, had already consented to the arrogant demand, and when, in consequence thereof, the abandonment of our religion was proposed as the only means to save our lives, then the sultan, informed of the matter, and following the noble impulse of his generous heart, declared that he would prefer to perish rather than dishonour his name--he would therefore accept the dangers of war rather than disregard the great duty of humanity--thus if he be doomed to perish, he would at least perish in an honourable way. by that noble resolution our lives were saved. but european diplomacy stepped in, to convert the accorded hospitality into a prison;[*] the sultan being left alone, not supported, not encouraged by any one soever, but assailed by complications, ill advised by fear, and threatened by many, yielded at last, but yielded with the intention to restore us to our natural rights, as soon as he could be sure that he stood not forsaken and alone in acknowledging the right of humanity. for a long while, no encouragement came, and we lingered in our prison, forsaken and without hope. you, sir, moved a resolution in the senate of the united states. in consequence thereof, the great republic of the west, by its generous offer, cast a ray of consolation into my prison, and gave encouragement to the sublime porte. the english and the french governments, unwilling to appear less liberal, both approved the course of the united states. england made even a similar offer as america, and the sultan, glad to see that he was no longer alone in asserting what is right, agreed to the offer, notwithstanding all the machinations of my enemies, and i and my countrymen became free. [footnote *: i am permitted to explain, that kossuth had in view not the action of one power only, but the total result of all the powers. while the sultan knew what the arms of russia were meant for, and could not learn whether the fleet of england was meant for anything but _a mere show_ (for sir stratford canning "had no orders" to _use_ it), the practical advice of diplomacy was, not, to do what was just, but, to make the least disgraceful and least dangerous compromise.] now suppose, sir, you had not introduced that resolution then, and the star-spangled flag had not been cast in protection around me--suppose that the _coup d'état_ of louis napoleon had found me in prison still--that _coup d'état_ which caused a change of the ministry in england,--what would have been the consequence? england would probably have remained indifferent, and france would have certainly opposed the proposition of the united states--or rather, supported the cause of austria; and the sultan abandoned by the constitutional powers of europe, would have been forced to make kutaya what the arrogant despots desired--a physical, or at least, a moral grave for me--and instead of the new hope and fresh resolution which my liberation inspired into nations groaning under the weight of a common oppression, there would be now a gloom of despondency spread over all who united with me in spirit, in resolution, and in sentiments. therefore, in whatsoever i may yet be _useful through my regained activity, it is due to you, sir_. without the intercession of the united states, there would have been no field of activity left me. allow me now to speak on another matter connected with this. among the calumnies perpetually thrown out at me, is one which i cannot pass in silence, because it charges me with ingratitude to the united states, saying that i misuse the generosity of your country, which granted me protection and an asylum, _upon my accepting the condition not to meddle any more with politics_, but to abandon the cause to which i have devoted my life--to retire from public life, and to lay down my head to rest. now, before god and man, this representation is entirely false. no such condition was added to the generous offer of the united states; and i declare, that however much i regard such an offer, had this condition been attached, i would in no case, have accepted it. life is of no value to me, except inasmuch as i can do some service to my country's cause. therefore, under the condition of forsaking my country, i would not accept happiness--not liberty--not life. this i have said before. it is due from me to the honour of the turkish government to declare, that the sublime porte not only attached no condition at all to my liberation, but explicitly and officially intimated to me, that having once decided to set us free, it was unwilling to do things by halves;--we had therefore full and unrestricted liberty, on leaving turkey, to go and to stay where we pleased--to take such a course as we chose, and that to that purpose, an american and an english vessel would be ready at the dardanelles, and it would depend on our choice, on board of which we embarked. indeed i have an official communication on the part of the english government in my hands, by which i was informed, that the only reason why the appointed english vessel came not to the dardanelles was, that i and my associates had declared that we preferred to embark on board the american ship. but again: in respect to that embarkation, i must state that, in the resolution of the congress, one word being contained which might have been subject to different interpretation, i considered it my duty to declare frankly to the legation of the united states at constantinople, that i neither was, nor would be, willing to assume the character of an _emigrant_; but would only be considered an _exile_, driven away by foreign violence from my native land, but not without the hope to get home again to free and independent hungary; therefore, that i not only would not pledge my word to go directly to the united states, or to remove thither permanently, but, upon regaining my liberty, intended to devote it to win back for my country its sovereign independence, which we had achieved and proclaimed, and which was wrested from us by the most sacrilegious violation of the laws of nations. i got an answer fully satisfactory on the part of your legation, assuring me that the united states would never consent to give me a new prison, instead of liberty; and that there was, and could be, no intention on the part of the united states to restrain my freedom or my activity, beyond the limits of your common laws, which are equally obligatory and equally protective to every one, so long as he chooses to stay in the united states. upon this. i accepted thankfully the generous offer of the united states. i wrote a letter of thanks to his excellency the president, and ordered my diplomatic agent in england to write a similar one to the honourable secretary of state, expressing, that i considered the struggle for our national independence not yet finished, and that i would devote my regained liberty to the cause of my fatherland. _nearly three months after these declarations_, the mississippi steam-ship arrived, and i embarked, having again, previously and on board, constantly declared, that it was my fervent wish to visit the united states, but not without previously visiting england, on board the same frigate, if the favour should be granted to me; else on board another ship from a mediterranean port, if needs must be. this is the true history of the case. i hope you will excuse me for having answered for once a misrepresentation which charges me with bad faith and ingratitude, such as neither have i merited, nor can i bear * * * * * * * * xxxviii.--pronouncement of the south. [_mobile, alabama, april 3d_.] ladies and gentlemen,--i did not expect to have either the honour of a public welcome, or the opportunity of addressing such a distinguished assembly at mobile--not as if i had entertained the slightest doubt about the generous sentiments of this enlightened community, but because i am called by pressing duties to hasten back to the east of the united states. indeed only the accident of not finding a vessel ready to leave when i arrived here, has enabled me to see the fair flower of your generosity added to the garland of sympathy which the people of your mighty republic has given me, and which will shine from the banner of resistance to all-encroaching despotism, that banner which the expectations of millions call me to raise. but however unexpected my arrival, the congenial kindness of your warm hearts left me not unnoticed and uncheered; and besides the joyful consolation which i feel on this occasion, there is also important benefit in the generous reception you honour me with. firstly, because one of the united states senators of alabama, mr. clemens, was pleased to pronounce himself not only opposed to my principles, but hostile to my own humble self. i thank god for having well deserved the hatred of czars and emperors; and so may god bless me, as i will all my life try to deserve it still more; but i cannot equally say, that i have deserved the inclemency of mr. clemens, though it be not the least passionate of all. well, ladies and gentlemen, after the spontaneous sympathy which i here so unexpectedly meet, i may be permitted to believe that it is not the state of alabama, but mr. clemens only whom i have to count amongst my persecutors and my enemies. secondly, i must mention, that it is my good fortune not often to meet arguments opposed to my arguments, but only personal attacks. well, that is the best acknowledgment which could have been paid to the justice of my cause. for even if i were all that my enemies would like to make me appear, would thereby the cause i plead and the principles i advocate be less just, less righteous, and less true? now amongst those personal attacks there is one which says, that i am so impertinent as to dare appeal from the government to the people: and that _i try to sow dissension between the people and the government_. i declare in the most solemn manner, this imputation to be entirely unfounded and calumniatory. who ever heard me say one single word of complaint or dissatisfaction against your national government? when have i spoken otherwise than in terms of gratitude, high esteem, and profound veneration about the congress and government of the united states? and how could i have spoken otherwise; being, as i am, indebted to congress and government, for my liberation, for the most generous protection, and for the highest honours a man was ever yet honoured with? and besides, i have full reason to say that _it is entirely false to insinuate that in political respects i had been disappointed with my visit to washington city_,--no, it is not respect alone, but the intensest gratitude that i feel. the principles and sentiments of the chief magistrate of your great republic, expressed to the congress in his official messages; the principles of your government so nobly interpreted by the hon. secretary of state, at the congressional banquet, confirming expressly the contents of his immortal letter to mons. hulsemann; the further private declarations, in regard to the practical applications of those governmental principles; all and everything could but impress my mind with the most consoling satisfaction and the warmest gratitude;--as may be seen in the letter of thanks which on the eve of my departure i sent to his excellency the president and to both houses of congress. that being my condition, who can charge me with sowing dissension between the people and the government, when i, accepting such opportunities, as you also have been pleased kindly to offer to me, plead the cause of my down-trodden country (for which both people and government of the united states have manifested the liveliest sympathy;) and advocate principles, entirely harmonizing with the official declarations of your government? and what is it i say to the people in my public addresses? i say, "the exigency of circumstances has raised the question of foreign policy to the highest standard of importance,--the question is introduced to the congress, it must therefore be brought to a decision, it cannot be passed in silence any more. your representatives in congress take it for their noblest glory to follow the sovereign will of the people; but to be able to follow it, they must know it; yet they cannot know it without the people manifesting its opinion in a constitutional way; since they have not been elected upon the question of foreign policy, that question being then not yet discussed. i therefore humbly entreat the sovereign people of the united states to consider the matter, and to pronounce its opinion, in such a way as it is consistent with law, and with their constitutional duties and rights." may i not be tranquillized in my conscience, that in speaking thus i commit no disloyal act, and do in no way offend against the high veneration due from me to your constituted authorities? if it be so, then the generous manifestation of your sympathy i am honoured with in mobile, is again a highly valuable benefit to my cause, because it has such a character of spontaneity, that, here at least, no misrepresentation can charge me with having even endeavoured to elicit that high-minded manifestation from the metropolis of the state of alabama. so doubly returning my thanks for it, i beg leave to state what it is i humbly entreat. firstly, when the struggle which is to decide on the freedom of europe has once broken out, hungary has resources to carry it on: but she wants initial aid, because her finances are all grasped by our oppressors. you would not refuse to me, a houseless exile, _alms_ and commiseration if i begged for myself. surely then you cannot refuse it for my bleeding fatherland, when i beg of you, as individuals, trifling sums, such as each can well spare, and the gift of which does not entangle your country in any political obligation. whatever may be my personal fate, millions would thank and coming generations bless it as a source of happiness to them, as once the nineteen million francs, 24,000 muskets, and thirty-eight vessels of war which france gave to the cause of your own independence, have been a source of happiness to you. i rely in that respect upon the republican virtue which your immortal washington has bequeathed to you in his memorable address to m. adet, the first french republican minister sent to washington. "_my anxious recollections and my best wishes are irresistibly attracted whensoever in any country i see an oppressed nation unfurl the banner of freedom_." so spoke washington; and so much for _private_ material aid; to which nothing is required but a little sympathy for an unfortunate people, which even mr. clemens may feel, whatever his personal aversion for the man who is pleading not his own, but his brave people's cause. as to the _political_ part of my mission, i humbly claim that the united states may pronounce what is or should be the law of nations--such as they can recognize consistently with the basis upon which their own existence is established, and consistently with their own republican principles. and what is the principle of such a law of nations, which you as republicans can recognize? your greatest man, your first president, washington himself, has declared in these words: "_every nation has a right to establish that form of government under which it conceives it may live most happy, and no government ought to interfere with the internal concerns of another._" and according to this everlasting principle, proclaimed by your first president, your last president has again proclaimed in his last message to the congress, that "_the united states are forbidden to remain indifferent to a case, in which the strong arm of a foreign power is invoiced to repress the spirit of freedom in any country." it is this declaration that i humbly claim to be sanctioned by the sovereign will of the people of the united states, in support of that principle which washington already has proclaimed. and in that respect, i frankly confess i should feel highly astonished, if the southern states proved not amongst the first, and amongst the most unanimous to join in such a declaration. because, of all the great principles guaranteed by your constitution, there is none to which the southern states attach a greater importance,--there is none which they more cherish,--than the principle of self-government; the principle that their own affairs are to be managed by themselves, without any interference from whatever quarter, neither from another state, though they are all estates of the same galaxy, nor from the central government, though it is an emanation of all the states, and represents the south as well as the north, and the east and the west; nor from any foreign power, though it be the mightiest on earth. well, gentlemen, this great principle of self-government, is precisely the ground upon which i stand. it is for the defence of this principle that my nation rose against a world in arms; to maintain this principle in the code of "nature and of nature's god," the people of hungary spilt their blood on the battlefield and on the scaffold. it is this principle which was trodden down in hungary by the centralization of austria and the interference of russia. it is the principle which, if hungary is not restored to her sovereign independence, is blotted out for ever from the great statute book of the nations, from the common law of mankind. like a pestilential disease, the violation of the principle of self-government will spread over all the earth until it is destroyed everywhere, in order that despots may sleep in security, for they know that this principle is the strongest stronghold of freedom, and therefore it is hated by all despots and all ambitious men, and by all those who have sold their souls to despotism and ambition. gentlemen, you know well that the principle of self-government has two great enemies--centralization and foreign interference. hungary is a bleeding victim to both. you have probably perceived, gentlemen, that the great misfortune of europe is the spirit of centralization encroaching upon all municipal institutions and destroying self-government, not only by open despotism, but also under the disguise of liberty. fascinated by this dangerous tendency, even republican france went on to sweep away all the traces of self-government, and this is the reason why all her revolutions could not assert liberty for her people, and why she lies now prostrate under the feet of a usurper, without glory, without merit, without virtue. blind to their interests, the nations abandoned their real liberty, the municipal institutions, for a nominal responsibility of ministers and for parliamentary omnipotence. instead of clinging to the principle of self-government--the true breakwater against the encroachments of kings, of ministers, of parliaments--they abandoned the principle which enforces the real responsibility of ministers and raises the parliament to the glorious position of the people's faithful servant; they exchanged the real liberty of self-government for the fascinating phantom of parliamentary omnipotence, making the elected of the people the masters of the people, which, if it is really to be free, cannot have any master but god. the old anglo-saxon municipal freedom has even in england been weakened by this tendency; parliament has not only fought against the prerogative of the crown, but has conquered the municipal freedom of the country and of the borough. green erin sighs painfully under this pressure, and english statesmen begin to be alarmed. hungary, my own dear fatherland, was the only country in europe which, amidst all adversaries, amidst all attacks of foreign encroachment and all inducements of false new doctrines, remained faithful to the great principle of self-government, at which the perjurious dynasty of austria has never ceased to aim deadly blows. to get rid of these incessant attacks we availed ourselves of the condition of europe in 1848, and got our old national self-government guarantied in a legal way, with the sanction of our then king, by substituting _individual_ for collective responsibility of ministers; having experienced that a board of ministers, though responsible by law and composed of our own countrymen, was naturally and necessarily in practice irresponsible. when the tyrants of austria, whom our forefathers had elected in an ill-fated hour to be our constitutional kings, saw that their designs of centralization were obstructed, they forsook their honour, they broke their oath, they tore asunder the compact by which they had become kings; the diadem had lost its brightness for them if it was not to be despotic. they stirred up robbers and rebels against us: and when this failed, then with all the forces of the empire attacked hungary unexpectedly, not thinking to meet with a serious opposition, because we had no army, no arms, no ammunition, no money, no friends. they therefore declared our constitution and our self-government, which we have preserved through the adversities of ten centuries, at once and for ever abolished. but my heart could not bear this sacrilege. i and my political friends, we called our people to arms to defend the palladium of our national existence, the privilege of self-government, and that political, civil, and religious liberty, and those democratic institutions, which, upon the glorious basis of self-government, we had succeeded to assert for all the people of hungary. and the people nobly answered my call. we struck down the centralizing tyrant to the dust; we drove him and his double-faced eagle out from our country; our answer to his impious treachery was the declaration of our independence and his forfeiture of the crown. were we right to do so, or not? we were; and _we had accomplished already our lawful enterprise victoriously_; we had taken our competent seat amongst the independent nations on earth. but the other independent powers, and alas! even the united states, lingered to acknowledge our dearly but gloriously bought independence; and beaten austria had time to take her refuge under the shelter of the other principle, hostile to self-government, of the sacrilegious principle of foreign armed interference. the czar of russia declared that the example of hungary is dangerous to the interests of absolutism! he interfered, and aided by treason, he succeeded to crush freedom and self-government in hungary, and to establish a centralized absolutism there, where, through all the ages of the past, the rule of despotism never had been established, and the united states let him silently accomplish this violation of the common law of nations. gentlemen, the law of nations, upon which you have raised the lofty hall of your independence, does not exist any more. the despots are united and leagued against national self-government. they declare it inconsistent with their divine (rather satanic) rights; and upon this basis all the nations of the european continent are held in fetters; the government of france is become a vanguard to russia, st. petersburg is transferred to paris, and england is forced to arm and to prepare for self-defence at home. these are the immediate consequences of the downfall of the principle of self-government in hungary, by the violence of foreign interference. but if this great principle is not restored to its full weight by the restoration of hungary's sovereign independence, then you will see yet other consequences in your own country. _your_ freedom and prosperity is hated as dangerous to the despots of europe. if you do not believe me, believe at least what the organs of your enemies openly avow themselves. pozzo di borgo, the great russian diplomatist, and hulsemann, the little austrian diplomatist, repeatedly in 1817 and 1823, published that despotism is in danger, unless yourselves become a king-ridden people. if you study the history of the hungarian struggle, you can also see the way by which the despots will carry their design. the secret power of foreign diplomacy will foster amongst you the principle of centralization; and, as is always the case, many who are absorbed in some special aims of your party politics will be caught by this snare; and when you, gentlemen of the south, oppose with energy this tendency, dangerous to your dear principle of self-government, the despots of europe will first foment and embitter the quarrel and kindle the fire of domestic dissensions, and finally they will declare that your example is dangerous to order. then foreign armed interference steps in for centralization here, as for monarchy in the rest of america. indeed, gentlemen, if there is any place on earth where this prospect should be considered with attention, with peculiar care, it is here in the southern states of this great union, because their very existence is based on the great principle of self-government. but some say there is no danger for the united states, in whatever condition be the rest of the world. i am astonished to hear that objection in a country, which, by a thousand ties, is connected with and interested in the condition of the foreign world. it is your own government which prophetically foretold in 1827, that _the absolutism of europe will not be appeased until every vestige of human freedom has been obliterated even here_. and is it upon the ruins of hungary that the absolutist powers are now about to realize this prophecy? you are aware of the fact that every former revolution in europe was accompanied by some constitutional concessions, promised by the kings to appease the storm, but treacherously nullified when the storm passed. out of this false play constantly new revolutions arose. it is therefore that russian interference in hungary was preceded by a proclamation of the czar,--wherein he declares "that insurrection having spread in every nation with an audacity which has gained new force in proportion to the concessions of the governments," every concession must be withdrawn; not the slightest freedom, no political rights, and no constitutional aspirations must be left, but everything levelled by the equality of passive obedience and absolute servitude; he therefore takes the lead of the allied despots, to crush the spirit of liberty on earth. it is this impious work, which was begun by the interference in hungary, and goes on spreading in a frightful degree; it is this impious work which my people, combined with the other oppressed nations, is resolved to oppose. it is therefore no partial struggle which we are about to fight; it is a struggle of principles, the issues of which, according as we triumph or fall, must be felt everywhere, but nowhere more than here in the united states, because no nation on earth has more to lose by the all-overwhelming preponderance of the absolutist principle than the united states. if we are triumphant, the progress and development of the united states will go on peacefully, till your republicanism becomes the ruling principle on earth (god grant it may soon become); but if we fail, the absolutist powers, triumphant over europe, will and must fall with all their weight upon you, precisely because else you would grow to such a might as would decide the destinies of the world. and since the absolutistical powers, with russia at their head, desire themselves to rule the world, it is natural for her to consider you as their most dangerous enemy, which they must try to crush, or else be crushed sooner or later themselves. the _pozzo di borgos_ tell you so: the _hulsemanns_ tell you so: and it were indeed strange if the people of the united states, too proudly relying upon their power and their good luck, should indifferently regard the gathering of danger over their head, and hereby invite it to come home to them, forcing them to the immense sacrifices of war, whereas we now afford to them an opportunity to prevent that danger, without any entanglement, and without claiming from you any moral and material aid, except such as is not only consistent with, but necessary to your interests. allow me to make yet some remarks about the commercial interests as connected with the cause i plead. nothing astonishes me more than to see those whose only guiding star is commerce, considering its interests only from the narrow view of a small momentary profit, and disregarding the threatening combination of next coming events. permit me to quote in this respect one part of the public letter which mr. calhoun, the son of the late great leader of the south, the inheritor of his fame, of his principles, and of his interests, has recently published. i quote it because i hope nobody will charge him with partiality in respect to hungary. mr. calhoun says: "there is a universal consideration that should influence the government of the united states. the palpable and practical agricultural, manufacturing, commercial and navigating interests, the pecuniary interests of this country, will be promoted by the independence of hungary more than by any other event that could occur in europe. if hungary becomes independent it will be her interest to adopt a liberal system of commercial policy. there are fifteen millions of people inhabiting what is or what was hungary, and the country between her and the adriatic. these people have not now, and never had, any commerce with the united states. hungarian trade and commerce has been stifled by the 'fiscal barriers' of austria that encircle her. she has used but few of american products. your annual shipments of cotton and cotton manufactures to trieste and all other austrian ports, including the amount sent to hungary, as well as austria, has never exceeded nine hundred thousand dollars per annum. all other merchandize and produce sent by you to austria and hungary do not exceed one hundred thousand dollars a year. hungary obtains all her foreign imports through austrian ports. the import and transit duties levied by austria are exceedingly onerous, and nearly prohibitory as to hungary of your cotton and cotton goods." hungary independent, and a market is at once opened for your cotton, rice, tobacco, and manufactures of immense value. that market is now closed to you, and has always been, by austrian restrictions. and can it be doubted that besides supplying the fifteen millions of _industrious and intelligent_ people of hungary (_and they are, as a people, perhaps, the most intelligent of any in europe_), the adjacent and neighbouring countries, will not also be tempted to encourage trade with you? hungary needs your cotton. she is rich in resources--mineral, agricultural, manufacturing, and of every kind. she is rich in products for which you can exchange your cotton, rice, &c. will it, i ask, injuriously affect you if the english should compete with you and send their manufactures of cotton thither? not, i presume, as long as the raw material is purchased from america; but in fact, your market will be extended through her. "if therefore those of our statesmen (says mr. calhoun), who can only be influenced by the almighty dollar, will cypher up the value of this trade--this new market for our products, worth perhaps twenty millions of dollars yearly--they may find an excuse for incurring even the tremendous and awful risk of a war with austria, but which there is less danger of than there is with governor brigham young, in utah. they may find a substantial interest involved that is worth taking care of. governor kossuth may be assured it is of more consequence than sympathy. it is a wonderfully sensitive nerve in this country: it controls most of the others.--sympathy, in this case, can take care of itself. it does not require any nursing. the interests involved should be attended to. it seems to me that this position as to our commerce with hungary cannot be attacked in front, in rear, or on either flank. it is by far more forcible and powerful than the _ex post facto_ argument in favour of the mexican war, that it got us california and its gold. so far as the general welfare of the country is concerned, free trade with independent hungary, and its certain ultimate results, would be more invaluable than all the cargoes of gold that may be brought from the pacific coast, if ten times the present amount." that is the opinion of a distinguished american citizen, identified chiefly with the interests of the south. as to me, i beg permission to sketch in a few lines the reverse of the picture. if we fail in our enterprize to check the encroaching progress of absolutism, if the despots of europe succeed to accomplish their plot, the chief part of which for russia is to get hold of constantinople, and thus to become the controlling power of the mediterranean sea, what will be the immediate result of it in respect to your commerce? no man of sound judgment can entertain the least doubt that the first step of russia will and must be, to exclude america from the markets of europe by the renewal of what is called the continental system. not a single bushel of wheat or corn, not a single pound of tobacco, not a single bale of cotton, will you be permitted to sell on the continent of europe. the leagued despots must exclude you, because you are republicans, and commerce is the conveyer of principles; they must exclude you, because by ruining your commerce they ruin your prosperity, and by ruining this they ruin your development, which is dangerous to them. russia besides must exclude you, because you are the most dangerous rival to her in the european markets where you have already beaten her. and it will be the more the interest of russia to exclude you, because by taking constantinople, she will also become the master of asiatic and african regions, where also cotton is raised. well, you say, perhaps, though you be excluded from the european continent, england still remains to your cotton commerce.--who could guarantee that the english aristocracy will not join in the absolutist combination, if the people of the united states, by a timely manifestation of its sentiments, does not encourage the public opinion of england itself? but suppose england does remain a market to your cotton, you must not forget that if english manufacture is excluded from all the coasts of europe and of the mediterranean, she will not buy so much cotton from you as now, because she will lose so large a market for cotton goods. well, you say neither england nor you will submit to such a ruin of your prosperity. of course not; but then you will have a war, connected with immense sacrifices; whereas now, you can prevent all that ruin, all those sacrifices, and all that war. is it not more prudent to prevent a fire, than to quench it when your own house is already in flames? ladies and gentlemen, let me draw to a close. i most heartily thank you for the honours of this unlooked-for reception, and for your generous sympathy. i feel happy that the interests, political as well as commercial, of the united states, are in intimate connexion with the success of the struggle of hungary for independence and republican principles; and i bid you a sincere and cordial farewell, recalling to your memory, and humbly recommending to your sympathy that toast, which the more clement senator of alabama, colonel king, as president of the united states senate, gave me at the congressional banquet, on the 7th of january, in these words:-"hungary having proved herself worthy to be free, by the virtue and valour of her sons, the law of nations and the dictates of justice alike demand that she shall have fair play in her struggle for independence." it was the honourable senator of alabama who gave me this toast, expressing his conviction that to this toast every american will cordially respond. his colleague has not responded to it, but mobile has responded to it, and i take, with cordial gratitude, my leave of mobile. * * * * * xxxix.--kossuth's defence against certain mean imputations. [_jersey city_.] kossuth was here welcomed with an address by the hon. d. s. gregory, whose guest he became. great efforts had been made to prejudice the public against him; notwithstanding which he was received with enthusiasm. in the evening, in his speech at the presbyterian church, he alluded to the attacks of his opponents as follows: mr. mayor, and ladies and gentlemen,--there have been some who, to the great satisfaction of despots, and their civil and religious confederates, have moved heaven and hell to lower my sacred mission to the level of a stage-play; and to ridicule the enthusiastic outburst of popular sentiments, by defaming its object and its aim. that was a sorrowful sight indeed. to meet opposition we must be prepared. there is no truth yet but has been opposed: the car which leads truth to triumph must pass over martyrs; that is the doom of humanity. mankind, though advanced in intellectual skill, is pretty much the same in heart as it was thousands of years ago--if not worse; for wealth and prosperity do not always improve the heart. it is sorrowful to see that not even such a cause as that which i plead, can escape from being dragged down insultingly into the mud. with the ancient greeks, the head of an unfortunate was held sacred even to the gods. now-a-days, with some,--but let us be thankful! only with some few degenerate persons,--even calamity like ours is but an occasion for a bad joke. jesus christ felt thirsty on the cross, and received vinegar and wormwood to quench the thirst of his agony. oh ye spirits of my country's departed martyrs, sadden not your melancholy look at mean insult. the soil which you watered by your blood will yet be free, and that is enough! ye will hear glad tidings about it when i join your ranks. but now, as for myself. when i was in private life, i despised to become rich, and sacrificed thousands to the public, and often saw my own family embarrassed by domestic cares. i refused indemnifications, and lived poor. when raised to the highest place in my country, and provided with an allowance four times as great as your president's, i still lived in my old modest way. i had millions at my disposal, yet i went into exile penniless. who now are _ye_, or what like proof have _ye_ given of not adoring the "almighty dollar," who dare to insult my honour and call me a sturdy beggar, and ask in what brewery i will invest the money i get from americans? and why? because i ask a poor alms to prepare the approaching struggle of my country; because i cannot and may not tell the public (which is to tell my country's enemy), how i dispose of the sums which i receive. and americans, pretending to be republicans, pretending to sympathize with liberty, and wield that light artillery of freedom,--the press,--try to put on me mean stigmas, in order to make it impossible for me to aid the contest of hungary for its own and mankind's liberty. indeed, it is too sad. the consul of ancient rome, spurius postumius, was once caught in a snare by the samnites, and was ordered to pass under the yoke with all his legions. when he hesitated to submit, a captain cried to him: "stoop, and lead us to disgrace for our country's sake." and so he did. the word of the captain was true: our country may claim of us, to submit even to degradations for its benefit. but i am sorry that it is in america i had to learn, there are in a patriot's life trials still bitterer than even that of exile. well: i can bear all this, if it be but fruitful of good for my beloved fatherland. but i look up to almighty god, and ask in humility, whether unscrupulous and mean suspicion shall succeed in stopping the flow of that public and private aid to me, from republican america and from american republicans, without which i cannot organize and combine our forces. mr. mayor and citizens of jersey, i indeed apprehend you will have much disappointed those who endeavoured by ridicule to drive our cause out of fashion. you have shown them to-day that the cause of liberty can never be out of fashion with americans. i thank you most cordially for it; the more because i know that long before yesterday sympathy with the cause of liberty has been in fashion with you. i am here on the borders of a state noted for its fidelity and sacrifices in the struggle for your country's freedom and independence: to which the state of new jersey has, in proportion to its population, sacrificed a larger amount of patriotic blood and of property, than any other of your sister states. i myself have read the acknowledgment of this in washington's own yet unedited hand-writings. and i know also that your state has the historical reputation of having been a glorious battle-field in the struggle for the freedom you enjoy. there may be some in this assembly with whom the sufferings connected with one's home being a battle-field, may be a family tradition yet. but is there a country in the world where such traditions are more largely recorded than my own native land is? is there a country, on the soil of which more battles have been fought--and battles not only for ourselves, but for all the christian, all the civilized world? oh, home of my fathers! thou art the golgotha of europe. i defy all the demoniac skill of tyranny to find out more tortures,--moral, political, and material,--than those which now weigh down my fatherland. it will not bear them, it cannot bear them, but will make a revolution, though all the world forsake us. but i ask, is there not private generosity enough in america, to give me those funds, through which my injured country would have to meet fewer enemies, and win its rights with far less bloodshed; or shall the venom of calumny cause you to refuse that, which, without impairing your private fortunes or risking your public interests, would mightily conduce to our success? allow me to quote a beautiful but true word which ex-governor vroom spoke in trenton last night. he said: "let us help the man; his principles are those engrafted into our declaration of independence. we cannot remain free, should all europe become enslaved by absolutism. the sun of freedom is but one, on mankind's sky, and when darkness spreads it will spread over all alike." the instinct of the people of hungary understood, that to yield at all to unjust violence, was to yield everything; and to my appeals they replied, cursed be he who yields! though unprepared, they fought; our unnamed heroes fought and conquered,--until russia and treachery came. and though now i am an exile, again they will follow me; i need only to get back to them and bring them something sharper than our nails to fight with for fatherland and humanity; then in the high face of heaven we will fight out the battle of freedom once more. this is my cause, and this my plea. it is there in your hearts, written in burning words by god himself, who made you generous by bestowing on you freedom. * * * * * xl.--the brotherhood of nations. [_newark_.] the rev. dr. eddy introduced kossuth to the citizens of newark, and made an address to him in their name. after this, kossuth replied: gentlemen,--it was a minister of the gospel who addressed me in your name: let me speak to you as a christian who considers it to be my heartfelt duty to act, not only in my private but also in my public capacity, in conformity with the principles of christianity, as i understand it. i have seen the people of the united states almost in every climate of your immense territory. i have marked the natural influence of geography upon its character. i have seen the same principles, the same institutions assuming in their application the modifying influences of local circumstances; i have found the past casting its shadows on the present, in one place darker, in the other less; i have seen man everywhere to be man, partaking of all aspirations, which are the bliss as well as the fragility of nature in man,--but in one place the bliss prevailing more and in the other the fragility. i saw now and then small interests of the passing hour, less or more encroaching upon the sacred dominion of universal principles; but so much is true, that wherever i found a people, i found a great and generous heart, ready to take that ground which by your very national position is pointed out to you as a mission. your position is to be a great nation; therefore your necessity is to act like a great nation; or, if you do not, you will not be great. to be numerous, is not to be great. the chinese are eight times more numerous than you, and still china is not great, for she has isolated herself from the world. nor does the condition of a nation depend on what she likes to call herself. china calls herself "celestial," and takes you and europe for barbarians. not what we call ourselves, but how we act, proves what we are. great is that nation which acts greatly. and give me leave to say, what an american minister of the gospel has said to me: "_nations_, by the great god of the universe, are individualized, as well as men. he has given each a mission to fulfil, and he expects every one to bear its part in solving the great problem of man's capacity for self-government, which is the problem of human destiny; and if any nation fails in this, he will treat it as an unprofitable servant, a barren fig-tree, whose own end is to be rooted up and burnt." jonah sat under the shadow of his gourd rejoicing, in isolated, selfish indifference, caring nothing for the millions of the ninevites at his feet. what was the consequence? god prepared a worm to smite the gourd, that it withered. god has privileged you, the people of the united states, to repose, not under a gourd, but beneath the shadow of a luxuriant vine and the outspreading branches of a delicious fig-tree. give him praise and thanks! but are you, jonah-like, on this account to wrap yourselves up in the mantle of insensibility, caring nothing for the nations smarting under oppression? stretching forth no hand for their deliverance, not even so much as to protest against a conspiracy of evil doers, and give an alms to aid deliverance from them? are you to hide your national talent in a napkin, or lend it at usury? read the saviour's maxim: "_do unto others as ye would that others do unto you!_" this is the saviour's golden rule, applicable to nations as well as to individuals. suppose when the united states were struggling for their independence, the spanish government had interfered to prevent its achievement --sending an armament to bombard your cities and murder your inhabitants. what would your forefathers have thought--how felt? precisely as hungary thought and felt when the russian bear put down his overslaughtering paw upon her. they would have invoked high heaven to avenge the interference--and had there been a people on the face of the earth to protest against it, that people would have shown out, like an eminent star in the hemisphere of nations--and to this day you would call it blessed. what you would have others do unto you, do so likewise unto them. and though you met no foreign interference, yet you met far more than a protest in your favour; you met substantial aid: thirty-eight vessels of war, nineteen millions of money, 24,000 muskets, 4,000 soldiers, and the whole political weight of france engaged in your cause. i ask not so much, by far not so much, for oppressed europe from you. it is a gospel maxim "_be not partaker of other men's sins._" it is alike applicable to individuals and nations. if you of the united states see the great law of humanity outraged by another nation, and see it _silently_, raising no warning voice against it, you virtually become a party to the offence; as you do not reprove it, you embolden the offender to add iniquity unto iniquity. let not one nation be partaker of another nation's sins. when you see the great law of humanity, the law upon which your national existence rests, the law enacted in the declaration of your independence, outraged and profaned, will you sit quietly by? if so (excuse me for saying) part of the guilt is upon you, and while individuals receive their reward in the eternal world, nations are sure to receive it here. there is connection of cause and effect in a nation's destiny. a nation should not be a mere _lake_, a glassy expanse, only reflecting foreign, light around--but a _river_, carrying its rich treasures from the fountain to distant regions of the earth. a nation should not be a mere _light-house_, a stationary beacon, erected upon the coast to warn voyagers of their danger--but a moving _life-boat_, carrying treasures of freedom to the doors of thousands and millions in their lands. i confess, gentlemen, that i shared those expectations, which the nations of europe have conceived from america. was i too sanguine in my wishes to hope, that in these expectations i shall not fail? so much i dare say, that i conceived these expectations not without encouragement on your own part. with this let me draw to a close. one word often tells more than a volume of skilful eloquence. when crossing the alleghany mountains, in a new country, scarcely yet settled, bearing at every step the mark of a new creation, i happened to see a new house in ruins. i felt astonished to see a ruin in america. there must have been misfortune in that house--the hand of god may have stricken him, thought i, and inquired from one of the neighbours, "what has become of the man?" "nothing particular," answered he: "he went to the west--he was too comfortable here. american pioneers like to be uncomfortable." it was but one word, yet worth a volume. it made me more correctly understand the character of your people and the mystery of your inner prodigious growth, than a big volume of treatises upon the spirit of america might have done. the instinct of indomitable energy, all the boundless power hidden in the word "_go ahead_," lay open before my eyes. i felt by a glance what immense things might be accomplished by that energy, to the honour and lasting welfare of all humanity, if only its direction be not misled--and i pray to god that he may preserve your people from being absorbed in materialism. the proud results of egotism vanish in the following generation like the fancy of a dream; but the smallest real benefit bestowed upon mankind is lasting like eternity. people of america! thy energy is wonderful; but for thy own sake, for thy future's sake, for all humanity's sake, beware! oh! beware from measuring good and evil by the arguments of materialists. i have seen too many sad and bitter hours in my stormy life, not to remember every word of true consolation which happened to brighten my way. it was nearly four months ago, and still i remember it, as if it had happened but yesterday, that the delegation, which came in december last to new york, to tender me a cordial welcome from and to invite me to newark, called _me a brother, a brother in the just and righteous appreciation of human rights and human destiny; brother in all the sacred and hallowed sentiments of the human heart_. these were your words, and yesterday the people of newark proved to me that they are your sentiments; sentiments not like the sudden excitement of passion, which cools, but sentiments of brotherhood and friendship, lasting, faithful, and true. you have greeted me by the dear name of brother. when i came, you entitled me to the right to bid you farewell in a brother's way. and between brethren, a warm grasp of hand, a tender tear in the eye, and the word "_remember_," tells more than all the skill of oratory could do. and remember, oh remember, brethren! that the grasp of my hand is my whole people's grasp, the tear which glistens in my eyes is their tear. they are suffering as no other people--for the world, the oppressed world. they are the emblem of struggling liberty, claiming a brother's love and a brother's aid from america, who is, happily, the emblem of prosperous liberty! let this word "_brother_," with all the dear ties comprized in that word, be the impression i leave upon your hearts. let this word, "_brethren, remember!_" be my farewell. * * * * * xli.--the history and heart of massachusetts. [_worcester,[*] massachusetts_.] [footnote *: "heart of the commonwealth," is the american title of the town of worcester.] gentlemen,--just as the holy scriptures are the revelation of religious truth, teaching men how to attain eternal bliss, so history is the revelation of eternal wisdom, instructing nations how to be happy, and immortal on earth. unaccountable changes may alter on a sudden the condition of individuals, but in the life of nations there is always a close concatenation of cause and effect--therefore history is the book of life, wherein the past assumes the shape of future events. the history of old massachusetts is full of instruction to those who know how to read unwritten philosophy in written facts. besides, to me it is of deep interest, because of the striking resemblances between your country's history and that of mine. in fact, from the very time that the "colonial system" was adopted by great britain, to secure the monopoly of the american trade, down to washington's final victories;--from james otis, pleading with words of flame the rights of america before the supreme court of massachusetts, breathing into the nation that breath of life out of which american independence was born; down to the declaration of independence, first moved by a son of massachusetts;--i often believe i read of hungary when i read of massachusetts. but next, when the kind cheers of your generous-hearted people rouse me out of my contemplative reveries, and looking around me i see your prosperity, a nameless woe comes over my mind, because that very prosperity reminds me that i am not at home. the home of my fathers--the home of my heart--the home of my affections and of my cares, is in the most striking contrast with the prosperity i see here. and whence this striking contrast in the results, when there exists such a striking identity in the antecedents? whence this afflicting departure from logical coherence in history? it is, because your struggle for independence met the good luck, that monarchical france stipulated to aid with its full force america struggling for independence, whereas republican america delayed even a recognition of hungary's independence at the crisis when it had been achieved. however! the equality of results may yet come. history will not prove false to poor hungary, while it proves true to all the world. i certainly shall never meet the reputation of franklin, but i may yet meet his good luck in a patriotic mission. it is not yet too late. my people, like the damsel in the scriptures, is but sleeping, and not dead. sleep is silent, but restores to strength. there is apparent silence also in nature before the storm. we are downtrodden, it is true: but was not washington in a dreary retreat with his few brave men, scarcely to be called an army, when franklin drew nigh to success in his mission? my retreat is somewhat longer, to be sure, but then our struggle went on from the first on a far greater scale; and again, the success of franklin was aided by the hatred of france against england; so i am told, and it is true; but i trust that the love of liberty in republican america will prove as copious a source of generous inspiration, as hatred of great britain proved in monarchical france. or, should it be the doom of humanity that even republics like yours are more mightily moved by hatred than by love, is there less reason for republican america to hate the overwhelming progress of absolutism, than there was reason for france to hate england's prosperity? in fact, that prosperity has not been lessened, but rather increased by the rending away of the united states from the dominion of england; but the absorption of europe into predominant absolutism, would cripple your prosperity, because you are no china, no japan. america cannot remain unaffected by the condition of europe, with which you have a thousand-fold intercourse. a passing accident in liverpool, a fire in manchester, cannot fail to be felt in america--how could then the fire of despotic oppression, which threatens to consume all europe's freedom, civilization, and property, fail to affect in its results america? how can it be indifferent to you whether europe be free or enslaved?--whether there exists a "law of nations," or no such thing any more exists, being replaced by the caprice of an arrogant mortal who is called "czar?" no! either all the instruction of history is vanity, and its warnings but the pastime of a mocking-bird, or this indifference is impossible; therefore i may yet meet with franklin's good luck. franklin wrote to his friend charles thompson, after having concluded the treaty of peace--"if we ever become ungrateful to those who have served and befriended us, our reputation, and all the strength it is capable of procuring, will be lost, and new dangers ensue." perhaps i could say, poor hungary has well served christendom, has well served the cause of humanity; but indeed we are not so happy as to have served your country in particular. but you are generous enough to permit our unmerited misfortunes to recommend us to your affections in place of good service. it is beautiful to repay a received benefit, but to bestow a benefit is divine. it is your good fortune to be _able_ to do good to humanity: let it be your glory that you are _willing_ to do it. then what will be the tidings i shall have to bear back to europe, in answer to the expectations with which i was charged from turkey, italy, france, portugal, and england? let me hope the answer will be fit to be reanswered by a mighty hallelujah, at the shout of which the thrones of tyrants will quake; and when they are fallen, and buried beneath the fallen pillars of tyranny, all the christian world will unite in the song of praise--"glory to god in heaven, and peace to right-willing men on earth, and honour to america, the first-born son of liberty. for no nation has god done so much as for her; for she proved to be well deserving of it, because she was obedient to his divine law--she has loved her neighbour as herself, and did unto others as, in the hour of her need, she desired others to do unto herself." gentlemen,--i know what weight is due to massachusetts in the councils of the nation; the history, the character, the intelligence, the consistent energy, and the considerate perseverance of your country, give me the security that when the people of massachusetts raises its voice and pronounces its will--it will carry its aim. i have seen this people's will in the manifestation of him whom the people's well-deserved confidence has raised to the helm of its executive government; i have seen it in the sanction of its senators; i have seen it in the mighty outburst of popular sentiments, and in the generous testimonials of its sympathy, as i moved over this hallowed soil. i hope soon to see it in the legislative hall of your representatives, and in the cradle of american liberty. i hope to see it as i see it now here, throbbing with warm, sincere, generous, and powerful pulsation, in the very heart of your commonwealth. i know that where the heart is sound the whole body is sound--the blood is sound throughout all the veins. never believe those to be right who, bearing but a piece of metal in their chests, could persuade you, that to be cold is to be wise. warmth is the vivifying influence of the universe, and the warm heart is the source of noble deeds. to consider calmly what you have to do is well. you have done so. but let me hope that the heart of massachusetts will continue to throb warmly for the cause of liberty, till that which you judge to be right is done, with that persistent energy, which, inherited from the puritan pilgrims of the mayflower, is a principle with the people of massachusetts. remember the afflicted,--farewell. * * * * * xlii.--panegyric of massachusetts. [_speech at faneuil hall_.] kossuth entered boston on the 27th april, escorted by twenty-nine companies of infantry and four of artillery, in the midst of flags and other festive display. he was welcomed by gov. boutwell at the state house. in the afternoon he reviewed the troops on the common, in the midst of an immense multitude. the members of the legislature and of the council came in procession from the state house, and joined him in the field. in the evening he was entertained at the revere house, as the guest of the legislative committee. on april 28th he was escorted by the independent cadets to the state house, where governor boutwell received him with a brief but emphatic speech, avowing that kossuth had "imparted important instruction" to the people of the united states. the governor then conducted kossuth to the senate, where he was warmly welcomed by the president, general wilson; and thence again to the house of representatives, where the speaker, mr. banks, addressed him in words of high honour, in the name of the representatives. to each of these addresses kossuth replied; but the substance of his speeches has scarcely sufficient novelty to present here. on the evening of the 29th of april it was arranged that he should speak in faneuil hall. the hall filled long before his arrival, and an incident occurred which deserves record. the crowd amused itself by calling on persons present for speeches: among others senator myron lawrence was called for, who, after first refusing, stept on the platform and declared that _he had some sins to confess_. he had been guilty of thinking kossuth to be what is called "a humbug;" but he had seen him now, and thought differently. he had seen the modest, truthful bearing of the man,--that he had no tricks of the orator, but spoke straightforward. mr. lawrence now believed him to be sincere and honest, and prayed almighty god to grant him a glorious success. this frank and manly acknowledgment was received with unanimous and hearty applause. at eight o'clock governor boutwell, his council, and the committee of reception, as also the vice-presidents and secretaries, received kossuth in faneuil hall.[*] when applause had ceased, the governor addressed kossuth as follows:-[footnote *: faneuil hall is entitled by the americans "the cradle of american liberty."] gentlemen,--we have come from the exciting and majestic scenes of the reception which the people of massachusetts have given to the exiled son of an oppressed and distant land, that on this holy spot, associated in our minds with the eloquence, the patriotism, the virtue of the revolution, we may listen to his sad story of the past and contemplate his plans and hopes for the future. and shall these associations which belong to us, and this sad story which belongs to humanity, fail to inspire our souls and instruct our minds in the cause of freedom? europe is not like a distant ocean, whose agitations and storms give no impulse to the wave that gently touches our shore. the introduction of steam power and the development of commercial energy are blending and assimilating our civilities and institutions. europe is nearer to us in time than the extreme parts of this country are to each other. as all of us are interested in the prevalence of the principles of justice among our fellow men, _so_, as a nation, we are interested in the prevalence of the principles of justice among the nations and states of europe. never before was the american mind so intelligently directed to european affairs. we have not sought, nor shall we seek, the control of those affairs. but we may scan and judge their character and prepare ourselves for the exigencies of national existence to which we may be called. _i do not hesitate to pronounce the opinion that the policy of europe will have a visible effect upon the character, power, and destiny of the american republic_. that policy as indicated by russia and austria, is the work of centralization, consolidation and absolutism. american policy is the antagonist of this. we are pledged to liberty and the sovereignty of states. shall a contest between our own principles and those of our enemies awaken no emotions in us? we believe that government should exist for the advantage of the individual members of the body politic, and not for the use of those who, by birth, fortune, or personal energy, may have risen to positions of power. we recognize the right of each nation to establish its own institutions and regulate its own affairs. our revolution rests upon this right, and otherwise is entirely indefensible. the policy of this nation, as well foreign as domestic, should be controlled by american principles, that the world may know we have faith in the government we have established. while we cannot adopt the cause of any other people, or make the quarrels of european nations our own, it is our duty to guard the principles peculiar to america, as well as those entertained by us in common with the civilized world. one principle, which should be universal in states as among individual men is, that each should use his own in such a way as not to injure that which belongs to another. _russia violated this principle when she interfered in the affairs of hungary_, and thus weakened the obligations of other states to respect the sovereignty of the russian empire. the independent existence of the continental states of europe, is of twofold importance to america. important politically, important commercially. as independent states they deprive russia, the central and absorbing power of europe, of the opportunity on the mediterranean to interfere in the politics and civilities of this continent. russia and the united states are as unlike as any two nations which ever existed. if russia obtains control of europe by the power of arms, and the united states shall retain this continent by the power of its principles, war will be inevitable. as inevitable as it was in former days that war should arise between carthage and rome,--carthage, which sought to extend her power by commerce, and rome, which sought to govern the world by the sword. the independence of the states of europe is then the best security for the peace of the world. if these states exist, it must be upon one condition only--that each state is permitted to regulate its own affairs. if the voice of the united states and great britain is silent, will russia allow these states to exist upon this principle?--has she not already partitioned poland--menaced turkey--divided with the sultan the sovereignty of wallachia--infused new energy into the despotic councils of austria--and finally aided her in an unholy crusade against the liberties of hungary? have we not then an interest in the affairs of europe? and if we have an interest, ought we not to use the rights of an independent state for its protection? the second consideration is commercial. centralization, absolutism, destroys commerce. the policy of russia diminishes production and limits markets. whenever she adds a new state to her dominions the commerce of the world is diminished. great britain and the united states, which possess three-fourths of the commercial marine of the globe, are interested to prevent it. our commerce at this moment with despotic states is of very little importance, and its history shows that in every age it has flourished in proportion to the freedom of the people. these, gentlemen, are poor words and barren thoughts upon the great european question of the time. a question which america in her own name, and for herself, must meet at some future day, if now she shall fail to meet it firmly, upon well settled principles of national law, for the protection and assistance of other states. i have done. the exiled patriot shall speak for himself. not for himself only, nor for the land and people of hungary he loves so well, but for europe, and america even, he speaks. before you he pleads your own cause. it is to a just tribunal i present a noble advocate. and to him it shall be a bright spot in the dreary waste of the exile's life, that to-night he pleads the cause of hungary and humanity, where once otis and adams, and hancock and quincy, pleaded the cause of america and liberty. i present to you governor kossuth of hungary. in reply to governor boutwell, when the tumultuous applause had subsided, kossuth spoke, in substance as follows:-he apologized for profaning shakespeare's language in faneuil hall, the cradle of american liberty. yet he ventured to criticize that very phrase; for liberty ought not to be _american_, but _human_; else it is no longer a right, but a privilege; and privilege can nowhere be permanent. the nature of a privilege (said he) is exclusiveness, that of a principle is communicative. liberty is a principle: its community is its security; exclusiveness is its doom. what is aristocracy? it is exclusive liberty; it is privilege; and aristocracy is doomed, because it is contrary to the destiny of men. as aristocracy should vanish within each nation, so should no nation be an aristocrat among nations. until that ceases, liberty will nowhere be lasting on earth. it is equally fatal to individuals as to nations, to believe themselves beyond the reach of vicissitudes. by this proud reliance, and the isolation resulting therefrom, more victims have fallen than by immediate adversities. you have grown prodigiously by your freedom of seventy-five years; but what is seventy-five years as a charter of immortality? no, no, my humble tongue tells the records of eternal truth. a _privilege_ never can be lasting. liberty restricted to one nation never can be sure. you may say, "we are the prophets of god;" but you shall not say, "god is only our god." the jews said so, and their pride, old jerusalem, lies in the dust. our saviour taught all humanity to say, "our father in heaven," and his jerusalem is lasting to the end of days. "there is a community in mankind's destiny"--that was the greeting which i read on the arch of welcome on the capitol hill of massachusetts. i pray to god, the republic of america would weigh the eternal truth of those words, and act accordingly; liberty in america would then be sure to the end of time; but if you say, "american liberty," and take that grammar for your policy, i dare to say the time will yet come when humanity will have to mourn a new proof of the ancient truth, that without community national freedom is never sure. however, the cradle of american liberty is not only famous from the reputation of having been always on the lists of the most powerful eloquence; it is still more conspicuous for having seen that eloquence attended by practical success. to understand the mystery of this rare circumstance one must see the people of new england, and especially the people of massachusetts. in what i have seen of new england there are two things, the evidence of which strikes the observer at every step--prosperity and intelligence. i have seen thousands assembled, following the noble impulses of a generous heart: almost the entire population of every town, of every village where i passed, gathered around me, throwing flowers of consolation on my path. i have seen not a single man bearing that mark of poverty upon himself which in old europe strikes the eye sadly at every step. i have seen no ragged poor--have seen not a single house bearing the appearance of desolated poverty. the cheerfulness of a comfortable condition, the result of industry, spreads over the land. one sees at a glance that the people work assiduously, not with the depressing thought just to get through the cares of a miserable life from day to day by hard toil, but they work with the cheerful consciousness of substantial happiness. and the second thing which i could not fail to remark, is the stamp of intelligence impressed upon the very eyes and outward appearance of the people at large. i and my companions have seen them in the factories, in the workshops, in their houses, and in the streets, and could not fail a thousand times to think "how intelligent this people looks." it is to such a people that the orators of faneuil hall had to speak, and therein is the mystery of success. they were not wiser than the public spirit of their audience, but they were the eloquent interpreters of the people's enlightened instinct. no man can force the harp of his own individuality into the people's heart, but every man may play upon the chords of his people's heart, who draws his inspiration from the people's instinct. well, i thank god for having seen the public spirit of the people of massachusetts, bestowing its attention on the cause i plead, and pronouncing its verdict. in respect to the question of national intervention, his excellency the high-minded governor of massachusetts wrote a memorable address to the legislature; the joint committee of the legislative assembly, after a careful and candid consideration of the subject, not only concurred in the views of the executive government, but elucidated them in a report, the irrefutable logic and elevated statesmanship of which will for ever endear the name of hazewell to oppressed nations; and the senate of massachusetts adopted the resolutions proposed by the legislative committee. after such remarkable and unsolicited manifestations of conviction, there cannot be the slightest doubt that all these executive and legislative proceedings not only met the full approbation of the people of massachusetts, but were the solemn interpretation of public opinion. a spontaneous outburst of popular sentiment tells often more in a single word than all the skill of elaborate eloquence could; as when, amidst the thundering cheers of a countless multitude, a man in worcester greeted me with the shout: "_we worship not the man, but we worship the principle_." it was a word, like those words of flame spoken in faneuil hall, out of which liberty in america was born. that word reveals the spirit, which, applying eternal truth to present exigencies, moves through the people's heart--that word is teeming with the destinies of america. give me leave to mention, that having had an opportunity to converse with leading men of the great parties, which are on the eve of an animated contest for the presidency--i availed myself of that opportunity, to be informed of the principal issues, in case the one or the other party carries the prize; and having got the information thereof, i could not forbear to exclaim--"all these questions together cannot outweigh the all-overruling importance of _foreign policy_." it is there, in the question of foreign policy, that the heart of the immediate future throbs. security and danger, prosperity and stagnation, peace and war, tranquillity and embarrassment--yes, life and death, will be weighed in the scale of foreign policy. it is evident things are come to the point where they were in ancient rome, when old cato never spoke privately or publicly about whatever topic, without closing his speech with these words: "_however, my opinion is that carthage must be destroyed_"--thus advertising his countrymen, that there was one question outweighing in importance all other questions, from which public attention should never for a moment be withdrawn. such, in my opinion, is the condition of the world now. carthage and rome had no place on earth together. republican america and all-overwhelming russian absolutism cannot much longer subsist together on earth. russia active--america passive--there is an immense danger in that fact; it is like the avalanche in the alps, which the noise of a bird's wing may move and thrust down with irresistible force, growing every moment. i cannot but believe it were highly time to do as old cato did, and finish every speech with these words--"_however, the law of nations should be maintained, and absolutism not permitted to become omnipotent._" it is however a consolation to me to know, that the _chief_ difficulty with which i have to contend,--viz. the overpowering influence of domestic questions with you,--is neither lasting, nor in any way an argument against the justice of our cause. another difficulty which i encounter is rather curious. many a man has told me that if i had only not fallen into the hands of _abolitionists_ and _free soilers_, they would have supported me; and had i landed somewhere in the south, instead of at new york, i should have met quite different things from that quarter; but being supported by the free-soilers, of course i must be opposed by the south. on the other side, i received a letter, from which i beg leave to quote a few lines:-"you are silent on the subject of slavery. surrounded as you have been by slaveholders ever since you put your foot on english soil, if not during your whole voyage from constantinople, and ever since you have been in this country surrounded by them, whose threats, promises, and flattery made the stoutest hearts succumb, your position has put me in mind of a scene described by the apostle of jesus christ, when the devil took him up into a high mountain," &c. now, gentlemen, thus being charged from one side with being in the hands of abolitionists, and from the other side with being in the hands of slaveholders, i indeed am at a loss what course to take, if these very contradictory charges were not giving me the satisfaction to feel that i stand just where it is my duty to stand--on a truly american ground. and oh, have i not enough upon these poor shoulders, that i am desired yet to take up additional cares? if the cause i plead be just, if it is worthy of your sympathy, and at the same time consistent with the impartial consideration of your own moral and material interests, (which a patriot never should disregard, not even out of philanthropy,) then why not weigh that cause in the scale of its own value, and not in a foreign one? have i not difficulties enough before me here, that i am desired to increase them with my own hands?--father mathew goes on preaching temperance, and he may be opposed or supported on his own ground; but who ever thought of opposing him because he takes not into his hands to preach fortitude or charity? and indeed, to oppose or to abandon the cause i plead, only because i mix not with the agitation of an interior question, is a greater injustice yet, because to discuss the question of foreign policy i have a right,--my nation is an object of that policy; we are interested in it;--but to mix with interior party movements i have no right, not being a citizen of the united states. [after this kossuth proceeded to urge, as in former speeches, that the interests of american commerce were not opposed to, but were identified with, the cause of hungary and of european liberty. he also adduced new considerations, which are afterwards treated more fully in his speech at buffalo.] * * * * * xliii.--self-government of hungary. [_banquet in faneuil hall_.] on april 30th, kossuth was entertained at a grand banquet, by the governor and council, and the members of the two houses. eight hundred and seventy tickets besides were issued, and were all taken up. the honourable henry wilson, president of the senate, was president for the evening. it is not possible here to print all the speeches, but it may be noted that governor boutwell, in reply to a toast, elicited affirmative replies from the guests to many questions directed to show the necessity of american armed interference on the side of hungary. also, the venerable josiah quincy, aged eighty, in reply to a toast, declared that liberty remained only in the united states and great britain, and that in great britain herself the spirit of freedom is weakened. "let great britain fail and be beaten down, and all the navies of europe will be bristling against the united states." finally, president wilson, introducing the guest of the evening, said:-"gentlemen, allow me to present to you the illustrious guest of massachusetts, governor kossuth. he has won our admiration as a man by the advocacy of the cause of his country, and he has won all our hearts by the purity of his principles." kossuth, in reply, noticed that the toast with which he had been honoured was almost entirely personal; and while disclaiming merit, he was nevertheless induced to advert to personal incidents, (now generally known,) as,--how he published in ms. the hungarian debates,--was unlawfully imprisoned for it, and learned english in prison by means of shakespeare; how when he was necessarily released, the government imposed an unlawful censorship on his journal, which journal nevertheless became the basis of the great and extensive reforms which received their completion in the laws of march and april, 1848. after this he proceeded as follows:-gentlemen, allow me to say a few words on the ancient institutions of hungary. i have often heard it said that the people of europe are incapable of self-government. let me speak of the people of hungary, to show whether they are capable of self-government or not. in thirty-six years, with god's help, and through your generous aid, the free people of hungary will celebrate the 1000th anniversary of the establishment of their home--the millennium of hungary in europe. yes, gentlemen, may i hope that celebration will take place under the blessings of liberty in the year 1889? it is a long period--one thousand years--and oh! how it has teemed with adversities to my countrymen! and yet through this long time, amid all adversities there was no period when the people of hungary did not resist despotism. our boast is, that through the vicissitudes of a thousand years there was not a moment when the popular will and the legal authorities had sanctioned the rule of absolutism. and, gentlemen, what other people, for 1000 years, has not consented to be ruled by despotism? even in the nineteenth century i am glad to look back to the wisdom of our fathers through a thousand years--who laid down for hungarian institutions a basis which for all eternity must remain true. this basis was upon that latin proverb _nil de nobis, sine nobis_--"nothing about us without us." that was, to claim that every man should have a full share in the sovereignty of the people and a full share in the rights belonging to his nation. in other times a theory was got up to convince the people that they might have a share in _legislation_ just so far as to control that legislation, but denying the right of the people to control the _executive_ power. the hungarian people never adopted that theory. they ever claimed a full share in the _executive_ as well as in the legislative and judicial power. out of this idea of government rose the municipal system of hungary. in respect to hungarian aristocracy, you must not consider it in the same light as the aristocracy of england. the word _nobleman_ in hungary originally was equivalent to _soldier_. every man who defended his country was a nobleman, and every man who had a vote was called to defend his country. i believe the duty of defending a man's country, and also political right, should be common. after our people had conquered a home, the leaders took the lion's share, of course. but it should be considered that those who had the largest share of the property, were compelled to furnish soldiers according to the extent of their possessions. therefore such men gave a part of their land to people to cultivate, and desired aid of them whenever the necessity for war came. so all who defended their country were considered noblemen. hungary was divided into fifty-two counties, but not counties like yours--some of them were so populous as to be comparable to your states, containing perhaps half a million or more of people, and those who became the aristocracy in some of these counties amounted to 35,000. in every county was a fortress, and whenever defence became necessary, the rich men went into these fortresses under their own banner, and the others went under the king's colours, and were commanded by the sheriff of the county, who might be here governor--at least who was the chief of the executive. certain of the cities were raised to constitutional rights. a smaller city, if surrounded by fortifications, or if an important post, was represented in the diet, whilst larger places, if not posts of importance for national defence, were represented only by the county delegates. every place that had the elements of defence had political rights. so it came to pass that the aristocracy were not a few men, but half a million. i had contended to beat down this barrier of aristocracy. before the revolution, in municipal governments only the nobility had a share--they only were the men who could vote: but the change was easy. the frame of self-government was ready. we had only to say, _the people_ instead of _the nobility_ had the right to vote; and so, in one day, we buried aristocracy, never to rise again. each county elected its representatives to the diet, and had the right of intercourse with other counties by means of letters on all matters of importance to these counties; and therefore our fifty-two primary councils were normal schools of public spirit. we elected our judicatory and executive, and the government had not a right to send instructions or orders to our executive; and if an order came which we considered to be inconsistent with our constitutional rights, it was not sent to the executive, but to the council; and therefore the arbitrary orders of the government could not be executed, because they came not into the hands of the executive. thus were our councils barriers against oppression. when the french took saragossa, it was not enough to take the city--they had to take every house. so also _we_ went on, and though some counties might accept the arbitrary orders of the government, some resisted; and, by discussing in their letters to the other counties the points of right, enlightened them; and it was seen that when the last house in saragossa had been beaten down, the first stood erect again. in consequence of the democratic nature of our institutions, our councils were our grand juries. but after having elected our judges, we chose several men in every county meeting, of no public office, but conspicuous for their integrity and knowledge of the law, to assist the judges in their administration. believe me, these institutions had a sound basis, fit to protect a nation against an arbitrary government which was aiming at centralization and oppression. now, these counties having contended against the austrian government, it did everything to destroy them. the great field was opened in the diet of 1847. having been elected by the county of pest, i had the honour to lead the party devoted to national rights and opposed to centralization and in defence of municipal authority. it was my intention to make it impossible that the government should in future encroach upon the liberties of the people. we had the misfortune in hungary to be governed by a constitutional king, who at the same time was the absolute monarch of another realm--by birth and interests attached to absolutism and opposed to constitutional government. it was difficult to be an absolute monarch and behave as king of hungary. there is on record a speech of mine, spoken in the hungarian diet, about the inconsistency of these two attributes in one man--that either austria must become constitutional, or hungary absolutistical. that speech virtually made the revolution of 1848 at vienna. after this revolution, i was sent to vienna to ask that our laws be established, releasing the people from feudal rights and demanding a constitutional ministry. then it was that a circumstance occurred, to which i heard an allusion in the toast offered to me. i was told the king would grant our request; only, there was agitation in vienna, and it would look as if the king were yielding to pressure. if the people would be quiet, the king would sanction our laws. then i said, that if the king would give his sanction to our legislative measures, peace would be made for the house of austria in twenty-four hours. but when that consent was given in one chamber, in another chamber that wicked woman, sophia, the mother of the present emperor, who calls himself king of hungary--no, he does _not_ call himself king of hungary, for he thinks the national existence of hungary is blotted out--plotted how to ruin my people and destroy that sanction which was nothing but a necessary means to secure a just cause. next came the hungarian ministry--and, strange to say, i saw myself placed close to the throne. when in vienna, after the sanction was granted, steps were taken to retract it; i went to the arch-duke stephen, the palatine of hungary, the first constitutional authority of hungary,--the elective viceroy, and told him he ought to return to hungary if he wished to preserve his influence. he answered that he could not return to hungary, for if the king did not sanction our laws--he (the arch-duke stephen) might be proclaimed king instead of the emperor of austria, and he would never dethrone his cousin. i answered, that he spoke like an honest man, but perhaps the time would come when he would find an empty seat on that throne, and he had better take it, for i could assure him, if he did not, no other man ever would with the consent of the people. when five months later, in hungary, we met for the last time, he called me to his house on a stormy night, and desired of me to know what would be the issue of matters. i answered: i can see no issue for you, but the crown or else the scaffold, and then for the people a republic. but even from this alternative i will relieve you: for you the crown, for me the scaffold, if the hungarian independence is not achieved.--i make no hesitation here to confess that such was the embarrassed state of hungarian affairs that i should have felt satisfied for him to have accepted the crown. remember that your fathers did not design at first to sever the ties which bound the colonies to england, but circumstances forced the issue. so it was with us. we asked at first only democratic institutions, but when it was possible we were glad to throw away our kings. the arch-duke did not accept, but was rather a traitor to his country. such is the connection of tyrants with each other, they desire not to prevent others from oppressing. he is now an exile like myself. if he had accepted the proposal, no doubt the independence of hungary would have been recognized by even russia, especially if he had formed a family alliance with despotism, and then for centuries the establishment of a republic would have been impossible; whereas, now, as sure as there is a god in heaven, no king will ever rule hungary; but it must be one of those republics, wherein republicanism is not a mere romance but a reality, founded upon the basis of municipal authorities, to which the people are attached. we could never have such a movement as disgraced france in december. excuse me, gentlemen, if i abuse your kindness. i am anxious to make known my ideas upon the future organization of my country. the organization which alone we could propose, is one founded upon the sovereignty of the people, not only in a _legislative_ capacity --for it is not enough that we know that sovereignty by casting a vote once in three or four years: we must feel it every day, everywhere. the sovereignty of the people asserts, that men have certain rights, not depending on any power, but natural rights. i mean such as religious liberty--free thought--a free press, and the right of every family to regulate its own affairs: but not only every family; also every town, city, and county. our sovereignty shall be such, that the higher government will have no power to interfere in the domestic concerns of any town, city, or county. these are the principles upon which our government will be founded--not only sovereignty in legislation, but a particular share in the executive government.--judge whether such a people is worthy to meet the sympathy of republicans like you, who have shown to the world that a nation may be powerful without centralization. believe me, there is harmony in our _ancient_ principles and your _recent_ ones. judge whether my people is capable of self-government. the venerable gentleman (josiah quincy) spoke a word about england. i believe the anglo-saxon race must have a high destiny in the history of mankind. it is the only race, the younger brother of which is free while the elder brother has also some freedom. you, gentlemen, acknowledge that from the mother country you obtained certain of your principles of liberty--free thought and speech, a free press, &c.--and i am sure, gentlemen, the english people are proud of liberty. called to pronounce against the league of despots, if the republican united states and constitutional england were in concord, what would be the consequence? i answer, it would be exactly as when the south american republic was threatened--as when russia forbade american vessels to approach within a hundred miles of its american shores. i have often met in the united states an objection against an alliance with england; but it is chiefly the irish who are opposed to being on good terms with england. in respect to the irish, if i could contribute to the future unity in action of the united states and england, i should more aid the irish than by all exclamations against one or other. if the united states and england were in union, the continent of europe would be republican. then, though england remained monarchical, ireland would be freer than now. if i were an irishman, i would not have raised the standard of _repeal_, which offended the people of england, but the standard of municipal _self-government_ against parliamentary omnipotence--not as an irish question, but as a common question to all--and in this movement the people of england and scotland would have joined; and now there would have been a parliament in england, in ireland, and scotland. such is the geographical position of great britain, that its countries should be, not one, but united; each with its own parliament, but still one parliament for all. if i could contribute to get england to oppose the encroachments of absolutism, i should be doing more to aid ireland, in aiding freedom, than if i so acted as to induce england to look indifferently at the approach of absolutism. i was glad to hear the words of that venerable gentleman (josiah quincy). they brought to my mind the words of john adams, first minister of the united states to england. when he addressed the king, he said:--"_he would be happy could he restore entire esteem, confidence, and affection between the united states and england_," and king george iii. replied: "_i was the last to conform to the separation, and i am the first to meet the friendship of the united states. let the communities of language, religion, and blood have their full and natural effect._" 'let this precedent, belonging to the intelligence not of to-day only--let those words become now considered of particular interest to both countries, and it would be of the greatest benefit to mankind. there is nothing more necessary to secure the freedom of europe than consent to act together, on the part of the united states and england. it is not necessary to say how far they will go, but only necessary to say they will do as much as their interests allow, and what may be necessary that the law of nations should be protected and not abandoned. when i was in england nothing gave me more delight than to hear delegations addressing me, mention your washington, and confess themselves sorry that he had to manifest his greatness in contending against england; but they were more proud to see the greatness of such a man, than not to have been opposed by him. they entrusted me to bring word to the united states, that they wished to be united to you for the benefit of all humanity. i was charged particularly by one hundred men connected with commerce at manchester--the least wealthy of whom was _worth_, as they express it in england, £10,000 a year--these gentlemen told me it would be a great result of my mission in the united states, if i could convince americans that englishmen thought all differences had vanished; and they desired to go hand in hand with the people of the united states, as regards foreign policy. now, i have observed in new england less objection to the policy of an alliance with england than in many other parts of the united states, and i take it for an evidence of the intelligence and liberality of the people. i know, gentlemen, you have been pleased to honour me, not for myself (for the people of massachusetts are not man-worshippers, but reverence principles only)--therefore i cannot better express my thanks than to pledge my word, relying, as on another occasion of deep interest i said, _upon the justice of our cause, the blessing of god, iron wills, stout arms, and good swords_--and upon your generous sympathy, to do all in my power, with my people, for my country and for humanity; for which indeed in my heart, though, it is somewhat old, there is yet warmth. after many other toasts, president wilson called on judge hoar to speak. the reply of the judge had several striking sentences. he closed by saying to kossuth: "it is because you, sir, have learned the truth that _peace is the first interest of no people,--that there are other things more sacred than human life,--that without justice and freedom life is only a mockery, and peace a delusion and a burden,_--it is _because_, when tyranny had terminated every duty of a subject, you too[*] have dared to become the most notorious rebel of our time, _therefore_ does massachusetts welcome you to the home of hancock and of adams, and the majestic spirit of washington sheds its benediction upon the scene." [footnote *: the judge alludes to hancock and adams, who were excepted by name as "notorious rebels," from general gage's proclamation of amnesty.] * * * * * xliv.--russia the antagonist of the u.s. [_salem, may 6_.] ladies and gentlemen,--when four years ago, the tidings of our struggle made the scarcely before known name of hungary familiar to you, sympathy for a nobly defended noble cause moved your hearts to rejoice at our victories, to feel anxiety about our dangers. yet, so long as our struggle was but a domestic contest, a resistance against oppression by a perjurious king, you had no reason to think that the sympathy you felt for us, being a generous manifestation of the affections of free men, was at the same time an instinctive presentiment of a policy, which you in your national capacity will be called upon by circumstances, not only to consider, but, as i firmly believe, also to adopt. you were far from anticipating that the issue of our struggle would become an opportunity for your country to take that position which divine providence has evidently assigned to you; i mean the position of a power, not restricted in its influence to the western hemisphere, but reaching across the earth. you had not thought that it is the struggle of hungary which will call on you to fulfil the prophecy of canning; who comprehended, that it is the destiny of the new world to redress the balance of power in the old. the universal importance of our contest has been but late revealed. it has been revealed by the interference of russia, by our fall, and by its more threatening results. now, it has become evident to all thinking men, that the balance of power cannot be redressed unless hungary is restored to national independence. consequently if it be your own necessity to weigh in the scale of the powers on earth, if it be your destiny to redress the balance of power, the cause of hungary is the field where this destiny will have to be fulfilled. and it is indeed your destiny. russian diplomacy could never boast of a greater and more fatal victory than it had a right to boast, should it succeed to persuade the united states not to care about her--russia accomplishing her aim to become the ruling power in europe; the ruling power in asia; the ruling power of the mediterranean sea. that would be indeed a great triumph to russian diplomacy, greater than her triumph over hungary; a triumph dreadful to all humanity, but to nobody more dreadful than to your own future. all sophistry is in vain, gentlemen; there can be no mistake about it. russian absolutism and anglo-saxon constitutionalism are not rival but antagonist powers. they cannot long continue to subsist together. antagonists cannot hold equal position; every additional strength of the one is a comparative weakening of the other. one or the other must yield. one or the other must perish or become dependent on the other's will. you may perhaps believe that that triumph of diplomacy is impossible in america. but i am sorry to say, that it has a dangerous ally, in the propensity to believe, that the field of american policy is limited geographically; that there is a field for american, and there is a field for european policy, and that these fields are distinct, and that it is your interest to keep them distinct. there was a time in our struggle, when, if a man had come from america, bringing us in official capacity the tidings of your brotherly greeting, of your approbation and your sympathy, he would have been regarded like a harbinger of heaven. the hungarian nation, tired out by the hard task of dearly but gloriously bought victories, was longing for a little test, when the numerous hordes of russia fell upon us in the hour of momentary exhaustion. indignation supplied the wanted rest, and we rose to meet the intruding foe; but it was natural that the nation looked around with anxiety, whether there be no power on earth raising its protesting voice against that impious act of trampling down the law of nations, the common property of all humanity? no power on earth to cheer us by a word of approbation of our legitimate defence? alas! no such word was heard. we stood forsaken and alone! it was upon that ground of forsakenness that treason spread its poison into our ranks. they told my nation, "your case is hopeless. kossuth has assured you that if you drive out the austrians from your territory, and declare your independence, it perhaps will be recognized by the french republic, probably by england, and certainly by america; but look! none has recognized you; not even the united states, though with them it was from the time of washington always a constant principle to recognize every government. you are not recognized. you are forsaken by the whole world. kossuth has assured you, that it is impossible the constitutional powers of the world should permit without a word of protest russia to interfere with the domestic concerns of hungary; and look! russia has interfered, the laws of nations are broken, the political balance of power is upset. russia has assumed the position of a despotic arbiter of the condition of the world, and still nobody has raised a single word of protest in favour of hungary's just and holy cause." such was the insinuation, which russian diplomacy, with its wonted subterraneous skill, instilled drop by drop into my brave people's manly heart; and alas! i could not say that the insinuation was false. _the french republic_, instead of protesting against the interference of russia, _followed its example and interfered itself at rome_. _great britain_, instead of protesting, _checked turkey in her resolution to oppose that new aggrandizement of russia_; and _the united states of america_ remained silent, instead of protesting against the violation of those "laws of nature and of nature's god," in the maintenance of which nobody can be more interested than the great republic of america. in short, it was by our feeling forsaken, that the skill of our enemies spread despondency through our ranks; and this despondency, not the arms of russia, caused us to fall. self-confidence lost is more than half a defeat. had america sent a diplomatic agent to hungary, greeting us amongst the independent powers on earth, recognizing our independence, and declaring russian interference to be contrary to the laws of nations, that despondency, that loss of self-confidence, had never gained ground among us; without this, treason would have been impossible, and without treason all the disposable power of russia would never have succeeded to overcome our arms;--never! i should rather have brought the well-deserved punishment home to her, should have shaken her at home. poland--heroic, unfortunate poland would now be free, turkey delivered from the nightmare now pressing her chest, and i, according to all probability, should have seen moscow in triumph, instead of seeing salem in exile! well, there is a just god in heaven, and there will yet be justice on earth;--the day of retribution will come! such being the sad tale of my fatherland, which, by a timely token of your brotherly sympathy might have been saved, and which now has lost everything except its honour, its trust in god, its hope of resurrection, its confidence in my patriotic exertions, and its steady resolution to strike once more the inexorable blow of retribution at tyrants and tyranny;--if the cause i plead were a particular cause, i would place it upon the ground of well-deserved sympathy, and would try to kindle into a flame of excitement the generous affections of your hearts: and i should succeed. but since a great crisis, which is universally felt to be approaching, enables me to claim for my cause a universality not restricted by the geographical limits of a country or even of europe itself, or by the moral limits of nationalities, but possessing an interest common to all the christian world; it is calm, considerate conviction, and _not_ the passing excitement of generous sentiments, which i seek. i hope therefore to meet the approbation of this intelligent assembly, when instead of pleasing you by an attempt at eloquence, for which, in my sick condition, i indeed have not sufficient freshness of mind--i enter into some dry but not unimportant considerations, which the citizens of salem, claiming the glory of high commercial reputation, will kindly appreciate. gentlemen, i have often heard the remark, that if the united states do not care for the policy of the world, they will continue to grow internally, and will soon become the mightiest realm on earth, a republic of a hundred millions of energetic freemen, strong enough to defy all the rest of the world, and to control the destinies of mankind. and surely this is your glorious lot; but _only under the condition_, that no hostile combination, before you have in peace and in tranquillity grown so strong, arrests by craft and violence your giant-course; and this again is possible, only under the condition that europe become free, and the league of despots become not sufficiently powerful to check the peaceful development of your strength. but russia, too, the embodiment of the principle of despotism, is working hard for the development of _her_ power. whilst you grow internally, her able diplomacy has spread its nets all over the continent of europe. there is scarcely a prince there but feels honoured to be an underling of the great czar; the despots are all leagued against the freedom of the nations: and should the principle of absolutism consolidate its power, and lastingly keep down the nations, then it must, even by the instinct of self-preservation, try to check the further development of your republic. in vain they would have spilt the blood of millions, in vain they would have doomed themselves to eternal curses, if they allowed the united states to become the ruling power on earth. they crushed poor hungary, because her example was considered dangerous. how could they permit you to become so mighty, as to be not only dangerous by your example, but by your power a certain ruin to despotism? they will, they must, do everything to check your glorious progress. be sure, as soon as they have crushed the spirit of freedom in europe, as soon as they command all the forces of the continent, they will marshal them against you. of course they will not lead their fleets and armies at once across the ocean. they will first damage your prosperity by crippling your commerce. they will exclude america from the markets of europe, not only because they fear the republican propagandism of your commerce, but also because russia requires those markets for her own products. [he proceeded to argue, that russian policy, like that of the magyars in their time of barbarism, is essentially encroaching and warlike; that to be _feared_, is often more important to russia than to enjoy a particular market; that the russian system of commerce is, and must be, prohibitory to republican traffic; that england alone in europe has large commerce with america, and that the despots, if victorious on the continent, would make it their great object to damage, cripple, and ruin both these kindred constitutional nations. he continued:] the despots are scheming to muzzle the english lion. you see already how they are preparing for this blow--that russia may become mistress of constantinople, by constantinople mistress of the mediterranean, and by the mediterranean of three-quarters of the globe. egypt, macedonia, asia-minor, the country and early home of the cotton plant, are then the immediate provinces of russia, a realm with twenty million serfs, subject to its policy and depending on its arbitrary will. here is a circumstance highly interesting to the united states. constantinople is the key to russia. to be preponderant, she knows it is necessary for her to be a maritime power. the black sea is only a lake, like lake leman; the baltic is frozen five months in a year. these are all the seas she possesses. constantinople is the key to the palace of the czars. russia is already omnipotent on the continent; once master of the mediterranean, it is not difficult to see that the power which already controls three-quarters of the world, will soon have the fourth quarter. whilst the victory of the nations of europe would open to you the markets, till now closed to your products, the consolidation of despotism destroys your commerce unavoidably. if your wheat, your tobacco, your cotton, were excluded from europe but for one year, there is no farm, no plantation, no banking-house, which would not feel the terrible shock of such a convulsion. and hand-in-hand with the commercial restrictions you will then see an establishment of monarchies from cape horn to the rio grande del norte. cuba becomes a battery against the mouth of the mississippi; the sandwich islands a barrier to your commerce on the pacific; russian diplomacy will foster your domestic dissensions and rouse the south against the north, and the north against the south, the sea-coast against the inland states, and the inland states against the sea-coast, the pacific interests against the atlantic interests; and when discord paralyzes your forces, then comes at last the foreign interference, preceded by the declaration, that the european powers having, with your silent consent, inscribed into the code of international law, the principle that every foreign power has the right to interfere in the domestic affairs of any nation when these become a dangerous example, and your example and your republican principles being dangerous to the absolutist powers, and your domestic dissensions dangerous to the order and tranquillity of europe, and therefore they consider it their "duty to interfere in america." and europe being oppressed, you will have, single-handed, to encounter the combined forces of the world! i say no more about this subject. america will remember then the poor exile, if it does not in time enter upon that course of policy, which the intelligence of massachusetts, together with the young instinct of ohio, are the foremost to understand and to advance. a man of your own state, a president of the united states, john quincy adams, with enlarged sagacity, accepted the panama mission, to consider the action of the holy alliance upon the interests of the south american republics. now, i beg you to reflect, gentlemen, how south america is different from europe, as respects your own country. look at the thousand ties that bind you to europe. in washington, a senator from california, a generous friend of mine, told me he was _thirty_ days by steamer from the seat of government. well, you speak of distance--just give me a good steamer and good sailors, and you will in _twenty_ days see the flag of freedom raised in hungary. i remember that when one of your glorious stars (florida, i think it was) was about to be introduced, the question of discussion and objection became, that the distance was great. it was argued that the limits of the government would be extended so far, that its duties could not be properly attended to. the president answered, that the distance was not too great, if the seat of government could be reached in thirty days. so far you have extended your territory; and i am almost inclined to ask my poor hungary to be accepted as a star in your glorious galaxy. she might become a star in this immortal constellation, since she is not so far as thirty days off from you. what little english i know, i learned from your shakespeare, and i learned from him that "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy." who knows what the future may bring forth? i trust in god that all nations will become free, and that they will be united for the internal interests of humanity, and in that galaxy of freedom i know what place the united states will have. one word more. when john quincy adams assumed for the united states the place of a power on earth, he was objected to, because it was thought possible that that step might give offence to the holy alliance. his answer was in these memorable words: "the united states must take counsel of their rights and duties, and not from their fears." the anglo-saxon race represents constitutional governments. if it be united for these, we shall have what we want, fair play; and, relying "upon our god, the justness of our cause, iron wills, honest hearts and good swords," my people will strike once more for freedom, independence, and for fatherland. * * * * * xlv.--the martyrs of the american revolution. [_lexington, may 11th_.] kossuth having been invited to visit the first battle fields of the revolution, was accompanied by several members of the state committee, on may 11th, to west cambridge, lexington, and concord. he had already visited bunker hill on the 3d of may, but we have not in these pages found room for his speech there. at west cambridge he was addressed by the rev. thomas hill, and replied: at lexington also he received two addresses, and the following was his reply:-gentlemen,--it has been often my lot to stand upon classical ground, where the whispering breeze is fraught with wonderful tales of devoted virtue, bright glory, and heroic deeds. and i have sat upon ruins of ancient greatness, blackened by the age of centuries; and i have seen the living ruins of those ancient times, called men, roaming about the sacred ground, unconscious that the dust which clung to their boots, was the relic of departed demigods--and i rose with a deep sigh. those demigods were but men, and the degenerate shapes that roamed around me, on the hallowed ground, were also not less than men. the decline and fall of nations impresses the mark of degradation on nature itself. it is sad to think upon--it lops the soaring wings of the mind, and chills the fiery arms of energy. but, however dark be the impression of such ruins of vanished greatness upon the mind of men who themselves have experienced the fragility of human fate, thanks to god, there are bright spots yet on earth, where the recollections of the past, brightened by present prosperity, strengthen the faith in the future of mankind's destiny. such a spot is this. gentlemen, should the reverence which this spot commands allow a smile, i might feel inclined to smile at the eager controversy whether it was at lexington or concord that the fire of the british was first returned by americans. let it be this way or that way,--it will neither increase nor abate the merit of the martyrs who fell here. it is with their blood that the preface of your nation's history is written. their death was, and always will be, the first bloody revelation of america's destiny; and lexington, the opening scene of a revolution, of which governor boutwell was right to say, that it is destined to change the character of human governments, and the condition of the human race. should the republic of america ever lose the consciousness of this destiny, that moment would be just so surely the beginning of america's decline, as the 19th of april, 1775, was the beginning of the republic of america. prosperity is not always, gentlemen, a guarantee of the future, if it be not accompanied with a constant resolution to obey the call of the genius of the time. nay, material prosperity is often the mark of real decline, when it either results in, or is connected with, a moral stagnation in the devoted attachment to principles. rome was never richer, never mightier, than under trajan, and still it had already the sting of death in its very heart. to me, whenever i stand upon such sacred ground as this, the spirits of the departed appear like the prophets of future events. the language they speak to my heart is the revelation of providence. the struggle of america for independence was providential. it was a necessity. those circumstances which superficial consideration takes for the motives of the glorious revolution, were but accidental opportunities for it. had those circumstances not occurred, others would have occurred, and might have presented perhaps a different opportunity; but the revolution would have come. it was a necessity, because the colonies of america had attained that lawful age in the development of all the elements of national existence, which claims the right to stand by itself, and cannot any longer be led by a child's leading-strings, be the hand which leads it a mother's or a step-mother's. circumstances and the connection of events were such, that this unavoidable emancipation had to pass the violent concussion of severe trials. the immortal glory of your forefathers was, that they did not shrink to accept the trial, and were devoted and heroic to sacrifice themselves to their country's destiny. and the monuments you erect to their memory, and the religious reverence with which you cherish the memory, are indeed well deserved tributes of gratitude. but allow me to say, there is a tribute which those blessed spirits are still more eager to claim from you as the happy inheritance of the fruits they have raised for you; it is, the tribute of always remaining _true to their principle_; devoted to the destiny of your country, which destiny is to become the corner-stone of liberty on earth. empires can be only maintained by the same virtue by which they have been founded. oh! let me hope that, while the recollections connected with this hallowed ground, inspire the heart of a wandering exile with consolation, with hope, and with perseverance (from the very fact that i have stood here, brought with the anxious prayers and expectations of the old world's oppressed millions), you will see the finger of god pointing out the appropriate opportunity to act your part in america's destiny, by maintaining the laws of _nature and of nature's god_, for which your heroes fought and your martyrs died; and to regenerate the world. "proclaiming freedom in the name of god," till--to continue in the beautiful words of your whittier- ----"its blessings fall common as dew and sunshine over all." [from lexington kossuth proceeded to concord, and was there addressed by the well-known author, ralph waldo emerson. his reply was at greater length, and on the same subject as at lexington; yet a part of it may here be printed.] kossuth said:-in my opinion, there is not a single event in history so distinctly marked to be providential--and providential with reference to all humanity--as the colonization, revolution, and republicanism of the now united states of america. this immense continent being peopled with elements of european civilization, could not remain a mere appendix to europe. but when it is connected with europe by a thousand social, moral, and material ties, by blood, religion, language, science, civilization, and commerce, to believe that it can rest isolated in politics from europe, would be just such a fault as it was that england did not believe in time the necessity of america's independence. yes, gentlemen, this is so sure to me, that i would pledge life, honour, and everything dear to man's heart and honourable to man's memory, that either america must take her becoming part in the political regeneration of europe, or she herself must yield to the pernicious influence of european politics. there was never yet a more fatal mistake, than it would be to believe, that by not caring about the political condition of europe, america may remain unaffected by the condition of europe. i could perhaps understand such an opinion, if you would or could be entirely isolated from europe; but as you are not isolated, as you cannot be, as you cannot even have the will to be (for that very will would be a paradox, a logical absurdity, impossible to be carried out, being contrary to the eternal laws of god, which he for nobody's sake will change); therefore to believe that you can go on to be connected with europe in a thousand respects, and still remain unaffected by its social and political condition, would be indeed a fatal delusion. you stretch out your gigantic hands a thousandfold every day over the waves; your relations with europe are not only commercial as with asia, they are also social, moral, spiritual, intellectual; you take europe every day by the hand. how then could you believe, that if that hand of europe, which you grasp every day, remains dirty, you can escape from soiling your own hands? the cleaner they are, all the more will the filth of old europe stick to them. there is no possible means to escape from being soiled, than to help us, europeans, to wash the hands of our old world. you have heard of the ostrich, that when persecuted by an enemy, it is wont to hide its head, leaving its body exposed; it believes that by not regarding it, it will not be seen by the enemy. that curious aberration is worthy of reflection. it is _typical_. yes, gentlemen, either america will _re_generate the condition of the old world, or it will be _de_generated by the condition of the old world. sir, i implore you (mr. emerson), give me the aid of your philosophical _analysis_, to impress the conviction upon the public mind of your nation that the revolution, to which concord was the preface, is full of a higher destiny--of a destiny broad as the world, broad as humanity itself. let me entreat you to apply the analytic powers of your penetrating intellect, to disclose the character of the american revolution, as you disclose the character of self-reliance, of spiritual laws, of intellect, of nature, or of politics. lend the authority of your judgment to the truth, that the destiny of american revolution is not yet fulfilled; that the task is not yet completed; that to stop half way, is worse than would have been not to stir: repeat those words of deep meaning which once you wrote about the monsters that looked backward, and about the walking with reverted eye, while the voice of the almighty says, "_up and onward for ever more_," while moreover the instinct of your people, which never fails to be right, answered the call of destiny by taking for its motto the word _ahead_. indeed, gentlemen, the monuments you raised to the heroic martyrs who fertilized with their hearts' blood the soil of liberty--these monuments are a fair tribute of well-deserved gratitude, gratifying to the spirits who are hovering around us and honourable to you. woe to the people which neglect to honour its great and good men; but believe me, gentlemen, those blessed spirits would look down with saddened brows to this free and happy land, if ever they were doomed to see that the happy inheritors of their martyrdom imagined that the destiny to which that martyr blood was consecrated, is accomplished, and its price fully paid in the already achieved results, because the living generation dwells comfortably and makes two dollars out of _one_. no, gentlemen, the stars in the sky have a higher aim than merely to illumine the night-path of some lonely wanderer. the course your nation is called to run, is not yet half performed. mind the fable of atalanta: it was a golden apple thrown into her way which made her fall short in her race. two things i have met here in these free and mighty united states, which i am at a loss how to make concord. the two things i cannot harmonize are:--first, that all your historians, all your statesmen, all your distinguished orators, who wrote or spoke, characterize it as an era in mankind's history, destined to change the condition of the world, upon which it will rain an everflowing influence. and secondly, in contradiction to this universally adopted creed, i have met in many quarters a propensity to believe that it is conservative wisdom not to take any active part in the regulation of the outward world. these two things do not agree. if that be the destiny of america, which you all believe to be, then that destiny can never be fulfilled by acting the part of passive spectators, and by this very passivity granting a charter to ambitious czars to dispose of the condition of the world. i have met distinguished men trusting so much to the operative power of your institutions and of your _example_, that they really believe they will make their way throughout the world merely by their _moral influence_. but there is one thing those gentlemen have disregarded in their philanthropic reliance; and that is, that the ray of the sun never yet made its way by itself through well-closed shutters and doors--they must be drawn open, that the blessed rays of the sun may get in. i have never yet heard of a despot who yielded to the moral influence of liberty. the ground of concord itself is an evidence of it; the doors and shutters of oppression must be opened by bayonets, that the blessed rays of your institutions may penetrate into the dark dwelling-house of oppressed humanity. there are men who believe the position of a power on earth will come to you by itself; but oh! do not trust to this fallacy; a position never comes by itself; it must be taken, and taken it never will be by passivity. the martyrs who have hallowed by their blood the ground of concord, trusted themselves and occupied the place divine providence assigned them. sir, the words are yours which i quote. you have told your people that they are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same destiny, that they are not minors and invalids in a protected corner; but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, advancing on chaos and on the dark. i pray god to give to your people the sentiment of the truth you have taught. your people, fond of its prosperity, loves peace. well, who would not love peace; but allow me again, sir, to repeat with all possible emphasis, the great word you spoke, "nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles." * * * * * xlvi.--condition of europe. [_last speech in boston_.] on may 14th, kossuth, in obedience to a distinct invitation, delivered, in faneuil hall, the following ample speech or lecture, on the present condition of europe. ladies and gentlemen,--the gigantic struggle of the first french revolution associated the name of france so much with the cause of freedom in europe, that all the world got accustomed to see it take the lead in the struggle for european liberty; and to look to it as a power entrusted by providence with the initiation of revolutions; as a power, without the impulse of which, no liberal movement had any hope on the european continent. i, from my earliest days, never shared that opinion. i felt always more sympathy with the anglo-saxon character and anglo-saxon institutions, which raised england, notwithstanding its monarchy and its aristocracy, to a position prouder than rome ever held in its most glorious days: and which, free from monarchical and aristocratical elements here in america, lie at the foundation of a political organization, upon which the first true democratic republic was consolidated and developed into freedom, power, and prosperity, in such a short time, as to make it a living wonder to the contemporary age, and a book full of instruction to the coming generations. however, that opinion about the french initiative prevailed in europe, and it was a great misfortune; for you know that france has always as yet forsaken the movement which it raised in europe, and the other nations acting not spontaneously, but only following the impulse which the french had imparted to them, faltered and stopped at once, as soon as the french failed them. with that opinion of the french supremacy, no revolution in europe could have a definite, happy issue. freedom never yet was given to nations as a gift, but only as a reward, bravely earned by one's own exertions, own sacrifices, and own toil; and never will, never shall it be attained otherwise. i speak therefore out of profound conviction, when i say that, though the heart of the philanthropist must feel pained at the new hard trials to which the french nation is, and will yet be exposed, by the momentary success of louis napoleon bonaparte's inglorious usurpation, still that very fact will prove advantageous to the ultimate success of liberty in europe. louis napoleon's _coup d'état_, much against his will, has emancipated europe from its reliance upon france. the combined initiative of nations has succeeded to the initiative of france; spontaneity and self-reliance have replaced the depending on foreign impulse and reliance upon foreign aid. france is reduced to the level amongst nations, obliged to join general combinations, instead of regulating them; and this i take for a very great advantage. many have wondered at the momentary success of louis napoleon, and are inclined to take it for an evidence that the french nation is either not capable or not worthy to be free. but that is a great fallacy. the momentary success of louis napoleon is rather an evidence that france is _thoroughly democratic_. all the revolutions in france have resulted in the preponderance of that class which bears the denomination of _bourgeoisie_. amongst all possible modifications of oppression, none is more detested by the people than oppression by an assembly. the national assembly of france was the most treacherous the world has ever yet known. issued from universal suffrage, it went so far as to abolish universal suffrage, and every day of its existence was a new blow stricken at democracy for the profit of the bourgeoisie. louis napoleon has beaten asunder that assembly, which the french democracy had so many reasons to hate and to despise, and the people applauded him as the people of england applauded cromwell when he whipped out the rump parliament. but by what means was louis napoleon permitted to do even what the people liked to see done? by no other means, but by flattering the principle of democracy; he restored the universal suffrage; it is an execrable trick, to be sure--it is a shadow given for reality; but still it proves that the democratic spirit is so consolidated in france, that even despotic ambition must flatter it. well, depend upon it, this democracy, which the victorious usurper feels himself constrained to flatter in the brightest moments of his triumph--this democracy will either make out of louis napoleon _a tool_, which in spite of itself serves the democracy, or it will crush him. france is the country of sudden changes, and of unthought of accidents. i therefore will not presume to tell the events of its next week, but one alternative i dare to state: louis napoleon either falls or maintains himself. the fall of louis napoleon, even if brought about by the old monarchical parties, can have no other issue than a republic--a republic more faithful to the community of freedom in europe than all the former revolutions have been. or if louis napoleon maintains himself, he can do so only either by relying upon the army, or by flattering the feelings and interests of the masses. if he relies upon the army, he must give to it glory and profit, or, in other words, he must give to it war. well, a war of france, against whomsoever it be, or for whatever purposes, is the best possible chance for the success of a european revolution. or if louis napoleon relies upon the feelings of the masses--as indeed he appears willing to do--in that case, in spite of himself, he becomes a tool in the hands of democracy; and if, by becoming such, he forsakes the allegiance of his masters--the league of absolutistical powers--well, he will either be forced to attack them, or be attacked by them. so much for france; now as to italy. italy! the sunny garden of europe, whose blossoms are blighted by the icy north wind from st. petersburg--italy, that captured nightingale, placed under a fragrant bush of roses, beneath an ever blue sky! italy was always the battlefield of the contending principles, since, hundreds of years ago, the german emperors, the kings of spain, and the kings of france, fought their private feuds, their bloody battles on her much coveted soil; and by their destructive influence, kept down all progress, and fostered every jealousy. by the recollections of old, the spirit of liberty was nowhere so dangerous for european absolutism as in italy. and this spirit of republican liberty, this warlike genius of ancient rome, was never extinguished between the alps and the faro. we are taught by the scribes of absolutism to speak of the italians as if they were a nation of cowards, and we forget that the most renowned masters of the science of war, the greatest generals up to our day, were italians,--piccolomini, montecucculi, farnese, eugene of savoy, spinola, and bonaparte--a galaxy of names whose glory is dimmed only by the reflection that none of them fought for his own country. as often as the spirit of liberty awoke in italy, the servile forces of germany, of spain, and of france poured into the country, and extinguished the glowing spark in the blood of the people, lest it should once more illumine the dark night of europe. frederic barbarossa destroyed milan to its foundations, when it attempted to resist his imperial encroachments by the league of independent cities; and led the plough over the smoking ruins. charles the fifth had to gather all his powers around him to subdue florence, when it declared itself a democratic republic. napoleon extinguished the last remnants of republican self-government by crushing the republics of venice, genoa, lucca, ragusa, and left only, to ridicule republicanism, the commonwealth of san marino untouched. the holy alliance parted the spoils of napoleon, riveted afresh the iron fetters which enslave italy, and forged new spiritual fetters; prevented the extension of education, and destroyed the press, in order that the italians should not remember their past. every page, glorious in their history for twenty-five centuries, is connected with the independence of italy; every stain upon their honour is connected with foreign rule. and the burning minds of the italians, though all spiritual food is denied to them, cannot be taught not to remember their past glory and their present degradation. every stone speaks of the ancient glory; every austrian policeman, every french soldier, of the present degradation. the tyrants have no power to unmake history, and to silence the feelings of the nation. and amongst all the feelings powerful to stir up the activity of mankind, there is none more penetrating than unmerited degradation, which impels us to redeem our lost honour. what is it therefore that keeps those petty tyrants of italy, who are jealous of one another, on their tottering thrones, divided as they are among themselves, whilst the revolutionizing spirit of liberty unites the people? it is only the protection of austria, studding the peninsula with her bayonets and with her spies. and austria herself can dare this, only because she relies upon the assistance of russia. she can send her armies to italy, because russia guards her eastern dominions. let russia stand off, and austria is unable to keep italy in bondage; and the italians, united in the spirit of independence, will easily settle their account with their own weak princes. keep off the icy blast which blows from the russian snows, and the tree of freedom will grow up in the garden of europe; though cut down by the despots, it will spring anew from the roots in the soil, which was always genial for the tree. remember that no insurrection of italians has been crushed by their own domestic tyrants without foreign aid; remember that one-third of the austrian army which occupies italy are hungarians who have fought against and triumphed over the yellow-black flag of austria--under the same tri-colour which, having the same colours for both countries, show emblematically that hungary and italy are but two wings of the same army, united against a common enemy. remember that even now neither the pope nor the little princes of middle italy can subsist without an austrian and a french garrison; and remember that italy is a half isle, open from three sides to the friendship of all who sympathize with civil and religious liberty on earth; but from the sea not open to russia and austria, because they are not maritime powers; and so long as england is conscious of the basis of its power, and so soon as america gets conscious of the condition upon which its future depends, austria and russia will never be allowed to become maritime powers. and when you feel instinctively that the heart of the roman must rage with fury when he looks back into the mirror of his past,--that the venetian cannot help to weep tears of fire and of blood from the rialto;--when you feel all this, then look back how the romans have fought in 1849, with a heroism scarcely paralleled in the most glorious day of ancient rome. and let me tell, in addition, upon the certainty of my own positive knowledge, that the world never yet has seen such complete and extensive revolutionary organization as that of italy to-day--ready to burst out into an irresistible storm at the slightest opportunity, and powerful enough to make that opportunity, if either foreign interference is checked, or the interfering foreigners occupied at home. the revolution of 1848 has revealed and developed the warlike spirit of italy. except a few wealthy proprietors, already very uninfluential, the most singular unanimity exists, both as to aim and to means. there is no shade of difference of opinion, either to what is to be done or how to do it. all are unanimous in their devotion to the union and independence of italy. with france or against france, by the sword, at all sacrifices, without compromise, they are bent on renewing the battle over and over again, with the confidence that, even without aid, they will triumph in the long run. the difficulty in italy is not how to make a revolution, but how to prevent its untimely outbreak; and still even in that respect there is such a complete discipline as the world never yet has seen. in rome, romagna, lombardy, venice, sicily, and all the middle italy, there exists an invisible government, whose influence is everywhere discernible. it has eyes and hands in all departments of public service, in all classes of society--it has its taxes voluntarily paid--its organized force, its police, its newspapers regularly printed and circulated, though the possession of a single copy would send the holder to the galleys. the officers of the existing government convey the missives of the invisible government, the diligences transport its agents. one line from one of these agents opens to you the galleries of art, on prohibited days--gives you the protection of uniformed officials. that this is the condition of all italy is shown on one side, in the fact that there the king of naples holds fettered in dungeons 25,000 patriots, and radetzky has sacrificed nearly 4,000 political martyrs on the scaffold; still the scaffold continues to be watered with blood, and still the dungeons receive new victims, evidently proving what spirit exists in the people of italy. and still americans doubt that we are on the eve of a terrible revolution; and they ask, what use can i make of any material aid? when italy is a barrel of powder, which the slightest spark may light. in respect to foreign rule, germany is more fortunate than italy. from the times of the treaty of verdun, when it separated from france and italy, through the long period of more than a thousand years, no foreign power ever has succeeded to rule over germany; such is the resistive power of the german people to guard its national existence. the tyrants who swayed over them were of their own blood. but to subdue german liberty, those tyrants were always anxious to introduce foreign institutions. first, they swept away the ancient germanic right, the common law so dear to the english and american, an eternal barrier against the encroachments of despotism, and substituted for it the iron rule of the imperial roman law. the rule of papal rome over the minds of germany crossed the mountains together with the roman law, and a spiritual dependency was to be established all over the world. the wings of the german eagle were bound, that it should not soar up to the sun of truth. but when the oppression became too severe, the people of germany rose against the power of rome;--not the princes,--though they too were oppressed: but the son of the miner of eisenach, the poor friar, martin luther, defied the pope on his throne, and at his bidding the people of germany proved, that it is strong enough to shake off oppression; that it is worthy, and that it knows how, to be free. and again, when the french, under their emperor, whose genius comprehended everything except freedom, extended their moral sway over germany, when the princes of germany thronged around the foreign despot, begging kingly crowns from the son of the corsican lawyer, with whom the emperors were happy to form matrimonial alliances--with the man who had no other ancestors than his genius,--then it was again the people, which did not join in the degradation of its rulers, but jealous to maintain their national independence, turned the foreigner out though his name was napoleon, and broke the yoke asunder, which weighed as heavily upon their princes as upon themselves. and still there are men in america who despair of the vitality of the germans, of their indomitable power to resist oppression, of their love of freedom, and of their devotion to it, proved by a glorious history of two thousand years. the german race is a power, the vitality and influence of which you can trace through the _world's_ history for two thousand years; you can trace it through the history of science and heroism, of industry, and of bold enterprizing spirit. your own country, your own national character, bear the mark of german vitality. other nations, now and then, were great by some great men--the german people was always great by itself. but the german princes cannot bear independence and liberty; they had rather themselves become slaves, the underlings of the czar, than allow that their people should enjoy some liberty. an alliance was therefore formed, which they blasphemously called the holy alliance,--with the avowed purpose to keep the people down. the great powers guaranteed to the smaller princes--whose name is legion, for they are many,--the power to fleece and torment their people, and promised every aid to them against the insurrection of those, who would find that for liberty's sake it is worth while to risk their lives and property. it was an alliance for the oppression of the nations, not for the maintenance of the princely prerogative. when the grand-duke of baden, in a fit of liberality, granted his people the liberty of the press, the emperor of austria and the king of prussia abolished the law, though it had been carried unanimously by the legislature of baden and sanctioned by the prince.--the holy alliance had guaranteed to the princes the power to oppress, but not the power to benefit their people. but though the great powers interfered often in the principalities and little kingdoms of germany, indeed as often as the spirit of liberty awoke, yet they themselves avoided every occasion which would have forced them to request the aid of their allies, and especially of russia. they knew too well, that to accept foreign aid against their own people, was nothing else than to lose independence, and was morally the same as to kneel down before the czar and to take the oath of allegiance. a government which needs foreign aid against its own people, avows that it cannot stand without foreign aid. take that foreign aid--interference!--away, and it falls. the dynasties of austria and prussia were aware of this. they therefore yielded, as often as their encroachments met a firm resistance from the people. when my nation so resolutely resisted in 1823 the attempt to abolish the constitution, prince metternich himself advised the emperor francis to yield, and even humbly to apologize to the diet of 1825. the king of prussia granted even a kind of constitution rather than claim the assistance of the czar. herein you may find the explanation of the fact that the continent of europe is not yet republican. the spirit of freedom, when roused by oppression, was lulled into sleep by constitutional concessions. the czar of russia was well aware, that this system of compromise prevents his intruding into the domestic concerns of europe, which would lead him to the sovereign mastership over all; he therefore did everything to push the sovereigns to extremities. but this did not succeed, until by a palace-revolution in vienna a weak and cruel youth was placed on the throne of austria, and a passionate woman got the reins of government in her hand, and an unprincipled, reckless adventurer was ready to carry out every imperial whim, regardless of the honour of his country and the interests of his master. russia at last got her aim. rather than acknowledge the rights of hungary, they bowed before the czar, and gave up the independence of the austrian throne; they became the underlings of a foreign power, rather than allow that one of the peoples of the european continent should be really free. since the fall of hungary, russia is the real sovereign of all germany; for the first time germany has a foreign master! and you believe that germany will bear that in the nineteenth century which it never yet has borne? bear that in fulness of age which it never bore in childhood? soon after, and through the fall of hungary, the pride of prussia was humiliated. austrian garrisons occupied hamburg; schleswig-holstein was abandoned, hessia was chastised, and all that is dear to germans purposely affronted. their dreams of greatness, their longing for unity, their aspirations of liberty, were trampled down into the dust, and ridicule was thrown upon all elevation of mind, upon all manifestation of patriotism. hassenburg, convicted of forgery by the prussian courts, became minister in hessia; the once outlawed schwarzenbeg, and bach, a renegade republican, ministers of austria. the peace of the graveyard, which tyrants, under the name of order, are trying to enforce upon the world, has for its guardians outlawed reprobates, forgers, and renegades. could you believe that with such elements the spirit of liberty can be crushed? tyrants know that to habituate nations to oppression, the moral feeling of the people has to be killed. but could you really believe that the moral feeling of such a people as the german, stamped in the civilization of which it was one of the generating elements, can be killed, or that it can bear for a long while such an outrage? do you think that the people which met the insolent bulls of the pope in rome by the reformation and the thirty years' war, and the numberless armies of napoleon by a general rising--that this people will tamely submit to the russian influence, more arrogant than the papal pretensions, more disastrous than the exactions of the french empire? they broke the power of rome and of paris; will they agree to be governed by st. petersburg? those who are accustomed to see in history only the princes, will say aye, but they forget that since the reformation it is no longer the princes who make the history, but the people; they see the tops of the trees are bent by the powerful northern hurricane, and they forget that the stem of the tree is unmoved. gentlemen, the german princes bow before the czar, but the german people will never bow before him. let me sum up the philosophy of the present condition of germany in these few words: 1848 and 1849 have proved that the little tyrants of germany cannot stand by themselves, but only by their reliance upon austria and prussia. these again cannot stand by themselves, but only by their reliance upon russia. take this reliance away, by maintaining the laws of nations against the principle of interference,--(for the joint powers of america and england can maintain them)--and all the despotic governments, reduced to stand by their own resources of power, must fall before the never yet subdued spirit of the people of germany, like rotten fruit touched by a gale. let me now speak about the condition of my own dear native land. i hope not to meet any contradiction when i say that no condition can and will endure, which is so bad, so insupportable, that, by trying to change it, a people can lose nothing, and may gain everything. no condition can and will endure, the maintenance of which is contrary to every interest of every class. a revolution on the contrary is unavoidable, when every interest of every class wishes and requires it. i will first speak of the lower, and still the most powerful of all, of the material interest. there are some countries, where, however insupportable the condition of the masses, still the government has an ally in the mighty and influential class of bankers, who lend their money to support despotism, and in those who have invested their fortunes in the shares of these loans, negotiated by bankers, who speculate on and with the fortunes of small capitalists. that class of men, partly tools of oppression, partly the fools of the tools, exists not in hungary. we have no such bankers in hungary, and but a very small inconsiderable number who have invested their fortunes in such loan-shares. and even the few who had been playing in the fatal loan-share game have withdrawn from it, at any price, because they feared to lose all. from that quarter therefore the house of austria has no ally in hungary. as to our former aristocracy, a class influential by its connections, and by its large landed property: you remember that, when we succeeded to abolish the feudal charges, and converted millions of our countrymen, of different religion and different language, out of leaseholders into free landed proprietors, we guaranteed an indemnification to the landowners for what they lost. from a farm of about thirty-five to fifty acres of land, the farmer had to work one hundred and two days a year for the landowner; to give him the ninth part of all his crops, half a dollar in ready money, besides particular fees for shopkeeping, brewery, mill, &c. we freed the people from all the encumbrances, and, thanks to god! that benefit never more can be torn from the people's hands. the aristocracy consented to it, because we had guaranteed full indemnification. the very material existence of this class of former landowners is depending on that indemnification, to defray their debts, (which they formerly had the habit wantonly to contract,) and to provide for the cultivation of their own large allodial property, which they formerly cultivated by the hands of their leaseholders, but now have to invest capital into. now this indemnification, amounting to one hundred millions of dollars, the house of austria never can realize. you know, with its centralized government, which is always very expensive, with its standing army of 600,000 men, the only support of its precarious existence, with its army of spies and secret police, with its system of corruption and robbery, with its fourteen hundred millions of debt, with its eternal deficit in its current expenditures, with its new loans to pay the interest of the old, and an unavoidable bankruptcy impending,--this indemnification austria never can pay to the former aristocracy of hungary. the only means to get this indemnification is the restoration of hungary to its independence by a new revolution. independent hungary can pay it, because it has no debts, will want no large standing armies, and will have a cheap administration, because not centralized, but municipal, the people governing itself in and through municipalities, the cheapest of all governments. hungary has already pointed out the fund, out of which that indemnification can and will be paid, without any imposition upon the people, or any loss to the commonwealth. hungary has large state lands, belonging to and administered by the commonwealth. i have mathematically proved that the landed property of the state, sold in small parcels to those who have yet no land, connected with a banking operation founded upon that property itself, to facilitate the payment of the price, is more than sufficient for that indemnification; besides, a small land tax (which the new owners of that immense property, divided into small farms, will have to pay, as other landed proprietors), will yield more revenue to the commonwealth than all the proceeds of domestic administration. this my proposition, having been submitted to the national assembly, was accepted and approved, and has attached to the revolution the numerous class of farm-labourers who have not yet their own farms, but who contemplated with the liveliest joy this benevolent provision, which austria can never execute; since, financially ruined as she is, she cannot be contented either with the tax revenue or the banking arrangement, to defray the indemnification; she sells the stock whenever she can find a man to buy it. but here is a remarkable fact, proving how little is the future of austria contemplated as sure even by its votaries. when any one is willing to sell landed property in hungary, foreign bankers, austrian capitalists buy it readily at an enormous price, because they know that private transactions will be respected by our revolution; but _from the government_, nobody buys a single acre of land, because every man knows that such a transaction must be considered void. nay more, not even as a gift is an estate accepted by any one from the present government. haynau himself was offered in reward a large landed property by the government; he did not accept it, but preferred a comparatively small sum of money, not amounting to one-tenth of the value of the offered land, and he bought from a private individual a landed property, for the money, because that, being a private transaction, is sure to stand: whereas in the future of the austrian government in hungary not even its haynaus have confidence. the manufacturing interests in hungary anxiously wish, and must wish, a revolution, because manufacturing industry is entirely ruined now by austria. all favour, encouragement, and aid, which the national government imparted to industry, is not only withdrawn, but replaced by the old system,--which is, neither to allow hungary free trade, so as to buy manufactured articles where they can be had in the best quality or at the cheapest price, nor to permit manufacturing at home; but to preserve hungary in the position of a colonial market--a condition always regarded as insupportable, and sufficient motive for a revolution, as you yourselves from your own history know. the commercial interest anxiously desire a revolution, because there exists, in fact, no active commerce in hungary, the hungarian commerce being degraded into a mere broker-ship of vienna. all those who have yet in their hands the hungarian bank notes issued by my government, must wish a revolution; because austria, alike foolish as criminal, has declared them to be without value--thus they cannot be restored to value but by a revolution. the amount of those bank notes in the hands of the people is yet about twenty millions of dollars. no menaces, no cruelty can induce the people to give it up to the usurper; they put it into bottles and bury it in the earth. they say: it is good money when kossuth comes home. but while no menaces of austria can induce the people to give up this treasure of our impending revolution, a single line of mine, sent home, is obeyed, and the money is treasured up where i have designated. do you now understand, gentlemen, by what motive i say that once at home in command--if once our struggle is commenced, i do not want your material aid, and neither wish nor would accept all your millions--but that i want your material aid to get home, and to get home _in such a way_ as will inspire confidence in my people, by seeing me bring home the only thing which it has not--arms! but i am asked, where will i land? that, of course, i will not say--perhaps directly at vienna, like a montgolfier, in a balloon; but one thing i may say, because that is no secret:--remember that all italy is a sea-coast, and that italy has the same enemy as hungary--that italy is the left wing of that army of which hungary is the right wing, and that in italy 40,000 hungarian soldiers exist, as also, in general, in the austrian army 140,000 hungarians. more i can, and will not say on the subject. but i will say that all the amount of taxation the people of hungary formerly had to pay was but four and a half million dollars, and now it has to pay sixty-five million dollars; that landowners offer their land to the government, to get rid of the land tax, which is larger than all the revenue; that we have raised 600,000 hundredweight of tobacco--now, the monopoly of tobacco being introduced, the people no longer smokes and has burnt its tobacco seed. we have raised 120 million gallons of wine. gentlemen, i come not to interfere with the domestic concerns of america. i have no opinion about the maine liquor-law. for myself i am very fond of water, but still may say it is my opinion, it will be many years before the maine liquor-law will pass through all europe. well, gentlemen, i was about to say, one half of the vineyards are cut down;--hundreds of thousands live upon horticulture and fruit cultivation; yet the trees are cut down to escape the heavy taxation laid upon them. the stamp tax is introduced, the most insupportable to freemen--village is divided from village, town from town, city from city, by custom-lines--the poor peasant woman, bringing a dozen of eggs to the market, has to pay the consumption-tax, before she is permitted to enter; and when she brings medicine home for her sick child she has again to pay before permitted to enter her home. and besides this material oppression, and the daily and nightly vexations connected with it,--the protestants deprived of the self-government of their church and school, for which they have thrice taken up arms victoriously in three centuries,--the roman catholics deprived of the security of their church property,--the people of every race deprived of its nationality, because there exists no public life wherein to exert it, no national existence, no constitution, no municipalities, no native law, no native officials, no security of person and of property, but arbitrary power, martial law, and the hangman and the jail,--and on the other side hungarian patriotism, hungarian honour, hungarian heroism, hungarian vitality, stamped in the vicissitudes of one thousand years, and _the consciousness that we have beaten austria_, when we had no army, no money, no friends, and the knowledge that now we have an army, and for home purposes have money in the safe-guarded bank notes, and have america for a friend; and in addition to all this, the confidence of my people in my exertions, and the knowledge of these exertions; of which my people is quite as well informed as yourselves, nay, more, because it sees and knows what i do at home, whereas you see only what i do here--well, if with all this you still doubt about the struggle in europe being nigh, and still despair of its chance of success, then god be merciful to my poor brains, i know not what to think. some here take me for a visionary. curious, indeed, if that man who, a poor son of the people, took the lead in abolishing feudal injustices a thousand years old, created a currency of millions in a moneyless nation, and suddenly organized armies out of untrained masses of civilians; directed a revolution so as to fix the attention of the whole world upon hungary, beat the old, well-provided power of austria, and crushed its future by his very fall, and forsaken, abandoned, in his very exile is feared by czars and emperors, and trusted by foreign nations as well as his own--if that man be a visionary, then for so much pride i may be excused that i would like to look face to face into the eyes of a practical man on earth. gentlemen, i had many things yet to say. the condition, change, and prospects of europe are not spoken of so easily, as you have seen, when only the condition of my own country is touched. i don't know that i shall succeed, but i will try to say something about turkey. turkey! which deserves your sympathy because it is the country of municipal institutions, the country of religious toleration. turkey, when she extended her sway over transylvania and half of hungary, never interfered with the way in which the inhabitants chose to govern themselves; she even allowed those who lived within her dominions to collect there the taxes voted by independent hungary, with the aim to make war against the porte. whilst in the other parts of hungary, protestantism was oppressed by the austrian policy, and the protestants several times compelled to take up arms for the defence of religious liberty in transylvania, under the sovereignty of the porte the unitarians got political rights, and protestantism grew up under the protecting wings of the ottoman power. the respect for municipal institutions is so deeply rooted in the minds of the turks, that at the time when they became masters of the danubian provinces of moldavia and wallachia, they voluntarily excluded themselves from all political rights in the newly acquired provinces; and up to the present day, they do not allow that a mosque should be built, or that a turk should dwell and own landed property across the danube. they do not interfere with the taxation or with the internal administration of these provinces; and the last organic law of the empire, the tanzimat, is nothing but the re-declaration of the rights of municipalities, guaranteeing them against the centralizing encroachment of the pashas. whilst czar nicholas is about to convert the protestant population of livonia and estland to the greek church by force and by alluring promises, the liberal sultan abdul medjid grants full religious liberty to all sects of protestantism. but we are accustomed to look upon turkey as upon a third-rate power, only because in 1828 it was defeated by russia. let us now see how the balance stood at that time, and how it stands now. in 1828 the turkish population was full of hatred on account of the extermination of the janissaries. the christian population were ready to rise against the government, on account of the events of the greek war. albania was in revolt, because it was opposed to the system of conscriptions for regular military service. anatolia was discontented on the same ground. mehemet ali possessed egypt, and paralyzed the action of the government in arabia and syria. servia had just laid down arms, but had not yet concluded peace. the danubian principalities, though unfavourable to russia, were not hearty in support of the porte, and remained apathetic under the occupation of russia. the revenue did not exceed 400,000,000 piastres (20,000,000 dollars), and was insufficient for a second campaign. the new army was not yet organized, and amounted only to 32,000 men, without tried generals. the fleet had been destroyed at navarino. the foreign diplomatists had left the empire, and the capital was exposed to an attack of the enemy. in such a position no european government could have risked a war. russia had just defeated persia, and by this victory got access to the asiatic provinces of the turkish empire; it had therefore to defend the frontiers on both sides. russia had not yet entered into circassia, and could therefore rally all her forces; she had not yet abolished the poland of 1815, and could leave it without garrisons; she had not yet roused the hatred or the jealousies of europe. she had engaged all the natural allies of the porte into a combination for rousing the populations of her enemy, and by her diplomacy she gained the power of bringing her fleet into the mediterranean, for blockading the ports of turkey; and navarino opened for her the black sea, where she had thirteen men-of-war. not disturbed by the porte, by circassia, by poland, by france, or by england, she had prepared two years for this war, whilst her enemy, passing through a terrible crisis, was without money, without an organized army, without a fleet, without other resources than the feeble mussulman population on the seat of war. twenty-four years have altered the balance.--turkey has now the enthusiastic support of her mussulman population. the christian population, with the only exception of bulgaria, partakes of this enthusiasm. all the warlike tribes, from albania to kurdistan, are now supporting the authority of the sultan. mehemet ali is gone; arabia and syria are again under the dominion of the sultan. servia has made peace, and has become the support of turkey, offering her, in case of a russian war, 80,000 men. the principalities have become the enemies of russia; they had too long to suffer from her oppression. the public revenue has doubled. turkey has organized a regular army of 200,000 men, equal to any other, and besides, the militia, she has distinguished generals--omer pasha, gruyon. her fleet is equal to the russian fleet in the black sea, and her steam-fleet superior to the russian. she has for allies all the people from the caucasus to the carpathians. the circassians, the tartars under emir mirza, the cossacks of the dobroja, by whom the electric shock is transmitted to poland and hungary, form an unbroken chain, by which the spark is carried into the heart of europe, where all the combustible elements wait for the moment of explosion. twenty-four years ago turkey was believed to be in a decaying state; it is now stronger than it has been for the last hundred years. russia, during this time, has been unable to overcome the resistance of circassia; and, cut off from her south-eastern provinces, she cannot attack turkey in the rear. the caucasian lines furnished her, in 1828, with 30,000 men; poland with 100,000; the two countries require now an army of observation and occupation of 200,000 men; the danubian principalities absorb again 50,000. the russian fleet remains as it was in 1828--thirteen men-of-war then, thirteen now: and whilst, in 1828, she had scarcely an enemy in europe, she has now scarcely one friend, except the kings. all her enemies, whom she has defeated one by one, have combined against her--poland, hungary, the danubian principalities, turkey, circassia. where is now the force of russia! does she not remind us of the golden image of nebuchadnezzar, standing on feet of clay? and yet, gentlemen, this russia can make doubtful the struggle in europe--not because powerful in arms, but because it stands ready to support tyrants, when nations are tired out in a struggle, or before they have time to make preparations for resistance: then only is russia a power to be feared. well, gentlemen, shall not america stand up, and with powerful voice forbid russia to interfere when nations have shaken off their domestic tyrants? gentlemen, remember that peter the czar left a last will and testament to the people, that russia must take constantinople. why? that russia might be a great power: and that it may be so constantinople is necessary, because no nation can be a great power which is not a maritime power. now see how turkey has grown in twenty-four years. the more russia delays, the stronger turkey becomes, and therefore is russia in haste to fulfil the destiny of being a maritime power. you can now see why is my fear, that this week, or this month, or this year, russia will attack turkey, and we shall not be entirely prepared: but though you do not give us "material aid," still we must rise when turkey is attacked, because we must not lose its 400,000 soldiers. the time draws nigh when you will see more the reason i have to hasten these preparations, that they may be complete, whenever through the death of nicholas or louis napoleon or a thousand other things,--most probably a war between russia and turkey,--we want to take time by the forelock. but, gentlemen, let me close. i am often told, let only the time come when the republican banner is unfurled in the old world, then we shall see what america will do. well, gentlemen, your aid may come too late to be rendered beneficial. remember 1848 and 1849. had the nations of europe not your sympathy? were your hearts less generous than now? it was not in time--it came after, not before. was your government not inclined to recognize nations? it sent mr. mann to hungary to _inquire_--would that when he inquired he had been authorized to _recognize_ our achieved independence! gentlemen, let me end. before all, let me thank you for your generous patience. this is my last meeting. whatever may be my fate, so much i can say, that the name of boston and massachusetts will remain a dear word and a dear name, not only to me but to my people for all time. and whatever my fate, i will, with the last breath of my life, raise the prayer to god that he may bless you, and bless your city and bless your country, and bless all your land, for all the coming time and to the end of time; that your freedom and prosperity may still grow and increase from day to day; and that one glory should be added to the glory which you already have: the glory that america, republican america, may unite with her other principles the principle of christian brotherly love among the family of nations; and so may she become the corner stone of liberty on earth! that is my farewell word to you. * * * * * xlvii.--pronouncement of all the states. [_albany, may 20th_.] on may 20th, kossuth was received in albany, the chief city of new york state, by governor hunt, in the name of the citizens. in reply to his address, kossuth then addressed the audience substantially as follows:-gentlemen,--more than five months have passed since my landing in new york. the novelty has long since subsided, and emotion has died away. the spell is broken which distance and misfortune cast around my name. the freshness of my very ideas is worn out. incessant toils spread a languor upon me, unpleasant to look upon. the skill of intrigues, aspersing me with calumny; wilful misrepresentations, pouring cold water upon generous sympathy; louis napoleon's momentary success, shaking the faith of cold politicians in the near impendency of a european struggle for liberty; and in addition to all this, the presidential election, absorbing public attention, and lowering every high aspiration into the narrow scope of party spirit, busy for party triumph; all these circumstances, and many besides too numerous to record, joined to make it _probable_ that the last days of my wanderings on american soil would be entirely different from those in which the hundred thousands of the "empire city,"[*] thundered up to the high heaven the cheers of their hurrahs, till they sounded like a defiance of a free people to the proud despots of the world. and yet, notwithstanding all these disadvantageous concurrencies, no change has taken place in the public spirit of america. i may have lost in your kind estimation of my humble self, but my cause has not lost. it is standing higher than ever it stood, and the future in your country's policy is ensured to it. [footnote *: new york.] gentlemen, present bounty will never weaken in my mind the thankful appreciation of former benefits. the generous manifestation of sympathy i met on my arrival, will always remain recorded with unfading gratitude in my heart; but no just man can feel offended when i say, that it is the manner of the "_farewell_" which decides upon the value of the "_welcome_." the result of my endeavours in america will not be measured by how i was received when i came, but by how i am treated when i leave. you know, "all's well that ends well," and to be well, things must end well. and being about to close my task in america, i cannot help to say, that the generous reception you have honoured me with, is doubly gratifying to my countrymen, who have watched with intense interest my progress in america--and doubly dear to my heart, because it is an evidence that the "_farewell_" given to the wandering exile's, course, confirms the expectations which the _"welcome"_ had roused. the warm reception albany has given me is like the point upon the letter _"i"_--it decides its meaning. the metropolis of the empire state gave abundantly the first flowers to the garland of america's sympathy for the condition of the old world. many a flower was added to it from many a place. wherever there is a people there was a new garden of sympathy: and wherever be the obligations i owe--and gladly own--to many a quarter of the united states, it is but a tribute due to justice publicly to avow, that _ohio_, with the bold resolution of its youthful strength, and _massachusetts_, with its consistent traditional energy, stood pre-eminent in the decided comprehension of america's destiny--and now the capitol of the empire state winds up the garland of america. _new york_ achieves what new york has begun, and thus, in leaving america, i have an answer to bring to europe's oppressed millions; and the answer is satisfactory, because i know what position america will take in the approaching crisis of the world. there are moments in the national life of a people, when to adopt a certain course becomes a natural necessity: and in such moments the people always gets instinctively conscious of the necessity, and answers it by adopting a direction spontaneously. that direction is decisive. it must be followed: and it is followed. pre-eminent patriots, joining in the people's instinct, may become either the interpreters or the executors of it; but they can neither impart their own direction to the people, nor alter that which public opinion has fixed. there are no other means to become a great man and a great patriot but by becoming the impersonification of the public sentiment, conscious of a surpassing public necessity. those who would endeavour to measure great things by a small individual scale, would always fall short in their calculations, and be left behind. there have been already several such moments in your country's brief but glorious history. i will only mention your glorious revolution of 1775. who made that revolution? the people; the unarmed heroes; the public opinion. if the question had been left to the decision of some few, though the best and the wisest of all, _they never would have advised a struggle_; but would have arranged matters diplomatically. you remember what anxious endeavours were made to prove that it was not the americans who fired the first shot, and how exculpations were sent to england with protestations of allegiance. all those little steps were vain. the people felt that it was time to become an independent nation; and feeling the necessity of the moment, it took a direction by itself, and made the revolution by itself. now-a-days it is of an equally pregnant necessity to the united states, to take the position of a power on earth. nobody can hereafter make the people believe that it is possible for america to remain unaffected by the condition of the old world,--to advise that the united states shall still abstain from mixing up their concerns with those of europe. the question to be decided is not whether america shall mix its concerns with those of the old world; because that is done. but the question is, whether the united states shall take a seat in the great amphictyonic council of the nations or not? and whether it shall be permitted to some crowned mortals to substitute the whims of their ambition in the place of international law;--to set up and to upset the balance of power as they please; and to regulate the common concerns of the world? and shall the united states accept whatever the czar may be pleased to decide about those common concerns? and shall the united states silently look on, however the czar may grow upon the ruins of common international law, to an all-overwhelming preponderance? that is the question. and that being the question, the people has answered it, and has pronounced about it in a manner too positive and too evident to be mistaken. it is already more than a year ago, that a distinguished american diplomatist publicly advertised his fellow-statesmen, "that it is the popular voice which will henceforth decide, without appeal, the great coming questions in your foreign policy, before the executive or congress can consider them." some have reproached me for unprecedented arrogance in trying to change the hereditary policy of the united states. but it is not so. i did but engage public attention to consider the exigencies of time and circumstances. the _finger of the clock_ only shows the hour, but makes not the time. and so did i. and allow me to say, that the coming of such a time was already anticipated by many of your own fellow-citizens, long before my humble name, or even the name of my country, was known in america. please to read the works of your own distinguished countryman wayland, who for more than thirty years was engaged at one of your high schools in the noble task of instilling sound political principles and enlightened patriotism into the heart and mind of your rising generation. you will find that already in 1825, after having spoken of the effects which this country might produce upon the politics of europe simply by her example, he thus proceeds:-"it is not impossible, however, that this country may be called to exert an influence still more direct on the destinies of men. should the rulers of europe make war upon the principles of our constitution, because its existence '_may operate as an example_,' or should a universal appeal be made to arms on the question of civil and religious liberty, it is manifest that we must take no secondary part in the controversy. the contest will involve the civilized world, and the blow will be struck which must decide the fate of men for centuries to come. then will the hour have arrived, when, uniting with herself the friends of freedom throughout the world, this country must breast herself to the shock of congregated nations. then will she need the wealth of her merchants, the powers of her warriors, and the sagacity of her statesmen. then on the altar of our god, let each one devote himself to the cause of the human race, and in the name of the lord of hosts go forth unto the battle! if need be, let our choicest blood flow freely, for life itself is valueless when such interests are at stake. then, when a world in arms is assembling to the conflict, may this country be found fighting in the vanguard for the liberties of man! god himself has summoned her to the contest, and she may not shrink back. for this hour may he by his grace prepare her!" thus wrote a learned american patriot as early as 1825; and he stands high even to-day in the estimation of his fellow-citizens; and no man ever charged him with being presumptuously arrogant for having shown such a perspective of coming necessities to america. his profound sagacity, pondering the logical issue of america's position, has penetrated into the hidden mystery of future events; and he has seen his country summoned, by god himself, to fight in the vanguard for mankind's civil and religious liberty. * * * * * xlviii.--sound and unsound commerce. _speech at buffalo.]_ on the 27th of may thirty thousand persons assembled in the park at buffalo, where kossuth had a magnificently enthusiastic reception. in the evening he was escorted to american hall by the mayor and others. for a portion only of his speech, in reply to the address of the hon. thomas love, can we here find room. the austrian minister (said he) has left the united states. proud austria has no longer a representative here, but down-trodden hungary has. the chevalier hulsemann has at last taken his departure, without even a chivalrous farewell; the secretary of state let him depart, without either alarm or regret. "all right!" gentlemen. two years ago there was much alarm in certain quarters, when the idea of such a rupture was first suggested. five months ago, when in one of my public addresses i wished a good journey to mr. hulsemann, some thought it rather presumptuous. but now that he has left, no man cares about it, scarcely any man takes notice of it. the time may yet come, when mr. hulsemann's masters will be fully aware, that what he is pleased to call _the kossuth episode_ is a serious drama--a drama in which, i trust, america will so act its part, that in the catastrophe justice and freedom shall triumph, violence and oppression shall fall. in my many speeches i have dwelt largely on the necessity that there is for america to act this part. i have not concealed that i am informed that many gentlemen of commerce are timid concerning it, and i have ventured to warn this young but great republic against _materialism_. but commerce involves this danger only when it is bent on instant profit at any price, and cares nothing for the future, nothing about that solidity of commercial relations on which permanent prosperity depends. adventurous _money-hunting_ is not commerce. commerce, republican commerce, raised single cities to the position of mighty powers on earth, and maintained them there for centuries. it is merchants whose names shine with immortal lustre from the glorious book of venice and genoa. commerce, as i understand it, does indeed apply its finger to the pulsations of present conjunctures, but not the less fixes its eye steadily on the future. its heart warms with noble patriotism and philanthropy, connecting individual profit with the development of natural resources and of national welfare; so that it spreads over the multitudes like a dew of heaven upon the earth, which blossoms through it with the flower of prosperity. _such_ a commercial spirit is a rich source of national happiness;--a guarantee of a country's future, a pillar of its power, a vehicle of civilization and convoyer of its principles. let me exemplify the difference between that noble beneficent spirit of commerce and the merely material money hunting, which falsely usurps the name of commerce. since the fatal arithmetical skill of rothschilds has found out how to gain millions by negotiating, out of the pockets of the public, loan after loan for the despots, to oppress the blind-folded nations, a sort of speculation has gained ground in the old world, worthy of the execration of humanity--i mean the speculation in _loan shares_;--the paper commerce called stock-jobbing. it is the shame-brand upon our century's brow, that such a commerce is become a political power on earth; and unscrupulous gamesters, speculating upon the ruin of their neighbours, hold the political thermometer of peace and war in their criminal hands. but it is not commerce--it deserves not the name of commerce--it does not contribute to public welfare--it does not augment the elements of public prosperity--it is but immoral gambling, which transfers an unproductive imaginary wealth from one hand into another, without augmenting the stock of national property:--that is not commerce: and _it is a degradation of the character of a nation, when the interests of that speculation have the slightest influence, or are made of the slightest consideration in the regulation of a country's policy_. such an example has its full weight with every other kind of mere money-hunting. it would be the greatest fault to regulate a country's policy according to the momentary interests of worshippers of the almighty dollar, who look but for a momentary profit, not caring for their fatherland and humanity--nothing for the principles--nothing about the tears and execration of millions, if only that condition remains intact which gives them individual profit--though that condition be the misfortune of a world. wherever that class of money-hunters is influential, there is a disease in the constitution of the community. it is vain to complain against the dangerous doctrines of socialism, so long as such money-hunters have any influence upon politics. the genus of rothschilds has done more for the spread of socialism than its most passionate sectarians. take on the other side the contrasting fact of the erie canal. i remember well that some were terrified, when in the councils of the empire state first was started the idea of that gigantic enterprise. and now when we hear that its nett proceeds amount to about three millions of dollars a year--when we see the almost unbroken line of boats on it--when we see buffalo becoming the heart of the west, the pulsation of which conveys the warm tide of life to the east; and by the communication of that artery, bringing the wonderful combination of the great western lakes into immediate connection with the atlantic, and through the atlantic with the old world--when we see buffalo, though at four hundred miles distance from the ocean, without a navigable river, living, acting, and operating like a seaport; and new york, situated on the shores of the atlantic, acting as if it were the metropolis of the west--when we consider how commerce becomes a magic wand, and transforms a world of wilderness into a garden of prosperity, and spreads the blessing of civilization where some years ago only the wild beasts and the indian roamed--then indeed we bow with reverential awe before the creating power of that commerce. we feel that the spirit of it is not a mere money-hunting, but a mighty instrumentality of providence for the moral and social benefit of the world; and we at once feel that the interests of such a commerce underlie so much the foundation of your country's future, that not only are they entitled to enter into the regulating considerations of your country's policy, but they must enter--they must have a decisive weight--and they will have it, whatever be the declamations of learned politicians who have so much looked to the authority of past times that they have found no time to see the imperious necessity of present exigencies. there are still some who advise you to follow the policy of separation from europe, which washington wisely advised in his days--wisely, because it was a necessity of those times. i have on many occasions adduced arguments against this, which to me are quite convincing. yet to some minds custom is of so much more power than argument, that i could not forbear to feel some uneasiness. but to-day, gentlemen, i no longer feel such uneasiness. i am entirely tranquillized. i want no more arguments, because i have the knowledge of facts, and to those who still advocate the policy of separatism i will say, "have you seen the city of buffalo? go! and look at it; when you have seen what buffalo is, consider what are the interests which created that city, and are personified by that city; then trace those interests back to new york, and from new york across the atlantic to the old world; and again, the returning interests of intercourse from the old world to new york and hence to buffalo, and from buffalo to the west, and then speak of the wisdom of separatism!"--what exists, exists. the facts will laugh at your reflections; they will tell you that, they cannot be undone. they will tell you that you are like endymion, whom diana made sleep until the twig on which he leaned his head had become a tree. they, will tell you that you could as well reduce buffalo to the log-house of middeau and lane; the mighty democrat the steam-engine to the horse on the back of which ezra metcalf brought the first public mail to the sixteen dwelling-houses, which some forty years ago composed all buffalo; you could as well reduce the erie canal to where it was when governor morris first mentioned the idea of tapping lake erie, or reduce the west to a desert, and western new york to the condition in which washington saw it when journeying towards the far west. all this you could as easily do as adhere any longer to the policy of separatism, or persuade the people of the united states not to take any part in the great political transactions of the old world. in that respect, gentlemen, i am entirely tranquillized; and tranquillized also i am in this respect, that it is impossible the active sympathies of your people should not side with freedom and right against oppression and violence. that will be done. i want no assurance about it,--being an imperative corollary of existing facts. public opinion is aroused to the appreciation of these facts and of their necessary exigencies. the only thing which i in that respect have yet to desire, is, to see the people of the united states persuaded that _it is time_ to prepare _already_ to meet those exigencies; and that it is wise not to let themselves be overtaken by impending events. [kossuth then proceeded to speak of subjects elsewhere very fully treated, and continued:] once more, i repeat, a _timely_ pronouncement of the united states would avert and prevent a second interference of russia. she must sharpen the fangs of her bear, and get a host of other beasts into her menagerie, before she will provoke the eagle of america. but beware, beware of loneliness. if your protest be delayed too long, you will have to fight alone against the world: while now, you will only have to watch, and others will fight. allow me to ask, are the united states interested in the laws of nations? can they permit any interpolation in the code of these laws without their consent? i am told by some that america had best not intermeddle with european politics, and that you have always avoided to meddle with them. but it is not so. those who make this assertion forget history--they forget that the united states have always claimed and asserted the right to have their competent weight and authority about the maritime law of nations--it was one of your presidents who held this emphatic language to the potentates of europe: "_we cannot consent to interpolations in the maritime code of nations at the mere will and pleasure of other governments--we deny the right of any such interpolation, to any one or all the nations of the earth without our consent--we claim to have a voice in all alterations of that code_." thus spoke the united states, at a time when they were not yet so powerful as they are now. and they thus spoke not for themselves only, but for all the nations on earth. and to what purpose did they speak these words so full of dignity and full of effect? for the maintenance of the laws of nations, or one part of them, the maritime code. dauntless and full of resolution, _they_ alone vindicated natural rights for every nation on earth, while europe sacrificed them. _they_ vindicated for every nation the proud motto they have emblazoned on their banner--"_free trade and sailors' rights_," and _free ships and free goods_: now who can any longer charge me that i advance a new policy, with that precedent before your eyes? would you be willing to resign, now that you are powerful, in respect to other parts of the laws of nations, that which you have boldly taken in respect to one part of them, when you were yet comparatively weak? or would you do less for the end than you have done for the means? the maritime part of the international code is no end, but only a means to an end. no ship takes sail for the purpose merely of sailing on the ocean, but for the purpose of arriving somewhere. the ocean is but the highway, and not the intended terminus. russian intervention in hungary has blocked up your terminus: and the maritime code would be of no avail, if the other provisions of international law are to be still blotted out from the code of nations by russian ambition. let the slightest eruption of the political volcano in europe take place, and you will see. you might have seen already during our past struggle, that your proud principle of "_free ships, free goods_" is a mere mockery unless the other parts of the laws of nations are also maintained. that is what i claim from the young and dauntless nation of america. i claim that she shall not abandon that position in the proud days of her power, which she so boldly took in the days of her feebleness. or are you already declining? has your prodigious prosperity weakened instead of strengthening your nation's nerves? so young! and a republic! and already declining! when its opposing principle, russia, rises so boldly and so high! oh, no! god forbid! that would be a sorrowful sight, fraught with the grief of centuries for all humanity! * * * * * xlix.--russia and the balance of power. [_syracuse_.] at syracuse, in new york state, kossuth was received with an address of the usual cordiality by the ex-mayor, harvey baldwin. of his ample reply a portion may here be presented to the reader. after alluding to dionysius and timoleon, he came back to the subject of russian interference in hungary, and declared that he would not appeal to their passions, but to their calm reason, although he approved of excitement in a good cause, and at any rate trusted that truth and hope would never be out of fashion at syracuse. he continued:-gentlemen, as the destination of laws in a well-regulated community is to uphold right, justice, and security of every individual, rich or poor, powerful or weak, and to protect his life against violence and his property against the encroachments of fraud and crime--so the destination of the laws of _nations_ is to secure the independence even of the smallest states, from the encroachments of the most powerful ones. force will prevail instead of right, so long as _all_ independent nations do not unite for the maintenance of those laws upon which the security of all nations rests. i say _all_ nations, because weakness is always comparative, not absolute. a combination of several leagued powers can reduce to the condition of comparative weakness even the strongest power on earth. without the law of nations there is therefore no security for nations. but the european powers have long ago substituted for the rule of justice the so-called _balancing system_--that is to say, the political balance of power among nations. that system is iniquitous, for it is founded, not upon the national _right_ even of the smallest nation to be maintained in its independence, but upon the natural jealousy of the great powers. with this system the independence of the smallest states is not sure by right and by law, but only depends on the consideration that the absorption of such smaller states might aggrandize one of the great powers too much. in this system humanity is taken for nothing--the mutual jealousy of the powerful is all, and the implicit guarantee for the security of the weaker ceases, wherever the powerful can devise a plan of spoliation which leaves the relative forces of the spoliators the same as before. it is thus the world has seen the partition of poland--that most iniquitous--most guilty spoliation ever witnessed. the balancing system would have protected poland from absorption by _one_ power, but it has not protected it from partition between these rival powers. formerly, separate leagues between several states have been as a protecting barrier against the ambition of a single powerful oppressor. in the case of poland, the world saw with consternation a confederacy of great powers formed to perpetrate those very acts of spoliation which hitherto had been prevented by similar means. i therefore am certainly no advocate of this false system of political balance of power, and i believe the time will come when that idol will be thrown down from the place which it usurps, and law and right will be restored to their sovereign sway. but still i may say, it is an imperious necessity for all the world in general, as also for the united states, that something should be done to prevent the measureless territorial aggrandizement of one single power, chiefly when that power is the mighty antagonist of your own republic, as indeed russia is. i have on many occasions spoken of the necessary antagonism between despotic russia and republican america. allow me here to recapitulate some facts concerning russia. no man familiar with the history of the last hundred years is ignorant that the czars of russia take it for their destiny to rule the world. it is their hereditary policy, in which they are brought up from generation to generation, till that infatuation becomes a point of their character. to come to that aim--russian preponderance steps forth alike with protocols, with emissaries, and with war--in two directions westward and eastward, against europe and against asia. as to europe, after having completed her arrondisement on the baltic--her earnest aim is partly direct conquest, and partly sovereign preponderance. direct conquest, so far as the sclave race is spread; which the czars desire to unite under their despotic sceptre. to attain that end, the house of romanoff has started the idea of pansclavism, the idea of union of the sclavish nationality under russian protectorate.--protectorate is always the first step which russia takes when desiring to conquer. she has styled that ambitious design the regeneration of the sclave nationality; and to blindfold those deluded nations that they may not see that without independence and freedom no nationality exists, she has flattered their ambition with the prospect of dominion over the world. the latin race had its turn, and the german race had, and now it is the sclave race which is called to rule and master the world. such was the satanic temptation of pride, by which russia advanced in that ambitious scheme. i will not now speak of the mischief she has succeeded to do in that respect: i will only mark the fact that the ambition of russia aims at the direct dominion of europe, so far as it is inhabited by the sclave race. the slightest knowledge of geography is sufficient to make it understood that this would be such an accession to the power of russia, that, were they united under one man's despotic will, the independence of the rest of europe, should even russia prudently decline a direct conquest of it, would be but a mockery. the czar would be omnipotent over it, as indeed he is near to be already, at least on the continent. yet, without the conquest of constantinople, russia could never carry the idea of pansclavism: for in european turkey a vast stock of the sclavonic race dwells, from bulgaria over servia and bosnia down to montenegro, and across through rumelia. moreover, the conquest of constantinople is the hereditary leading idea of russian policy. peter, called the great, the founder of the russian empire, in making it from a half-asiatic a european state, bequeathed this policy as a sacred legacy to all his posterity, in his political testament, which is the magna charta of russian power and despotism. all his successors have energetically followed that inherited direction. alexander movingly avowed that constantinople _is the key to his own house_, and his brother did and does more than all his predecessors to get that key. when the empress catharine visited the recently conquered krimea, potemkin raised to her honour a triumphal arch, with the motto--"hereby is the road to constantinople." czar nicholas has since learned that it is by vienna, rather. russia therefore decided to get rid of this obstacle, and to convert it out of an obstacle into a tool. a direct conquest would have been dangerous, because it would have met the opposition of all europe. russia therefore tried it first by monetary influence, and had pretty well advanced in it. metternich himself was a pensioner to russia. but the watchful, independent spirit of constitutional hungary still hindered the practical result of that bribery. and, mark well, gentlemen, in consequence of the geographical situation of her dominions, and being also sovereigns of hungary, it was chiefly the house of austria which was considered to be and cherished as the great bulwark against russia--charged especially with a jealous guardianship of turkish rights. and indeed had the house of austria comprehended the conditions of her existence, attached hungary to herself by respecting her independence and her constitutional rights, and developed the power of her hereditary dominions, and placed herself upon a constitutional basis, she could have maintained her respectable position of guardianship for centuries. russia was aware of that fact. it is the intrigue of russia, which by money and emissaries for years before infused the notion of pansclavism among the bohemians, poles, croats, serbs, under the crown of austria, equally as among the sclave population of turkey; which encouraged austria to attack hungary, by promising her aid in case of need. if austria succeeded, the constitutional life of hungary, in many ways so offensive to russia, was overthrown: if austria failed, she became a dependency of russia. and by the unwarrantable carelessness of some powers, the complicity of others, the latter alternative is achieved. austria, who was to have _balanced_ russia, is thrown into her scale: instead of being a barrier, she is her vanguard, and her tool--her high road to constantinople, her auxiliary army to flank it. it would be not without interest to sketch the history of russia step by step, advancing towards that aim by war and by emissaries, and by diplomatic corruption and corrupted diplomacy, from the time of mahomet baltadji, of cursed memory, through all subsequent wars--at the treaties of kutsuk kaynardje, balta liman, jassy, bucharest, ackierman, adrianople, unkhiar iskelessi, down to the treaty as to the dardanelles and the bosphorus, and to the treaty of commerce which made two-thirds of constantinople itself in their daily bread dependent upon russian wheat, to the amount of thirty-five millions of piastres a year, while turkish wheat was rotting in the stores of asia minor. by each of these treaties russia advanced its frontiers, and pressed constantinople more closely within its iron grasp; with such perseverant consistency pursuing her aim, that even in other political transactions, apparently unconnected with turkey, it was constantly this which she kept in view. as for instance, at the conference of tilsit, when she surrendered continental europe to the momentary domains of napoleon, provided turkey were consigned to her. and still she did not succeed--and still stamboul stands a barrier to her dominion over the world. and why did she not succeed? because the european powers, conscious of the fact that the conquest of constantinople involves their own submission to russia, have in the last instant always prevented it, by uniting to treat the eastern question as one of life and death for their own independence. the whole anglo-saxon race are bound by every consideration of policy to check the ambitious encroachments of russia. it is not in europe only, but in asia, that you meet her. she knows that her dominion over the world must be short, while the anglo-saxon race bold a mighty empire in india. moreover, you yourselves, by the extension of your territory to the pacific ocean, are drawn by a thousand natural ties of activity to asia. your expedition to japan has a world of meaning in it. great powers _must_ have broad views in their policy: you cannot contain your activity, nor therefore your policy, within a domestic circle of your own. you are for the world what germany is for europe. as without the freedom of hungary, europe cannot _become_ free, so without the freedom of germany, europe cannot _remain_ free; for germany is the heart of europe. you, by having extended your dominion to the pacific, become the heart of the world. you are brought into the compass of russian hatred and russian ambition. either you or russia must fall. the balance of power, and thereby the independence of the world, has been overthrown by the connivance of the great powers at the overthrow of hungary; and it can only be restored by the restoration of hungary. as for austria, she never more can be restored--she is not only doomed, she is dead. no skill, no tending can revive her. having previously broken every tie of affection and of allegiance, she cannot maintain even a vegetable life, but by russian aid. let the reliance upon that aid relax, and there is no power on earth which could prevent the nations who groan under her oppressive and degrading tyranny from shattering to pieces the rotten building of her criminal existence. and as to my nation, i declare solemnly, that should we be left forsaken and alone to fight once more the battle of deliverance for the world, and should we in consequence of it fail in that honourable strife, we will rather choose to be russians than subject to the house of austria--rather submit to open, manly force of the czar, than to the heart-revolting perjury of the hapsburg--rather be ruled directly by the master, than submit to the shame of being ruled by his underlings. the fetters of force may be broken once, but the affection of a morally offended people to a perjurious dynasty can never be restored. russia we hate with inconceivable hatred, but the house of hapsburg we hate and we despise. i have been often asked, what may be, amidst the present conjunctures, an opportunity to renew our struggle for liberty? and i have answered that the very oppression of our country, the heroism of my people, our resolute will, and the intolerable condition of the european continent, is an opportunity in itself; but if too cautious men, having too little faith in the destiny of mankind, desire yet another opportunity, there is the prospect of a war between turkey and russia. this is a fatality, pointed out by the situation of russia, and by the pressing motives, heaped up since the time of peter the great: and russia will hasten to try the decisive blow, since she knows that turkey becomes more powerful every day. now, gentlemen, that will be an imperious opportunity to raise once more the standard of freedom in hungary; and, so may god bless us, we are prepared for it. we cannot allow that our natural ally, turkey, be flanked from the frontiers of hungary at the order of the czar. turkey, by curious change of circumstances, having become necessary to european freedom and civilization, will find the kindred race of the magyars to aid her, and by aiding her, to save the world. the only question is, will the united states remain indifferent at the overthrow of the balance of power on earth? no, they will not, they cannot remain indifferent. their position on the coast of the pacific answers "no." their republican principle answers "no." the voice of the people, clustering in thundering manifestations around my own humble self, answer "no." you yourself, sir, in the name of the people of syracuse, which is but one tone in the mighty harmony of all the people's voice, have told me "no." before these assurances, and upon the conditions of your destiny, i rely; and i venture humbly to advise you to strengthen your fleet in the mediterranean. sir, look for a port of your own, not depending upon the smiles of petty italian despots, but one where the stripes and stars of america will be able to protect the principles of free ships, free goods. determine the character of your country's future administration from a broad american view, and not from any petty considerations of small party follies. with these humble suggestions i cordially thank you for your sympathy, and bid you an affectionate farewell! * * * * * l.--retrospect and prospect. [_utica._] at utica, in new york state, the elegant saloon of the museum was arranged for kossuth's reception: and the hon. w. bacon made a powerful address to him. kossuth in the course of his reply, said:-ladies and gentlemen,--the history and the institutions of the united states were not only the favourite study of my life, from my early youth, strengthening my conviction that with centralization and with parliamentary omnipotence, which absorb all independence of municipal life, there is no practical freedom possible:--but the history and institutions of the united states exerted also a real influence upon the resolution of my people to resist oppression, and not to shrink before the dangers and sacrifices of a terrible conflict. never yet was there a people against which all the arts of hell had been combined worse than against the people of hungary in 1848. neither dreaming to attack any, nor suspecting to be attacked, never yet was a people less prepared for a war of defence, or more surprised by the danger than my country was. in those frightful days, when many of the stoutest hearts prepared mourningly to submit to the imperious necessity, i called hungary to arms; and while on the one side i pronounced a curse against those who would forsake the fatherland, and were willing to bow cowardlike before a sacrilegious violence, and accept the degradation of servitude,--on the other side, in order to cheer up the manly resolution of my countrymen, i pointed to the heart-raising example of your history. and that history became the guiding star to us, from the lustre of which we have drawn self-reliance and resolution to bear up against all danger and all adversities. but while we on our part readily yielded to the heart-ennobling influence of your history, we were disappointed in some expectations which we derived from it. we saw that you were not forsaken in the hour of need; yet your grievances were by far less heart-stirring than ours, and should _you_ have failed in the noble enterprize of independence, such a failure, at that time, would by no means have teemed with such immediate results of positive mischiefs to the world outside of you, as every considerate mind might have foreseen from _our_ fall. i therefore confess that i trusted to that instruction also of your history, and hoped that should we prove worthy of the attention of the world, that attention would not be restricted to a mere looking at our contest with barren sympathies. but allow me to mention that it was not from america alone that i hoped our struggle would not be regarded with indifference: the example of former political transactions in europe entitled me to just expectations from other quarters also in that respect. when greece heroically rose to assert its independence, great britain, france, and even russia herself, interposed together to pacify the two contending parties, on the basis of the establishment of an independent greece. and so very anxious were those great powers to stop the effusion of blood, that they solemnly declared they would insist upon the pacification, should even the conflicting parties decline to consent to the proposed arrangements. and thus greece took its seat among the independent states, though that was possible only by reducing the territory of the ottoman empire, the integrity of which was considered essential to the equilibrium of political power on earth. besides, what were those powers which interposed their mediation in favour of bleeding greece? it was russia, despotical as she is: it was legitimist france, then scarcely to be called constitutional; for it was before the revolution of 1830: and it was the ministry of great britain, then, if i am not mistaken, a tory one. now was i not entitled with this precedent before my eyes, to hope that the bloody struggle in hungary would not be regarded with indifference? we had not risen from any reckless excitement to assert new rights, or to experiment on new theories; we should have been contented to keep what we lawfully possessed. it was not we who broke the peace; we were assailed with a perjury more sacrilegious than the world has ever seen:--we merely took up arms to defend ourselves against national extermination, against the nameless cruelties inflicted upon our people,--men, women, children,--by fire, murder, war, and royal perjury. and besides, when we took up arms in legitimate defence, it so happened that in france there was a republic established which proclaimed the principle of universal fraternity; and there was in england a ministry claiming to be liberal, which on a former occasion had solemnly vouched its word to the british parliament, that _constitutional independence of any country, great or small, would never be a matter of indifference to the english government;_ adding emphatically, that _whoever might be in office, conducting the affairs of great britain, he would not perform his duty if he were inattentive to the interests of such states._ am i to blame for having thought that there is and should be morality in politics? and besides, there was republican america, quite in another shape than she was twenty years before, at the time of the war of independence in greece. then she had not yet extended her sway to the pacific, and was not yet exposed to be so much affected by the political issues of europe and asia as she now is: then she had not yet a population of more than twenty millions, who now are in the necessity to claim the position of a power on earth: then she was indeed a new world teeming with the mysteries of the future, but yet was far from being what she is to-day; nay, even the erie canal, the great artery which now acts as a miraculous link between europe and the interior of your republic, was only about to be completed at the time. and still what mighty sympathy! a sympathy warm in expression, and not barren in facts, thrilled through all america, much like that which i now meet, and pervaded even your _national_ councils:--would i were entitled to say, much like as now! although the question of greece was of course worthy of all interest (as the cause of liberty always and everywhere is), yet it was only an isolated cause, and by no means of such surpassing influence upon the condition of the world as the cause of hungary was, and is. and yet i was disappointed in the expectation which i derived from your own history, that a just cause will find supporters and never will be forsaken by all. oh, we were forsaken, gentlemen! we were forsaken even at the crisis, when, single-handed, we had defeated our cruel enemy. and russia, that personification of despotism, stepped in with its iron weight, tearing to pieces the law of nations, and overthrowing upon our ruins the balance of power on earth. that russia, if invited, would snatch at the opportunity to gain preponderance amongst the powers on earth--of this i entertained not the slightest doubt; but i must confess, i did not believe either that austria would claim, or that the other powers of the earth, and chiefly great britain and america, would permit the intervention of russia. i could not believe that austria would resort to this desperate remedy, because (and it is a remarkable circumstance which i mention now for the first time) it was austria which but a few years before, when, in the transactions with turkey, the question of foreign interference for the maintenance of the integrity of the turkish empire was agitated in the councils of the world (and from which you of course were excluded, as to the present day you always yet have been, as if you were nothing but a patch of earth); yes, it was austria, which objecting that the guarantee of interference should be even claimed, pronounced in a solemn diplomatic note these memorable words:-_"a state ought never to accept, and still less request, of another state, a service for which it is unable to offer in return a strict reciprocity; else by accepting such favour she loses the flower of her own independence--a state accepting such a favour becomes a mediatized state: it makes an act of submission to the will of the state which takes the charge of its defence; this state becomes a protector, and to be dependent upon a protector is insupportable."_ thus spoke austria. how then could i imagine that the same austria which thus spoke would accept the degradation of russian interference? and should even the house of austria, ruled by a guilty woman, under the name of a witless, cruel child, be willing thus to ruin itself; how could i imagine that england, that america, that the world, would allow such a preponderance to russia as makes her almost the mistress over the world; at least opens the way to become such? no, that indeed i could not imagine. and still it was done. we fell, not "unwept, unhonoured, and unsung," but still we fell. well: sad though be our fate, it is but a trial, and no death. perhaps it was necessary that the destinies of mankind should be fulfilled. i have an unbroken faith in him, the heavenly father of all; the heart of mortal men may break, but what he does, that is well done. the ways of providence are mysterious. the car of destiny goes on unrestrained, and the weight of its wheels often crushes the happiness of generations; floods of tears and of blood often mark its track. mankind looks up to heaven, and while measuring eternity with the rule of the passing moment, sometimes despairs of the future, and believes the sun of freedom sunk for ever! it is a delusion: it is the folly of anxiety! night is the darkest before dawn, and the misfortune of the moment often leads to the happiness of eternity. yes, gentlemen! the ways of providence are miraculous. let me cast a look backwards into the last struggles for freedom in europe, that their history may become the book of future, and that, when we perceive the salutary action of providence even in our misfortunes, we may be strengthened in our faith in the future freedom, and that you may see that for us, down-trodden but not broken, there is full reason to pursue our way, not only with the resoluteness of duty, but also with the cheerfulness of a sure success, courageous as strength, untired as perseverance, unshaken as religious faith, self-sacrificing as maternal love, cautious as wisdom, but resolute as desperation itself. but where is the action of providence visible in the failure of 1848? is your question. gentlemen, i will tell you. the continent of europe was afflicted with three diseases in 1848--monarchical inclination, centralization, and the antagonism of nationalities. with such elements and in such direction, deception was unavoidable, lasting liberty was not to be achieved. it was the lot of the peoples to be freed from these diseases, because god had designed the peoples to freedom and not to deception; therefore the revolution of 1848 had to fail, but it was still not a mere accident in history; it was a necessary step in the development of mankind's destiny, and it will shine for ever in history as a glorious preparation for the ultimate triumph of liberty, to carry which a positive, practical direction is necessary. and that now exists. france, germany, and italy are no more to fight for the deception of monarchical principles, not for the triumph of dynasties, but for republics. hungary took this direction already in 1849, by dethroning the hapsburgs. france, germany, and italy will not follow in the track of centralization. hungary never followed it. and the governments may ally themselves for the oppression of the world's liberty;--they have already allied themselves--but nations will no more rise in arms against one another. they will rise, not to dominate, but to be independent and free. instead of the antagonism of nationalities, it is now the idea of the solidarity and fraternity of nations, which is become the character of our times. and this is to be the source of our success in future; this explains the fear of the tyrants which manifests itself in such blind rage. this is the direction which i pursue; this is the secret of the sympathy of the people, unparalleled yet in history, which i met in both hemispheres, and of the coalition of despots, aristocrats, and ambitious intriguers, to persecute me. i hope, gentlemen, with these considerations before your eyes, you will not share in the opinions of those who despair of the cause of freedom in europe, because the revolution of 1848 has failed. * * * * * li.--the triple bond. [_address before the german citizens of new york_.] at the broadway tabernacle, on wednesday evening, kossuth delivered a farewell address, before the german citizens of new york. it was spoken in the german language, and was received with the hearty plaudits of an immense assemblage. a small portion only of it can here find place. dear friends,--allow me to address you with this sweet name of brotherly love, hallowed by deep feeling, by the power of principles, and by the combination of circumstances,--but likewise weighty in regard to the determination linked to it in my grateful heart, in life as in death, to serve the cause faithfully which you honour by such generously noble sympathy. to me this moment is one of solemn importance. i stand at the close of my wanderings in america. my words are those of farewell. in these six months i have been enriched by many an experience. i had much to unlearn, but i have likewise learnt much. whatever be the result of my exertions, so much is sure, that they have linked more closely the hearts of the germans and hungarians, and have matured the instinct of solidarity into self-conscious conviction. this result alone is worth a warm utterance of thanks; it will heavily weigh in the future of the world. and this result, dear friends, is it not achieved? the hearts of the german and the hungarian are linked more closely; they throb like the hearts of twins which have rested under the same mother's breast; they throb like the hearts of brothers, who, hand in hand, attain the baptism of blood; they throb like the hearts of two comrades, on the eve of the battle, decided to hold together like the blade and the handle. the echo of this harmony of german song fills yet the air of this hall; it thrills yet through the soul of the ladies and through the bosom of the resolute men. let the word harmony between the germans and hungarians be the consecration of the present moment, which melts together our feelings, in order that, self-conscious of the sublime aim, which unites our nations and us all in brotherhood, we may unite in intention, unite in resolution, unite in endurance, unite in activity for the aim which fills your souls and mine. and what is this aim which thrills through our bosoms like a magnetic current? the aim is the solidarity and independence of nations;--the freedom of our people--their liberation from the yoke of tyranny. with this aim before my eyes and decided resolution in my heart, i feel here amidst you as werner stauffacher felt, when, in the hour of the night, on the rüttli, god above him and the sword in his hand, he made the covenant with his two friends against tyrannical austria. let this meeting here become the symbol of a similar covenant; three[*] were the men who made it, and switzerland became free. let us three nations make a similar covenant, and the world becomes free. germany, hungary, and italy! hurrah for the new rüttli-covenant! god increase the number of them, as he increased the number of those on the rüttli, and our triune band, strong in itself, will readily greet every one, and meet him as a brother, having the same rights in the great council of the amphictyons, where the nations will give their verdict against tyrants and tyranny, on the battle-field, with the thunder of the cannons and the clashing of swords; and will put the independence of every nation under the common guarantee of all, in order that every one of them may regulate her own domestic affairs, without foreign interference, and every people may govern itself, not acknowledging any master but the almighty. they, will increase the members of this covenant, but germany, hungary, and italy, they are neighbours, and have the same enemy. hurrah! for the new covenant of stauffacher! [footnote *: werner stauffacher, walter fürst, and arnold of the melchthal; november 11th, 1307.] now, by the god who led my people from the prairies of far asia to the banks of the danube--of the danube, whose waves have brought religion, science, and civilization from germany to us, and in whose waves the tears of germany and hungary are mingled; by the god who led us, when on the soil watered by our blood we were the bulwark of christendom; by the god who gave strength to our arm in the struggle for freedom, until our oppressor, this godless house, which weighed so heavily on the liberties of germany for centuries, was humbled, and sunk down to be the underling of the muscovite czar; by the ties of common oppression which tortures our nation--by the ties of the same love of liberty, and of the same hatred of tyranny which boils in the veins of our people--by the remembrance of the day[*] when the germans of vienna rose to bar the way toward hungary against the hirelings of despotism--and by the blood which flowed on the plain of schwechat[**] from hungarian hearts for the deliverance of vienna; by the almighty eye which watches the fate of mankind--by all these, i pledge myself, i pledge that the people of hungary will keep this covenant honestly, faithfully, and truly, in life and death. [footnote *: october 5th, 1848] [footnote **: october 30th, 1848] i tender the brother-hand of hungary to the german people, because i am convinced that it is essentially necessary for the freedom and independence of my country. destined as we are to be the vanguard of freedom, i know well that as long as germany remains enslaved, even the victory of our liberty would remain insecure; as long as germany remains an army, whose power is wielded by the criminal hand of the house of hapsburg; as long as russia has nothing to fear from germany, because the two masters of germany are but underlings of russia--obeying the command of their master, because he maintains them on their tottering thrones against their own people; so long russia will always have the arrogance to throw her despotic sword into the scale against the freedom of the world. i am not the first who say it, that the freedom of germany is the condition of the liberty of the world; history tells it with a thousand tongues, every statesman acknowledges it, and all the despots know it. twenty years past, when the german princes recovered from the stunning blow of the july revolution, by finding out that louis philippe was not in earnest with his phrases of liberty, when, in the year 1832, they united to enslave the german people, and to retract the concessions which they had given in the fright of their hearts; when they curtailed all the constitutional guarantees, then henry lytton bulwer, the same who was ambassador in washington during the last year, rose in the english parliament, and claimed that england should not permit the liberty and independence of the german people to be crushed. he claimed the attention of the world to the great truths that _the peace of europe cannot be secured without a strong germany, and that germany cannot be strong without freedom._ a free germany is a bulwark against the encroachments of france and the arrogance of russia. germany enslaved, is either the prey of the former or the tool of the other. his prophecy is fulfilled; germany is become half the prey and wholly the tool of russia. who then can calculate on security and peace and freedom, as long as germany is thus enslaved. you see, dear friends, that the brotherly union with germany must be of sacred importance to me, and that my heart must beat as fervently for germany's freedom, as for that of my own people. therefore, i necessarily wished to bequeath the care of the seed which i have sown, to men urged to this task of love, not only by enlightened american patriotism--not only by the conscience of right and duty and prudence, but likewise especially by love for their old german fatherland. and do i not express only the sentiments of your own hearts, when i say, "the german may wander from his father's house, and may build for himself a new home in a distant country, yet he ever loves truly and faithfully his own old german fatherland"? i request you to exert your influence, that the idea of the solidarity of the struggle for european liberty may be well understood, and that preparations be made to support the revolution, whenever it breaks out. there is nothing more dangerous than to say: "the hungarian, the italian, or the german fights; let us see whether he succeeds; if he succeeds, we too will try the same." by the isolation of the nations the combined despots become victorious. let everybody support liberty, wherever she struggles. but, on the other side, the forces of the revolution cannot so pledge and tie themselves, as to be thrown into the abyss by every ill-combined premature outbreak. _not an_ "emeute," _but a_ revolution _is our aim_; and therefore the leaders of the movement of the different nations must combine either in a simultaneous outbreak, or to mutual support; and in this combination there must be absolute freedom and equality. there are persons in this country who did me the honour to mention that i would lead the german movement. no! gentlemen; that would be a presumptuous arrogance, even if it were practical, which it is not. this idea itself is the most antagonistical to my principles. no!--no! no foreign interference with the domestic affairs of a nation. i will not bear it in hungary, nor obtrude it abroad. full independence is my watchword. but you will ask who are, or who were, the leaders of germany, with whom i still combine? the question is easily answered; you will acknowledge them from their works. whoever comes to tender me his hand as a confederate, i do not ask who he is, where he comes from?--but i ask, "what do you weigh? what power do you command? what forces have you organized? or what are your prospects or means of organization?" and then i inquire into the truth myself. i judge the vitality of the intention, and accept or decline the proffered brotherly alliance of mutual support. this is my way. i do not think that germany will ever combine under the leadership of one man; but there are many germans in the different parts of germany who enjoy the confidence of their countrymen, and have a leading influence. every one of these can act in his sphere. i, my friends, will be always ready to combine with every one who does, and who has some forces to tender to the league. i do not care for names, for petty party disputes, or for those which belong to the domestic questions. [kossuth proceeded, in assent to a special request, to give his advice as to the method of proceeding suitable to the german voters in america; and closed by saying:] those are the principles, my dear friends, which should lead you, according to my humble opinion, in the present crisis. and if you take into kind consideration my bequest, and exert your influence and active aid on behalf of the movement for freedom in europe, i can but assure you, for my grateful farewell, that there are hundreds of thousands in europe who take those words for their device, which the other day, the german singers sang, as if from the depth of my heart. "and never shall rest the shield and the spear, till destroyed we see, and laid in the dust, the enemies all." may god help me! this is my oath, and this oath my farewell! * * * * * lii.--the future of nations. [_a lecture in new york_.] the following lecture was delivered at the broadway tabernacle by request of a large number of ladies and gentlemen of new york, for the purpose of obtaining the means necessary to secure to the exiled family of kossuth, consisting of his aged mother, his sisters and their children, an establishment by which they might earn an independent livelihood. the new york 'evening post' says of the lecture:-"kossuth appears nowhere greater than in this able discourse. his comprehensive politics, his beautiful sympathies, his power over language, his poetic imagination, his magnetic and melting earnestness of purpose, are blended with that depth of religious feeling which gives to his character as a patriot the sanctity and unction of the prophet. his moral and intellectual faculties are shown in harmony, working out the great and beneficent purposes of his commanding will. "it would be difficult to select any portion of this speech as better than another, and we therefore commend the whole to the reader's careful examination." ladies and gentlemen,--during six months i appeared many times before the tribunal of public opinion in america. this evening i appear before you in the capacity of a working man. my aged mother, tried by more sufferings than any living being on earth, and my three sisters, one of them a widow with two fatherless orphans, together a homeless family of fourteen unfortunate souls, have been driven by the austrian tyrant from their home, that golgotha of murdered right, that land of the oppressed, but also of undesponding braves, and the land of approaching revenge. when russian violence, aided by domestic treason, succeeded to accomplish what austrian perjury could not achieve, and i with bleeding heart went into exile, my mother and all my sisters were imprisoned by austria; but it having been my constant maxim not to allow to whatever member of my family any influence in public affairs, except that i intrusted to the charitable superintending of my youngest sister the hospitals of the wounded heroes, as also to my wife the cares of providing for the furniture of these hospitals, not even the foulest intrigues could contrive any pretext for the continuation of their imprisonment. and thus when diplomacy succeeded to fetter my patriotic activity by the internation to far asia, after some months of unjust imprisonment, my mother and sisters and their family have been released; and though surrounded by a thousand spies, tortured by continual interference with their private life, and harassed by insulting police measures, they had at least the consolation to breathe the native air, to see their tears falling upon native soil, and to rejoice at the majestic spirit of our people, which no adversities could bend and no tyranny could break. but at last by the humanity of the sultan, backed by american generosity, seconded by england, i once more was restored to personal freedom, and by freedom to activity. having succeeded to escape the different snares and traps which i unexpectedly met, i considered it my duty publicly to declare that the war between austrian tyranny and the freedom of hungary is not ended yet, and swore eternal resistance to the oppressors of my country, and declared that, faithful to the oath sworn solemnly to my people, i will devote my life to the liberation of my fatherland. scarcely reached the tidings of this my after resolution the bloody court of vienna, than two of my sisters were again imprisoned; my poor old mother escaping the same cruelty only on account that bristling bayonets of the bloodhounds of despotism, breaking in the dead of night upon the tranquil house, and the persecution of my sisters, hurried away out of hungary to the prisons of vienna, threw her in a half-dying condition upon a sick bed. again no charge could be brought against the poor prisoners, because, knowing them in the tiger's den, and surrounded by spies, i not only did not communicate any thing to them about my foreign preparations and my dispositions at home, but have expressly forbidden them to mix in any way with the doings of patriotism. but tyrants are suspicious. you know the tale about marcius. he dreamt that he cut the throat of dionysius the tyrant, and dionysius condemned him to death, saying that he would not have dreamt such things in the night if he had not thought of it by day. thus the austrian tyrant imprisoned my sisters, because he suspected that, being my sisters, they must be initiated in my plans. at last, after five months of imprisonment, they were released, but upon the condition that they, as well as my mother and all my family, shall leave our native land. thus they became exiles, homeless, helpless, poor. i advised them to come to your free country--the asylum of the oppressed, where labour is honoured, and where they must try to live by their honest work. they followed my advice, and are on their way; but my poor aged mother and my youngest sister, the widow with the two orphans, being stopped by dangerous sickness at brussels, another sister stopped with them to nurse them. the rest of the family is already on the way--in a sailing ship of course, i believe, and not in a steamer. we are poor. my mother and sisters will follow so soon as their health permits. i felt the duty to help them in their first establishment here. for this i had to work, having no means of my own. some generous friends advised me to try a lecture for this purpose, and i did it. i will not act the part of crying complainants about our misfortunes; we will bear them. let me at once go to my task. * * * * * there is a stirring vitality of busy life about this your city of new york, striking with astonishment the stranger's mind. how great is the progress of humanity! its steps are counted by centuries, and yet while countless millions stand almost at the same point where they stood, and some even have declined since america first emerged out of an unexplored darkness which had covered her for thousands of years, like the gem in the sea; while it is but yesterday a few pilgrims landed on the wild coast of plymouth, flying from causeless oppression, seeking but for a place of refuge and of rest, and for a free spot in the wilderness to adore the almighty in their own way; still, in such a brief time, shorter than the recorded genealogy of the noble horse of the wandering arab; yes, almost within the turn of the hand, out of the unknown wilderness a mighty empire arose, broad as an ocean, solid as a mountain-rock, and upon the scarcely rotted roots of the primitive forest, proud cities stand, teeming with boundless life, growing like the prairie's grass in spring, advancing like the steam-engine, baffling time and distance like the telegraph, and spreading the pulsation of their life-tide to the remotest parts of the world; and in those cities and on that broad land a nation, free as the mountain air, independent as the soaring eagle, active as nature, and powerful as the giant strength of millions of freemen. how wonderful! what a present--and what a future yet! future?--then let me stop at this mysterious word--the veil of unrevealed eternity! the shadow of that dark word passed across my mind, and amid the bustle of this gigantic bee-hive, there i stood with meditation alone. and the spirit of the immovable past rose before my eyes, unfolding the misty picture-rolls of vanished greatness, and of the fragility of human things. and among their dissolving views, there i saw the scorched soil of africa, and upon that soil thebes with its hundred gates, more splendid than the most splendid of all the existing cities of the world; thebes, the pride of old egypt, the first metropolis of arts and sciences, and the mysterious cradle of so many doctrines which still rule mankind in different shapes, though it has long forgotten their source. there i saw syria with its hundred cities, every city a nation, and every nation with an empire's might. baalbec, with its gigantic temples, the very ruins of which baffle the imagination of man, as they stand like mountains of carved rocks in the desert where for hundreds of miles not a stone is to be found, and no river flows, offering its tolerant back to carry a mountain's weight upon, and yet there they stand, those gigantic ruins; and as we glance at them with astonishment, though we have mastered the mysterious elements of nature, and know the combination of levers, and how to catch the lightning, and to command the power of steam and of compressed air, and how to write with the burning fluid out of which the thunderbolt is forged, and how to drive the current of streams up the mountain's top, and how to make the air shine in the night like the light of the sun, and how to dive to the bottom of the deep ocean, and how to rise up to the sky--though we know all this, and many things else, still, looking at the temples of baalbec, we cannot forbear to ask what people of giants was that, which could do what neither the efforts of our skill nor the ravaging hand of unrelenting time can undo, through thousands of years. and then i saw the dissolving picture of nineveh, with its ramparts now covered with mountains of sand, where layard is digging up colossal winged bulls, huge as a mountain, and yet carved with the nicety of a cameo; and then babylon, with its wonderful walls; and jerusalem, with its unequalled temple; tyrus, with its countless fleets; arad, with its wharves; and sidon, with its labyrinth of work-shops and factories; and ascalon, and gaza, and beyrout, and farther off persepolis, with its world of palaces. all these passed before my eyes as they have been, and again they passed as they now are, with no trace of their ancient greatness, but here and there a ruin, and everywhere the desolation of tombs. with all their splendour, power, and might, they vanished like a bubble, or like the dream of a child, leaving but for a moment a drop of cold sweat upon the sleeper's brow, or a quivering smile upon his lips; then, this wiped away, dream, sweat, smile--all is nothingness. so the powerful cities of the ancient greatness of a giant age; their very memory but a sad monument of the fragility of human things. and yet, proud of the passing hour's bliss, men speak of the future, and believe themselves insured against its vicissitudes! and the spirit of history rolled on the misty shapes of the past before the eyes of my soul. after those cities of old came the nations of old. the assyrians, the chaldeans, the war-like philistines, the commercial republics of phoenicia and the persians, ruling from the indus to the mediterranean, and egypt becoming the centre of the universe, after having been thousands of years ago the cradle of its civilization. where is the power, the splendour, and the glory of all those mighty nations? all has vanished without other trace than such as the foot of the wanderer leaves upon the dust. and still men speak of the future with proud security! and yet they know that carthage is no more, though it ruled spain, and ruled africa beyond the pillars of hercules down to cerne, an immense territory, blessed with all the blessings of nature, which hannon filled with flourishing cities, of which now no trace remains. and men speak of the future, though they know that such things as heroic greece once did exist, glorious in its very ruins, and a source of everlasting inspiration in its immortal memory. men speak of the future, and still they can rehearse the powerful colonies issued from greece, and the empires their heroic sons have founded. and they can mark out with a finger on the map, the unparalleled conquests of alexander; how he crossed victoriously that desert whence semiramis, out of a countless host, brought home but twenty men; and cyrus, out of a still larger number, only seven men. but he (alexander) went on in triumph, and conquered india up to the hydaspes as he conquered before tyrus and egypt, and secured with prudence what he had conquered with indomitable energy. and men speak of the future, though they know that such a thing did exist as rome, the mistress of the world--rome rising from atomic smallness to immortal greatness, and to a grandeur absorbing the world--rome, now having all her citizens without, and now again having all the world within her walls; and passing through all the vicissitudes of gigantic rise, wavering decline, and mournful fall. and men speak of the future still with these awful monuments of fragility before their eyes! but it is the sad fate of humanity that, encompassing its hopes, fears, contentment, and wishes, within the narrow scope of momentary satisfaction, the great lesson of history is taught almost in vain. whatever be its warnings, we rely on our good fortune; and we are ingenious in finding out some soothing pretext to lull down the dreadful admonitions of history. man, in his private capacity, consoles the instinctive apprehension of his heart with the idea that his condition is different from what warningly strikes his mind. the patriot feels well, that not only the present, but also the future of his beloved country, has a claim to his cares; but he lulls himself into carelessness by the ingenious consolation that the condition of his country is different--that it is not obnoxious to those faults which made other countries decline and fall; that the time is different; the character and spirit of the nation are different, its power not so precarious, and its prosperity more solid; and that, therefore, it will not share the same fate of those which vanished like a dream. and the philanthropist, also, whose heart throbs for the lasting welfare of all humanity, cheers his mind with the idea that, after all, mankind at large is happier than it was of yore, and that this happiness ensures the future against the reverses of olden times. that fallacy, natural as it may be, is a curse which weighs heavily on us. let us see in what respect our age is different from those olden times. is mankind more virtuous than it has been of yore? why, in this enlightened age, are we not looking for virtuous inspirations to the god-like characters of these olden times? if we take virtue to be love of the laws, and of the fatherland, dare we say that our age is more virtuous? if that man is to be called virtuous, who, in all his acts, is but animated by a regard to the common good, and who, in every case, feels ready to subordinate his own selfish interest to public exigencies--if that be virtue (as indeed it is), i may well appeal to the conscience of mankind to give an impartial verdict upon the question, if our age be more virtuous than the age of codrus or of regulus, of decius and of scaevola. look to the school of zeno, the stoics of immortal memory; and when you see them contemning alike the vanity of riches and the ambition of personal glory, impenetrable to the considerations of pleasure and of pain, occupied only to promote public welfare and to fulfil their duties toward the community; when you see them inspired in all their acts by the doctrine that, born in a society, it is their duty to live for the benefit of society; and when you see them placing their own happiness only upon the happiness of their fellow-men--then say if our too selfish, too material age can stand a comparison with that olden period. when you remember the politicians of ancient greece, acknowledging no other basis for the security of the commonwealth than virtue, and see the political system of our days turning only upon manufactures, commerce, and finances, will you say that our age is more virtuous? when, looking to your own country--the best and happiest, because the freest of all--you will not dissimulate in your own mind what considerations influence the platforms of your political parties; and then in contra-position will reflect upon those times when timon of athens, chosen to take part in his country's government, assembled his friends and renounced their friendship, in order that he might not be tempted by party considerations or by affections of amity, in his important duties toward the commonwealth. then, having thus reflected, say, "take you our own age to be more virtuous, and therefore more ensured against the reverses of fortune, than those older times?" but perhaps there is a greater amount of private happiness, and by the broad diffusion of private welfare, the security of the commonwealth is more lasting and more sure? caraccioli, having been ambassador in england, when returned to italy, said, "that england is the most detestable country in the world, because there are to be found twenty different sorts of religion, but only two kinds of sauces with which to season meat." there is a point in that questionable jest. materialism! curse of our age! who can seriously speak about the broad diffusion of happiness in a country where contentment is measured according to how many kinds of sauces we can taste? my people is by far not the most material. we are not much given to the cupidity of becoming rich. we know the word "enough." the simplicity of our manners makes us easily contented in our material relations; we like rather to be free than to be rich; we look for an honourable profit, that we may have upon what to live; but we don't like to live for the sake of profit; augmentation of property and of wealth with us is not the aim of our life--we prefer tranquil, independent mediocrity to the incessant excitement and incessant toil of cupidity and gain. such is the character of my nation; and yet i have known a countryman of mine who blew out his brains because he had no means more to eat daily _patés de foi gras_ and drink champagne. well, that was no hungarian character, but, though somewhat eccentrically, he characterized the leading feature of our century. indeed, are your richest money-kings happier than fabricius was, when he preferred his seven acres of land, worked by his own hands, to the treasures of an empire? are the ladies of to-day, adorned with all the gorgeous splendour of wealth, of jewels, and of art, happier than those ladies of ancient rome have been, to whom it was forbidden to wear silk and jewelry, or drive in a carriage through the streets of rome? are the ladies of to-day happier in their splendid parlours, than the portias and the cornelias have been in the homely retirement of their modest nurseries? nay; all that boundless thirst of wealth, which is the ruling spirit of our age, and the moving power of enterprising energy, all this hunting after treasures, and all its happiest results, have they made men nobler, better, and happier? have they improved their soul, or even their body and their health, at least so much that the richest of men could eat and digest two dinners instead of one? or has the insatiable thirst of material gain originated a purer patriotism? has it made mankind more devoted to their country, more ready to sacrifice for public interest? if that were the case, then i would gladly confess the error of my doubts, and take the pretended larger amount of happiness for a guarantee of the future of the commonwealth. but, ladies and gentlemen! a single word--the manner in which we use it, distorting its original meaning, often characterizes a whole century. you all know the word "_idiot_;" almost every living language has adopted it, and all languages attach to it the idea that an "idiot" is a poor, ignorant, useless wretch, nearly insane. well, "idiot" is a word of greek extraction, and meant with the greek a man who cared nothing for the public interest, but was all devoted to the selfish pursuit of private profit, whatever might have been its results to the community. oh! what an immense, what a deplorable change must have occurred in the character of humanity, till unconsciously we came to the point, that by what name the ancient greeks would have styled those european money-kings, who, for a miserable profit, administer to the unrelenting despots their eternal loans, to oppress nations with, we now apply that very name to the wretched creatures incapable to do any thing for themselves. we bear compassion for the idiots of to-day, but the modern editions of greek idiotism, though loaded with the bloody scars of a hundred thousand orphans, and with the curse of millions, stand high in honour, and go on, proudly glorying in their criminal idiotism, heaping up the gold of the world. but i may be answered, after all, though our age be not so virtuous, and though the large accumulation in wealth has in reality not made mankind happier; still, it cannot be denied, you are in a prosperous condition, and prosperity is a solid basis of your country's future. industry, navigation, commerce, have so much developed, they have formed so many ties by which every citizen is linked to his country's fate, that your own material interest is a security to your country's future. in loving your own selves you love your country, and in loving your country you love your own selves. this community of public and private interest will make you avoid the stumbling-block over which others fell. prosperity is, of course, a great benefit; it is one of the aims of human society; but when prosperity becomes too material, it does not always guarantee the future. paradoxical as it may appear, too much prosperity is often dangerous, and some national misfortune is now and then a good preservative of prosperity. for great prosperity makes nations careless of their future; seeing no immediate danger, they believe no danger possible; and then when a danger comes, either by sudden chance or by the slow accumulation of noxious elements, then, frightened by the idea that in meeting the danger their private property might be injured or lost, selfishness often prevails over patriotism, and men become ready to submit to arrogant pretensions, and compromise with exigencies at the price of principles, and republics flatter despots, and freemen covet the friendship and indulgence of tyrants, only that things may go on just as they go, though millions weep and nations groan; but still, things should go on just as they go, because every change may claim a sacrifice, or affect our thriving private interest. such is often the effect of too great, of too secure prosperity. therefore, prosperity alone affords yet no security. you remember the tale of polycrates. he was the happiest of men; good luck attended every one of his steps; success crowned all he undertook, and a friend thus spoke to him: "thou art too happy for thy happiness to last. appease the anger of the eumenides by a voluntary sacrifice, or deprive thyself of what thou most valuest among all that thou possessest." polycrates obeyed, and drew from his finger a precious jewel, of immense value, dear to his heart, and threw it into the sea. soon after a fish was brought to his house, and his cook found the precious ring in the belly of the fish; but the friend who advised him hastened to flee from the house, and shook the dust of its threshold from his shoes, because he feared a great mischief must fall upon that too prosperous house. there is a deep meaning in that tale of polycrates. machiavel says, that it is now and then necessary to recall the constituting essential principles to the memory of nations. and who is charged by providence with this task? misfortune! it was the battles of cannaê and of thrasymene which recalled the romans to the love of their fatherland; nations had till now, about such things, no other teacher than misfortune. they should choose to have a less afflicting one. they can have it. to point this out will be the final object of my remarks, but so much is certain, that prosperity alone is yet no security for the future, even of the happiest commonwealth. those ancient nations have been also prosperous. they were industrious, as your nation is; their land has been covered with cities and villages, well-cultivated fields, blessed with the richest crops, and crowded with countless herds spread over immense territories, furrowed with artificial roads; their flourishing cities swarmed with artists, and merchants, and workmen, and pilots, and sailors, like as new york does. their busy labourers built gigantic water-works, digged endless canals, and carried distant waters through the sands of the desert; their mighty, energetic spirit built large and secure harbours, dried the marshy lakes, covered the sea with vessels, the land with living beings, and spread a creation of life and movement along the earth. their commerce was broad as the known world. tyre exchanged its purple for the silk of serica; cashmere's soft shawls, to-day yet a luxury of the wealthiest, the diamonds of golconda, the gorgeous carpets of lydia, the gold of ophir and saba, the aromatic spices and jewels of ceylon, and the pearls and perfumes of arabia, the myrrh, silver, gold dust, and ivory of africa, as well as the amber of the baltic and the tin of thulé, appeared alike in their commerce, raising them in turn to the dominion of the world, and undoing them by too careless prosperity. the manner and the shape of one or the other art, of one or other industry, has changed; the steam-engine has replaced the rowing-bench, and cannon replaced the catapult; but, as a whole, even your country, which you are proud to hear styled "the living wonder of the world"--yes, even your country in the new world, and england in the old--england, that gigantic workshop of industry, surrounded with a beautiful evergreen garden; yes, all the dominions of the anglo-saxon race, can claim no higher praise of its prosperity, than when we say, that you have reproduced the grandeur of those ancient nations, and nearly equal their prosperity. and what has become of them? a sad skeleton. what remains of their riches, of their splendour, and of their vast dominions? an obscure recollection; a vain memory. thus fall empires; thus vanish nations, which have no better guardians than their prosperity. but "we have," will you say, "we have a better guardian--our freedom, our republican institutions; our confederation uniting so many glorious stars into one mighty galaxy--these are the ramparts of our present, these our future security." well, it would ill become me to investigate if there be nothing "rotten in the state of denmark," and certainly i am not the man who could feel inclined to undervalue the divine power of liberty; to underrate the value of your democratic institutions, and the vitality of your glorious union. it is to them i look in the solitary hours of meditation, and when, overwhelmed with the cares of the patriot, my soul is groaning under nameless woes, it is your freedom's sunny light which dispels the gloomy darkness of despondency; here is the source whence the inspiration of hope is flowing to the mourning world, that down-trodden millions at the bottom of their desolation still retain a melancholy smile upon their lips, and still retain a voice in their bleeding chest, to thank the almighty god that the golden thread of freedom is not yet lost on earth. yes, ladies and gentlemen, all this i feel, and all this i know, reflecting upon your freedom, your institutions, and your union; but casting back my look into the mirror of the past, there i see upon mouldering ground, written with warning letters, the dreadful truth, that all this has nothing new; all this has been; and all this has never yet been proved sufficient security. freedom is the fairest gift of heaven; but it is not the security of itself. democracy is the embodiment of freedom, which in itself is but a principle. but what is the security of democracy? and if you answer, "the union is;" then i ask, "and where is the security of the union?" yes, ladies and gentlemen, freedom is no new word. it is as old as the world. despotism is new, but freedom not. and yet it has never yet proved a charter to the security of nations. republic is no new word. it is as old as the word "society." before rome itself, republics absorbed the world. there were in all europe, africa and asia minor, but republics to be found, and many among them democratic. men had to wander to far persia if they would have desired to know what sort of thing a monarch is. and all they have perished; the small ones by foreign power, the large ones by domestic vice. and union, and confederacy, the association of societies--a confederate republic of republics, is also no new invention. greece has known it and flourished by it, for a while. rome has known it; by such associations she attacked the world. the world has known them; with them it defended itself against rome. the so-called barbarians of europe, beyond the danube and the rhine, have known it; it was by a confederacy of union that they resisted the ambitious mistress of the world. your own country, america, has known it; the traditionary history of the romans of the west, of those six indian nations, bears the records of it, out of an older time than your ancestors settled in this land; the wise man of the onondaga nation has exercised it long before your country's legislators built upon that basis your independent home. and still it proved in itself alone no security to all those nations who have known it before you. your own fathers have seen the last of the mohawks burying his bloody tomahawk in the namesake flood, and have listened to the majestic words of logan, spoken with the dignity of an aemilius, that there exists no living being on earth in the veins of whom one drop of the blood of his race did flow. well, had history nothing else to teach us, than that all what the wisdom of man did conceive, and all that his energy has executed through the innumerable days of the past, and all that we take to be glorious in nations and happy to men, cannot so much do as to ensure a future even to such a flourishing commonwealth as yours; then weaker hearts may well ask, what good is it to warn us of a fatality which we cannot escape; what good is it to hold up the mournful monuments of a national mortality to sadden our heart, if all that is human must share that common doom? let us do as we can, and so far as we can, and let the future bring what it may. but that would be the speech of one having no faith in the all-watching eye, and regarding the eternal laws of the universe not as an emanation of a bountiful providence, but of a blind fatality, which plays at hazard with the destinies of men. i never will share such blasphemy. misfortune came over me, and came over my house, and came over my guiltless nation; still i never have lost my trust in the father of all. i have lived the days when the people of my oppressed country went along weeping over the immense misfortune that they cannot pray, seeing the downfall of the most just cause and the outrageous triumph of the most criminal of all crimes on earth; and they went along not able to pray, and weeping that they are not able to pray. i shuddered at the terrible tidings in the desolation of my exile; but i could pray, and sent the consolation home, that i do not despair; that i believe in god, and trust to his bountiful providence, and ask them who of them dares despair when i do not? i was in exile, as i am now, but arrogant despots were debating about my blood, my infant children in prison, my wife, the faithful companion of my sorrows and my cares, hunted like a noble deer, and my sisters in the tyrant's fangs, red with the blood of my nation, and the heart of my aged mother breaking, about the shattered fortunes of her house, and all of them at last homeless wanderers, cast to the winds, like the yellow leaves of a fallen tree; and my fatherland, my dear, beloved fatherland, half murdered, half in chains, and humanity nearly all oppressed, and those who are not yet oppressed looking with compassion at our sad fate, but taking it for wise policy not to help, and the sky of freedom dark on our horizon, and darkening fast over all, and nowhere a ray of hope; a lustre of consolation nowhere; and still i did not despair; and my faith to god, my trust to providence has spread over my down-trodden land. i therefore, who do not despair of my own country's future, though it be overwhelmed with misfortunes, i certainly have an unwavering faith in the destinies of humanity; and though the mournful example of so many fallen nations instructs us, that neither the diffusion of knowledge, nor the progress of industry, neither prosperity, nor power, nay, not even freedom itself, can secure a future to nations, still i say there is one thing which can secure it; there is one law, the obedience to which would prove a rock upon which the freedom and happiness of nations may rest sure to the end of their days. and that law, ladies and gentlemen, is the law proclaimed by our saviour; that rock is the unperverted religion of christ. but while the consolation of this sublime truth falls meekly upon my soul like as the moonlight falls upon the smooth sea, i humbly claim your forbearance, ladies and gentlemen; i claim it in the name of the almighty lord, to hear from my lips a mournful truth. it may displease you; it may offend; but still truth is truth. offended vanity may blame me; power may frown at me, and pride may call my boldness arrogant, but still truth is truth, and i, bold in my unpretending humility, will proclaim that truth; i will proclaim it from land to land and from sea to sea; i will proclaim it with the faith of the martyrs of old, till the seed of my word falls upon the consciences of men. let come what come may, i say with luther: god help me, i cannot otherwise. yes, ladies and gentlemen, the law of our saviour, the religion of christ, can secure a happy future to nations. but, alas! there is yet no christian people on earth--not a single one among all. i have spoken the word. it is harsh, but true. nearly two thousand years have passed since christ has proclaimed the eternal decree of god, to which the happiness of mankind is bound, and has sanctified it with his own blood, and still there is not one single nation on earth which would have enacted into its law-book that eternal decree. men believe in the mysteries of religion, according to the creed of their church; they go to church, and they pray and give alms to the poor, and drop the balm of consolation into the wounds of the afflicted, and believe they do all that the lord commanded to do, and believe they are christians. no! some few may be, but their nation is not--their country is not; the era of christianity has yet to come, and when it comes, then, only then, will be the future of nations sure. far be it from me to misapprehend the immense benefit which christian religion, such as it already is, has operated in mankind's history. it has influenced the private character of men, and the social condition of millions; it was the nurse of a new civilization, and softening the manners and morals of men, its influence has been felt even in the worst quarter of history--in war. the continual massacres of the greek and roman kings and chiefs, and the extermination of nations by them--the all-devastating warfare of the timurs and gengis khans--are in general not more to be met with; only my own dear fatherland was doomed to experience once more the cruelties of the timurs and gengis khans out of the sacrilegious hands of the dynasty of austria, which calumniates christianity by calling itself christian. but though that beneficial influence of christianity we have cheerfully to acknowledge, yet it is still not to be disputed that the law of christ does yet nowhere rule the christian world. montesquieu himself, whom nobody could charge to be partial for republics, avows that despotism is incompatible with the christian religion, because the christian religion commands meekness, and despotism claims arbitrary power to the whims and passions of a frail mortal; and still it is more than 1,500 years since the christian religion became dominant, and through that long period despotism has been pre-eminently dominant; you can scarcely show one single truly democratic republic of any power which had subsisted but for a hundred years, exercising any influence upon the condition of the world. constantine, raising the christian religion to rome's imperial throne, did not restore the romans to their primitive virtues. constantinople became the sewer of vice; christian worship did not change the despotic habits of kings. the tituses, the trajans, the antonines, appeared seldom on christian thrones; on the contrary, mankind has seen, in the name of religion, lighted the piles of persecution, and the blazing torches of intolerance; the earth overspread with corpses of the million victims of fanaticism; the fields watered with blood; the cities wrapped in flames, and empires ravaged with unrelenting rage. why? is it christian religion which caused these deplorable facts, branding the brow of partly degraded, partly outraged humanity? no. it was precisely the contrary; the fact that the religion of christ never yet was practically taken for an all-overruling law, the obedience to which, outweighing every other consideration, would have directed the policy of nations--that fact is the source of evil, whence the oppression of millions has overflowed the earth, and which makes the future of the proudest, of the freest nation, to be like a house built upon sand. every religion has two parts. one is the dogmatical, the part of worship; the other is the moral part. the first, the dogmatic part, belonging to those mysterious regions which the arm of human understanding cannot reach, because they belong to the dominion of belief, and that begins where the dominion of knowledge ends--that part of religion, therefore, the dogmatic one, should be left to every man to settle between god and his own conscience. it is a sacred field, whereon worldly power never should dare to trespass, because there it has no power to enforce its will. force can murder; it can make liars and hypocrites, but no violence on earth can force a man to believe what he does not believe. yet the other part of religion, the moral part, is quite different. that teaches duties toward ourselves and toward our fellow-men. it can be, therefore, not indifferent to the human family: it can be not indifferent to whatever community, if those duties be fulfilled or not, and no nation can, with full right, claim the title of a christian nation, no government the title of a christian government, which is not founded upon the basis of christian morality, and which takes it not for an all-overruling law to fulfil the moral duties ordered by the religion of christ toward men and nations, who are but the community of men, and toward mankind, which is the community of nations. now, look to those dread pages of history, stained with the blood of millions, spilt under the blasphemous pretext of religion; was it the intent to vindicate the rights, and enforce the duties of christian morality, which raised the hand of nation against nation, of government against government? no: it was the fanaticism of creed, and the fury of dogmatism. nations and governments rose to propagate their manner to worship god, and their own mode to believe the inscrutable mysteries of eternity; but nobody has yet raised a finger to punish the sacrilegious violation of the moral laws of christ, nobody ever stirred to claim the fulfilment of the duties of christian morality toward nations. there is much speaking about the separation of church and state, and yet, on close examination, we shall see that there was, and there is, scarcely one single government entirely free from the direct or indirect influence of one or other religious denominations; scarcely one which would not at least bear a predilection, if not countenance with favour, one or another creed--but creed, and always creed. the mysteries of dogmatism, and the manner of worship, enter into these considerations; they enter even into the politics, and turn the scales of hatred and affection; but certainly there is not one single nation, not one single government, the policy of which would ever have been regulated by that law of morality which our saviour has promulgated as the eternal law of god, which shall be obeyed in all the relations of men to men. but you say, of the direct or indirect amalgamation of church and state, proved to be dangerous to nations in christian and for christian times, because it affected the individual rights of men, and among them, the dearest of all, the liberty of conscience and the freedom of thought. well, of this danger, at least, the future of your country is free; because here, at least, in this, your happy land, religious liberty exists. your institutions left no power to your government to interfere with the religion of your citizens. here every man is free to worship god as he chooses to do. and that is true, and it is a great glory of your country that it is true. it is a fact which entitles to the hope that your nation will revive the law of christ, even on earth. however, the guarantee which your constitution affords to religious liberty is but a negative part of a christian government. there are, besides that, positive duties to be fulfilled. he who does no violence to the conscience of man, has but the negative merit of a man doing no wrong; but as he who does not murder, does not steal, and does not covet what his neighbour's is, but by not stealing, not murdering, not coveting what our neighbour's is, we did yet no positive good; a man who does not murder has not yet occasion to the title of virtuous man. and here is precisely the infinite merit of the christian religion. while moses, in the name of the almighty god, ordered but negative degrees toward fellow-men, the christian religion commands positive virtue. its divine injunctions are not performed by not doing wrong; it desires us to do good. the doctrine of jesus christ is sublime in its majestic simplicity. "thou shalt love god above all, and love thy neighbour as thou lovest thyself." this sublime doctrine is the religion of love. it is the religion of charity. "though i speak with the tongues of angels, and have not charity, i am become as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. though i have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and have all faith, so that i could remove mountains, and have not charity, i am nothing. and though i bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." thus speaks the lord, and thus speaking he gives the law, "do unto others as thou desirest others to do unto thee." now, in the name of him who gave this law to humanity, to build up the eternal bliss and temporal happiness of mankind, in the name of that eternal legislator, i ask, is in that _charity_, in that fundamental law of christianity, any limit of distinction drawn in man in his personal, and man in his national capacity? is it but a law for a man where he is alone, and can do but little good? is it no law more where two are together, and can do more good? no law more when millions are together? am i in my personal adversities; is my aged mother in her helpless desolation; are my homeless sisters whom you feed to-day, that they may work to-morrow; are we your neighbours, unto whom you do as you would others in a similar position do unto yourself? and is every one of my down-trodden people a neighbour to every one of you? but all my people collectively, is it _not_ a neighbour to you? and is my nation not a neighbour to your nation? is my down-trodden land not a neighbour to your down-trodden land? oh! my god, men speak of the christian religion and style themselves christians, and yet make a distinction between virtue in private life and virtue in public life; as if the divine law of charity would have been given only for certain small relations, and not for all the relations between men and men. "there he is again, with his eternal complaints about his country's wrongs;" may perhaps somebody remark: "this is an assembly of charity, assembled to ease his private woes of family; and there he is again speaking of his country's wrongs, and alluding to our foreign policy, about which he knows our views to be divided." thus i may be charged. my "private family woes!" but all my woes and all the woes of my family, are concentrated in the unwarrantable oppression of my fatherland. you are an assembly of charity, it is true, and the almighty may requite you for it; but being a charitable assembly, can you blame me that the filial and fraternal devotion of my heart, in taking with gratitude the balm of consolation which your charity pours into the bleeding wounds of my family, looks around to heal those wounds, the torturing pains of which you ease, but which cannot be cured but by justice and charity done to my fatherland. shall this sad heart of mine be contented by leaving to my homeless mother and sisters the means to have their bread by honest labour, their daily bread salted with the bitter tears of exile; and shall i not care to leave them the hope that their misfortune will have an end; that they will see again their beloved home; that they will see it independent and free, and live where their fathers lived, and sleep the tranquil sleep of death in that soil with which the ashes of their fathers mingle? shall i not care to give the consolation to my aged mother, that when her soon departing soul, crowned with the garland of martyrdom, looks down from the home of the blessed, the united joy of the heavens will thrill through her immortal spirit, seeing her dear, dear hungary free? your views are divided on the subject, it may be; but can your views be divided upon the subject that it is the command of god to love your neighbours as you love yourselves? that it is the duty of christians, that it is the fundamental principle of the christian religion, to do unto others as you desire others to do unto you? and if there is, if there can be no difference of opinion in regard to the principle; if no one in this vast assembly--whatever be the platform of his party--ever would disclaim this principle, will any one blame me that in the name of christ i am bold to claim the application of that principle? i should not speak of politics! well, i have spoken of christianity. your politics either agree with the law of christ, or they do not agree with it. if they don't agree, then your politics are not christian; and if they agree, then i cause no division among you. and i shall not speak of my people's wrongs! oh! my people--thou heart of my heart, thou life of my life--to thee are bent the thoughts of my mind, and they will remain bent to thee, though all the world may frown. to thee are pledged all the affections of my heart, and they will be pledged to thee as long as one drop of blood throbs within this heart. thine are the cares of my waking hours; thine are the dreams of my restless sleep. shall i forget thee, but for a moment! never! never! cursed be the moment, and cursed be i in that moment, in which thou wouldst be forgotten by me! thou art oppressed, o my fatherland! because the principles of christianity have not been executed in practice; because the duties of christianity have not been fulfilled; because the precepts of christianity have not been obeyed; because the law of christianity did not control the policy of nations; because there are many impious governments to offend the law of christ, but there was none to do the duties commanded by christ. thou art fallen, o my country, because christianity has yet to come; but it is not yet come--nowhere! nowhere on earth! and with the sharp eye of misfortune piercing the dark veil of the future, and with the tongue of cassandria relating what i see, i cry it out to high heaven, and shout it out to the earth--"nations, proud of your momentary power; proud of your freedom; proud of your prosperity--your power is vain, your freedom is vain, your industry, your wealth, your prosperity are vain; all these will not save you from sharing the mournful fate of those old nations, not less powerful than you, not less free, not less prosperous than you--and still fallen, as you yourself will fall--all vanished as you will vanish, like a bubble thrown up from the deep! there is only the law of christ, there are only the duties of christianity, which can secure your future, by securing at the same time humanity." duties must be fulfilled, else they are an idle word. and who would dispute that there is a positive duty in that law, "love thy neighbour as thou lovest thyself. do unto others as thou wouldst that others do unto thee." now, if there are duties in that law comprised, who shall execute them, if free and powerful nations do not execute them? no government can meddle with the private relations of its millions of citizens so much as to enforce the positive virtue of christian charity, in the thousand-fold complications of private life. that will be impossible; and our saviour did not teach impossibilities. by commanding charity toward fellow-men in human relations, he commanded it also to governments. it is in their laws toward their own citizens; it is in their policy toward other nations, that governments and nations can fulfil those duties of christianity; and what they can, that they should. how could governments hope to see their own citizens and other nations observing toward them the positive duties of christian morality, when they themselves do not observe them against others; when oppressed nations, the victims, not of their own faults, but of the grossest violation of the law of christ, look in vain around to find out a nation among christian nations, and a government among christian governments, doing unto them, in the hour of their supreme need, as the saviour said that it is duty to do unto others in every case? yes, gentlemen, as long as the principles of christian morality are not carried up into the international relations--as long as the fragile wisdom of political exigencies overrules the doctrines of christ, there is no freedom on earth firm, and the future of no nation sure. but let a powerful nation like yours raise christian morality into its public conduct, that nation will have a future against which the very gates of hell itself will never prevail. the morality of its policy will react upon the morality of its individuals, and preserve it from domestic vice, which, without that prop, ever yet has attended too much prosperity, and ever yet was followed by a dreadful fall. the morality of its policy will support justice and freedom on earth, and thus augmenting the number of free nations, all acting upon the same principle, its very future will be placed under the guarantee of them all, and preserve it from foreign danger--which is better to prevent than to repel. and its future will be placed under the guarantee of the almighty himself, who, true to his eternal decrees, proved through the downfall of so many mighty nations, that he always punished the fathers in the coming generations; but alike bountiful as just, will not and cannot forsake those to whom he gave power to carry out his laws on earth, and who willingly answered his divine call. power in itself never yet was sure. it is right which makes power firm; and it is community which makes right secure. the task of peter's apostolate is accomplished--the churches are founded in the christian world. the task of paul's apostolate is accomplished--the abuses of fanaticism and intolerance are redressed. but the task of him whom the saviour most loved, is not yet accomplished. the gospel of charity rules not yet the christian world; and without charity, christianity, you know, is "but sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." oh! charity, thou fairest gift of heaven! thou family link between nations; thou rock of their security; thou deliverer of the oppressed; when comes thy realm? where is the man whom the lord has chosen to establish thy realm? who is the man whom the lord has chosen to realize the religion, the tenets of which the most beloved disciple of the saviour has recorded from his divine lips? who is the man to reform, not christian creeds, but christian morality? man! no; that is no task for a man, but for a nation. man may teach a doctrine; but that doctrine of charity is taught, and taught with such sublime simplicity, that no sectarist yet has disputed its truth. historians have been quarrelling about mysteries, and lost empires through their disputes. the greeks were controversially disputing whether the holy ghost proceeds from the father alone, or from the father and son; and mahomet battered the walls of byzantium, they heard it not; he wrested the cross from santa sophia; they saw it not, till the cimeter of the turk stopped the rage of quarrel with the blow of death. in other quarters they went on disputing and deciding with mutual anathemas the question of transfiguration and many other mysteries, which, being mysteries, constitute the private dominion of belief; but the doctrine of charity none of them disputes; there they all agree; nay, in the idle times of scholastical subtility, they have been quarrelling about the most extravagant fancies of a scorched imagination. mighty folios have been written about the problem, how many angels could dance upon the top of a needle without touching each other? the folly of subtility went so far as to profane the sacred name of god, by disputing if he, being omnipotent, has the power to sin? if, in the holy wafer, he be present dressed or undressed? if the saviour would have chosen the incarnation in the shape of a gourd, instead of a man, how would he have preached, how acted miracles, and how had been crucified? and when they went to the theme of investigating if it was a whip or a lash with which the angels have whipped st. jerome for trying to imitate in his writings the pagan cicero, it was but after centuries that abbot cartaut dared to write that if st. jerome was whipped at all, he was whipped for having _badly_ imitated cicero. still, the doctrine of christian charity is so sublime in its simplicity, that not even the subtility of scholasticism dared ever to profane it by any controversy, and still that sublime doctrine is not executed, and the religion of charity not realized yet. the task of this glorious progress is only to be done by a free and powerful nation, because it is a task of action, and not of teaching. individual man can but execute it in the narrow compass of the small relations of private life; it is only the power of a nation which can raise it to become a ruling law on earth; and before this is done, the triumph of christianity is not arrived--and without that triumph, the freedom and prosperity even of the mightiest nation is not for a moment safe from internal decay, or from foreign violence. which is the nation to achieve that triumph of christianity by protecting justice out of charity? which shall do it, if not yours? whom the lord has blessed above all, from whom he much expects, because he has given her much. ye ministers of the gospel, who devote your lives to expound the eternal truths of the book of life, remember my humble words, and remind those who, with pious hearts, listen to your sacred words, that half virtue is no virtue at all, and that there is no difference in the duties of charity between public and private life. ye missionaries, who devote your lives to the propagation of christianity, before you embark for the dangers of far, inhospitable shores, remind those whom you leave, that the example of a nation exercising right and justice on earth by charity, would be the mightiest propagandism of christian religion. ye patriots, loving your country's future, and anxious about her security, remember the admonitions of history--remember that the freedom, the power, and the prosperity in which your country glories, is no new apparition on earth; others also had it, and yet they are gone. the prudence with which your forefathers have founded this commonwealth, the courage with which you develop it, other nations also have shown, and still they are gone. and ye ladies; ye fairest incarnation of the spirit of love, which vivifies the universe, remember my words. the heart of man is given into your tender hands. you mould it in its infancy. you imprint the lasting mark of character upon man's brow, you ennoble his youth; you soften the harshness of his manhood; you are the guardian angels of his hoary age. all your vocation is love, and your life is charity. the religion of charity wants your apostolate, and requires your aid. it is to you i appeal, and leave the sublime topic of my humble reflections to the meditations of your christian hearts. and thus, my task of to-day is done. man shall earn the means of life by the sweat of his brow. thus shall my family. your charity of to-day has opened the way to it. the school which my mother, if god spares her life, will superintend, and in which two of my sisters will teach, and the humble farm which my third sister and her family shall work, will be the gift of your charity to-day. a stony weight of cares is removed from my breast. oh! be blessed for it, be thanked for it, in the name of them all who have lost every thing, but not their trust to god, and not the benefit of being able to work. my country will forgive me that i have taken from her the time of one day's work--to give bread to my aged mother and to my homeless sisters, the poor victims of unrelenting tyranny. returning to europe, i may find my own little children in a condition that again the father will have to take the spade or the pen into his hand to give them bread. and my fatherland will again forgive me, that that time is taken from her. that is all what i take from her; nothing else of what is given, or what belongs to her. and the day's work which i take from my country, i will restore it by a night's labour. to-day, the son and the brother has done his task; you have requited his labour by a generous charity; the son and brother thanks you for it, and the patriot, to resume his task, bids you a hearty, warm farewell. appendices to kossuth's speeches. appendix i.--_extracts from a letter to the 'daily news,' dated january 17th, 1852_, by sabbas vucovics, _late minister of justice in hungary, in answer to_ count casimir bathyanyi. so early as the commencement of the serbian insurrection, the popular suspicion gained ground that the insurrection had been stirred up by the secret intrigues of the court, and confidence in the truth and good faith of the king disappeared accordingly. the nation, however, still indulged the hope that a weak king, though betrayed into ambiguous proceeding, would not permit himself to be carried away into a flagrant breach of the constitution. this was the time when the king, in the opinion of the people, was kept distinct from the camarilla. but when the austrian ministry openly attempted to deprive hungary of its ministries of war and finance, when the base game of the degradation and restoration of jellachich was played, and when the hungarian army, fighting in the name of the king against the insurrections of the serbians and croats, became aware that the balls of that same king thinned their ranks from the hostile camp, the nation arrived at the universal conviction that the hapsburg dynasty were only pursuing their old absolute tendencies, and that they wanted to force hungary into self-defence, in order, under the pretext of rebellion, to deprive it of all its constitutional rights and guarantees. it needs no proof that a loud indignation, and even hatred of the dynasty, spread far and wide in the country, in consequence of these intrigues and proceedings. in spite of this natural excitement, and of the war itself, carried on by the nation with an increasing enthusiasm of hatred of the house of austria, no party in the country urged a declaration of _déchéance_ or forfeiture against the dynasty. even all the faithless acts recorded in the letter of count casimir bathyanyi, and the cruelties committed in the name of that court in lower hungary and transylvania, did not turn the scales in this direction. the pragmatic sanction was still considered as good in law; and the many precedents of our history, when the nation and its kings went to war with each other, and ultimately settled their disputes by solemn pacts confirming the constitution of the land, conveyed the notion that a reconciliation was even then not impossible. without these precedents and reminiscences of history, and only guided by the universal feeling of the country against the dynasty, the hungarian parliament would have pronounced the forfeiture of the house of austria so far back as october, 1848, when jellachich was appointed absolute plenipotentiary of the king in hungary, with discretionary power of life and death; or in december, 1848, when in olmütz the succession of the hungarian throne was changed and determined, without the concurrence of the nation through the diet. to force the nation and its parliament to the last step in this momentous crisis, the court itself broke the dynastic tie. this was done by the imposition of the constitution of the 4th of march, 1849, by which the house of austria itself annihilated the pragmatic sanction, treating free and independent hungary with the arrogance of a conqueror. the nation, more irritated by this act than by any preceding event, saw that the hour was come, beyond which further to defer the dethronement of the dynasty would be alike incompatible with the laws and the honour of hungary. _all the channels of public opinion, the public press, the popular meetings, and even the head quarters of the army, resounded with emphatic declarations of the impossibility of reconciliation with the dynasty. the garrison of komorn_--the most important fortress of the country--_petitioned the government for the declaration of forfeiture_. most assuredly no party manoeuvres were wanted in this universal excitement, caused by the constitution of the 4th of march, to carry a parliamentary resolution of forfeiture. when the proposition of forfeiture was made on the 14th of april, 1849, in the house of representatives, only eight members voted against it, in a house never attended by less than from 220 to 240 members. the house of magnates adopted this resolution without opposition. the press of all shades of opinion, though enjoying the most unlimited freedom, also declared for the resolution of the diet. it was moreover received throughout the whole country with patriotic assent and determination. if there was a party opposed to the forfeiture, how came it that it did not hold it to be a duty to declare its opposition in the diet or through the press? when the intelligence of the unfortunate battle of temeswar reached the governor kossuth, who was then in the fortress of arad, he immediately summoned a council of the ministry to deliberate on measures of public safety still possible. at this council, in which all the ministers took part, it was resolved to invest görgei, who stood alone at the head of an unconquered army, with full powers for negotiating a peace. it was, moreover, resolved to dissolve the government, which could not be carried on in any fixed place of safety under the existing circumstances. we did not, however, insert in the instrument investing görgei with full power (and despatched to him immediately) the abdication of the government. on the same day--it was the 11th of august, 1849--görgei declared in the presence of some of the ministers who had assembled at csányi's (who was one of them), that he could not accept the commission because the resignation of the government was not contained in it, while he was sure that the enemy would enter into no negotiations with him, so long as kossuth and his ministry were thought to be behind him. the ministers who were present, after a short deliberation, considering it to be their duty not to stand in the way of the negotiation which had been resolved on as necessary, accordingly sent their resignation to the governor, _whom they requested to resign as well_. the governor soon after sent his abdication for countersignature by these members of the ministry, and accordingly the government formally dissolved itself, after having done so _de facto_ in the previous council of ministers. i must mention the circumstance that _in the governor's instrument of abdication conditions were proscribed to görgei, which were not inserted in the original instrument of authorization, issued by the full council_. these conditions were, the preservation of the nationality and the autonomy of hungary. four ministers took part in this resignation of the governor, as above stated, aulich, csányi, horvath, and i. two of the ministers, szemere and [casimir] bathyanyi, were absent when the formal declaration of the abdication was discussed at csányi's residence. i have not mentioned among the ministers our late colleague, the finance minister dushek, because his treachery, which was afterwards brought to light, excludes him from our ranks. from all these circumstances, it will be manifest how unjust the reproaches of count casimir bathyanyi are, that no new cabinet council was held. it is notorious that görgei abused the full powers with which he was entrusted, instead of procuring the preservation of hungary by a negotiation for peace, by an ignominious treachery to his native country. from that very moment the power conferred on him by the above-mentioned instrument, and the conditional abdication of the government, consequently and legally reverted to him who had invested him with it. to deny this, would be to recognize in the foreign rule which crushed hungary, in consequence of that treachery, legitimate right and lawful power. i, however, perfectly agree with the noble count, that the nation, once more restored to its constitutional existence, and free from foreign yoke, will have the unlimited right to dispose of all the affairs of the country, and consequently of the executive power. to assert a contrary opinion would be a crime against the nation. not over a liberated nation (which, of course, would have the right to choose whom it will), but over a nation crushed by an usurping power, the claims of kossuth, as elected governor of hungary, are, i submit, lawful. republican principles have not been proclaimed at kossuth's dictation as the aim of our national exertions. they were, during our struggle, the well-ascertained and deep-rooted sentiment of the country, and kossuth could only faithfully represent the proclaimed will and feeling of the nation, by inscribing them on his banner. immediately after the declaration of independence, all the manifestations of the national will were unanimous in the desire for a republic. the ministry, which was nominated by the governor as a consequence of that legislative act, declared in both houses of the diet, that its efforts would be directed to the establishment of a republic. both houses joined in this declaration, and in the government no opposition whatever was manifested against it. one of the first acts of the new government was to remove the crown from all national scutcheons, and from the great seal of hungary. the press in all its shades developed republican principles. the new semi-official paper bore the name of _the republic_. it is true that the government was only provisional, for the war continued, and the definite decision of this question depended on unforeseen circumstances. we should have preferred almost any settlement to the necessity of a subjection to the austrian dynasty; and at the price of emancipation from that detested power, the nation would even have been prepared, for the sake of aid, to choose a king from another race; but certainly if it had been the unaided victor in the struggle, never. monarchical government would have been for us the resort of expediency. the government of our wishes and principles was "the republic." i do not feel at all convinced, as the noble count asserts, that the institutions and habits of hungary are incompatible with a democratic republic. i find, on the contrary, traits in them which lead me to an opposite conclusion. the aggregate character of the numerous nobility which resigned its privileges in the diet of 1847-48 of its own accord, and which was in its nature more a democratic than an aristocratic body, because neither territorial wealth nor rank interfered with or disturbed the equality of its rights,--the national antipathy to the system of an upper house, which was considered as a foreign institution, because it had been introduced under the austrian dynasty,--the immemorial custom of periodically electing all officials, and even the judges,--the detestation in which bureaucracy and all the instruments of centralization were held in all ages, while the attachment to the municipal self-government was ineradicable,--the fact that, in consequence of the laws which had been sanctioned in april, 1848, the county authorities, formerly only elected from the "nobility," were democratically reconstituted, and exercised their functions in this form till the catastrophe of világos, without the slightest collision between the different classes of society,--the peaceful election of the representatives of the last diet conducted almost on the principle of universal suffrage,--all these facts unmistakeably prove that the germ of democracy lay in our institutions, and that these could receive a democratic development without any concussion. those characteristic _traits_ of our nation, which have been so often misrepresented as signs of an aversion to a republic, and which may be more properly called civic virtues; as, for example, our respect for law, our antipathy to untried political theories, our attachment to traditional customs, and our pride in the history of our country, are no obstacles to, but rather guarantees, and even conditions of a republic, which is to be national and enduring. it would indeed be an unprecedented event in history, if staunch royalism could be the characteristic of a country which, like hungary, has found in its kings for three hundred years the inexorable foes of its liberties, and which in that time, for its defence, had to wage six bloody wars against the dynasty. as to the criticisms by the noble count of the personal character of kossuth, i take leave to assert that a great majority of the hungarian nation do not share his opinion. it is not my task to appear as a personal advocate, and i wish, therefore, to advert only to one point of his attack, which may seem to be based on facts. the noble count asserts that kossuth has attained to power _by doubtful means_. i am amazed at this assertion, knowing, as i do, that kossuth was proposed by count louis bathyanyi, and nominated by the king, with the universal applause of the nation, to the ministry of finance. after the resignation of the first hungarian ministry, he was freely and unanimously elected by the diet to the presidency of the committee of defence, and after the declared forfeiture of the dynasty to the governorship of the country. i know no more honourable means by which a man can be raised to power. s. vukovics, late minister of justice of hungary. _london, january 17, 1852_. * * * * * appendix ii.--_extracts from a letter to the 'times,' dated december 9th, 1851, by_ bartholomew szemere, _late minister of the interior in hungary; in answer to_ prince esterhazy. i shall now proceed to give a succinct account of what took place from april 14, when the new acts received the royal sanction, to december, 1848. you may be assured that i shall conceal nothing that tended to change the relations between hungary and austria. the prime minister was already nominated when jellachich was raised to the dignity of ban of croatia by a royal decree which the premier was not even asked to countersign. the hungarian ministers, nevertheless, for the sake of peace, overlooked this irregular proceeding. by a decree, dated june 10, 1848, the king made known to all whom it might concern, that all the troops stationed within the kingdom of hungary, whether hungarians or austrians, were placed under the orders of the hungarian minister of war, and that all the hungarian fortresses were under the jurisdiction of the said minister. yet at this very time officers of the imperial and royal army were taking an active part in the rebellion of the serbs and valachs, while general mayerhofer was enlisting recruits in the principality of servia, and sending them to assist the rebels. the people thus beheld with astonishment civil war break out, and saw with still greater astonishment that imperial officers were fighting on both sides. jellachich, as a functionary of the hungarian crown, refused to obey the hungarian ministry, and illegally summoned a croatian diet to meet at agram on june 5. in consequence of these proceedings, ferdinand v., by a decree dated june 10, 1848, deprived him, as a rebel, of all his civil and military offices and dignities, but at the same time sent him, through his minister of war, latour, field officers, artillery and ammunition. the troubles increased daily. the hungarian ministry requested the archduke john to act us mediator. he accepted the office, but did nothing. the diet met on july 2. the palatine, as the representative of the sovereign in the speech from the throne, said that, as several districts were in a state of open rebellion, the principal objects to which, in the name of his majesty, he should direct the attention of the diet were the finances and the defences of the country, and that bills relating to these objects would be brought in by the ministers. he then proceeded as follows:--"his majesty has learned with painful feelings, that although he only followed the dictates of his own gracious inclination, when, at the request of the faithful hungarian people, he gave his sovereign sanction to the laws enacted by the last diet--laws which the common weal, according to the exigencies of the present age, rendered imperatively necessary--there are, nevertheless, a number of seditious agitators, especially in the annexed territories and the hungarian districts of the lower danube, who, by false reports and terrorism, have excited the different religious sects and races speaking different languages against each other, and, by mendaciously affirming that the above-mentioned laws are not the free expressions of his majesty's royal will, have stirred up the people to offer an armed opposition to the execution of the law, and to the legally constituted authorities. and, moreover, that some of these agitators have even proceeded so far in their iniquitous course as to spread the report that this armed opposition has been made in the interests of the dynasty, and with the knowledge, and connivance of his majesty or of the members of his majesty's royal house. i therefore, in order that all the inhabitants of the kingdom, without distinction as to creed or language, may have their minds set at rest, hereby declare, in conformity with the sovereign behest of his majesty our most gracious king, and in his sovereign name and person, that it is his majesty's firm and steadfast determination to defend with all his royal power and authority the unity and integrity of his royal hungarian crown against every attack from without, and every attempt at disruption and separation that may be made within the kingdom, and at the same time inviolably to maintain the laws which have received the royal sanction. and while his majesty will not suffer any one to curtail the liberties assured to all classes by the law, his majesty, as well as all the members of his royal dynasty, strongly condemns the audacity of those who venture to affirm that any illegal act whatsoever or any disrespect of the constituted authorities can be reconcileable with his majesty's sovereign will, or at all compatible with the interests of the royal dynasty." it thus clearly appears that the king acknowledged the validity and the inviolability of the acts passed by the diet of 1847-8 three months after they had been sanctioned. relying on the sincerity of the royal asseverations, the diet humbly requested that his majesty would be graciously pleased to render the country happy by his presence. it was, in fact, the general wish that the king should come to hungary; even the most radical journals loudly declared that if he came he would be received with enthusiasm bordering on madness. meanwhile the rebellion of the croats, serbs, and valachs, was spreading daily, and that, too, _in the name of the sovereign_. generals, colonels, and other field officers of the imperial army were at the head of it, without any one of them being summoned by the king to answer for his conduct. the eyes of the too credulous natives were now opened, and still more when the king refused to sanction the acts for the levying of troops and raising of funds for the suppression of the rebellion, although the diet had been convened chiefly for this purpose. i must here observe that at this period nothing whatever had occurred that could serve as a pretext for the dynasty to support the rebellion. the diet, it is true, would not consent that the troops that were to be levied should be draughted into the old regiments; but it was obviously impossible for the diet to consent to any such measures at a period when the rebels were everywhere led by imperial officers, when the austrian troops stationed in hungary, although they had been placed under the orders of the hungarian ministry, refused to fight against those rebels, and the commanders of fortresses to receive orders from the hungarian war-office. on the 8th of september a deputation from the hungarian diet earnestly entreated his majesty to sanction two acts relating to the levying of troops and taxes. the king refused; but in his answer to the address of the deputation said, "i trust that no one will hereby suppose that i have the intention to set aside or infringe the existing laws. this, i repeat, is far from my intention. on the contrary, it is my firm and determined will to maintain, in conformity with my coronation oath, the laws, the integrity, and the rights of the kingdom, under my hungarian crown." the king made this solemn declaration on the 8th of september, and on the 9th of september jellachich crossed the drave with 48,000 men to wage war in the king's name on the hungarian diet and ministry. the king had, moreover, on _the 4th of september_, affixed his sign manual to a letter or royal mandate addressed to jellachich, and revoking the decree by which he had been deprived of his civil and military offices and dignities. his majesty, in this letter, also expressed his high approbation of the ban's conduct. by a royal decree, dated october 3, the constitution was suspended, martial law proclaimed, and jellachich, the rebel, appointed his majesty's plenipotentiary commissary for the kingdom of hungary, and invested with unlimited authority to act, in the name of his majesty, within the said kingdom. hungary, so far from commencing the revolution, was not even prepared to meet the invasion of the croatian ban. he was defeated near stuhlweissenburg by the landsturm. the hungarian government only began to organize regular troops in october. that the diet did not recognize a decree that suspended the constitution and invested jellachich with the dictatorship, will be found quite natural, if not by you, at least by every englishman who cherishes constitutional freedom, the more so as its proceedings on this occasion were founded on legal right, viz., on act 4, sect. 6, of 1847-8, which expressly ordains that "the annual session of the diet shall not be closed, nor the diet itself dissolved, before the budget for the ensuing year has been voted." from this short but faithful account of what actually occurred, it clearly appears that the hungarian nation had not recourse to arms until the ban of croatia entered the hungarian territory with an austrian-croatian army. it is also an undeniable fact that until the promulgation of the austrian charter in march, 1849--by which, with a stroke of the pen, the independence of hungary was destroyed, its constitution abolished, and its territories dismembered--the hungarian nation never demanded anything else than the maintenance of the laws and institutions which its sovereign had sanctioned and sworn to maintain inviolate. it was however precisely for the purpose of destroying these laws and institutions that the dynasty began the war. this, of course, they did not venture to avow. it was necessary to conceal the real motives of their perfidious conduct from the civilized world. hence in their public proclamations they always alleged some pretext or other--all of them equally groundless. at the commencement they said that it was only an insignificant faction they had to deal with; but when they saw that the whole nation was arrayed in arms against them, they declared it was for the suppression of demagogueism, propagated by foreigners, chiefly poles, that their armies had entered hungary; and to give a colour to this pretext they industriously spread the report that there were 20,000 poles in the ranks of the hungarians. when however it became notorious that no more than 1,000 poles were fighting under our national standard, the austrian dynasty appeared as the _soi-disant_ champion and judge of the various nationalities or races. this answered well enough until the system of centralization showed too clearly that an attempt would be made to germanize these nationalities; when the dynasty again veered about, and, leaving "nationalities" in the lurch, took up the peasantry. we consequently find the austrian government assuring the washington cabinet (in the note of july 4, 1851) that they had waged war on hungary in order to crush a turbulent aristocracy that "preach democracy with their tongues, while their whole lives consist in the daily exercise over their fellow-men of arbitrary power in the most repugnant form." this last pretext, so ostentatiously put forth, loses, however, even its plausibility when contrasted with the policy of the dynasty in 1848, for it is an undoubted fact that, although the reforms effected in our _political_ institutions at that period were consented to by the dynasty without much hesitation, it required the most energetic remonstrances on the part of the diet to obtain the royal sanction to the act for the liberation of the peasants from feudal bondage. it is precisely to the fact of all classes, without distinction, being equally aware of the cabals of the dynasty, that may be ascribed the success of the hungarian insurrection. it was not _one_ man, nor a party, nor a conspiracy, nor terrorism, that awakened that spontaneous enthusiasm with which the people rushed to arms. kossuth may have been the rallying cry; but he was not the cause of the war. for several months the people had witnessed the equivocal conduct of the dynasty; had seen that its words were belied by its deeds; had seen that the rebels were everywhere led by imperial officers; and finally beheld jellachich, a high functionary of the hungarian crown, invade the country at the head of an austro-croatian army. it was then, and not till then, that the nation cried, as with one voice--_the king is a traitor_. from that day began the hungarian revolution. on that day the monarchical feeling was extinguished. what no one had thought it possible to accomplish was accomplished by the dynasty itself. * * * * * appendix iii.--_extracts from a letter to the 'daily news,' in february, 1852, by a_, "hungarian exile," _in reply to a letter from_ szemere, _to the 'london examiner_.' [i am personally acquainted with the accomplished and intelligent "exile;" but as he is absent from england, i cannot obtain permission to publish his name.] it was more than two months after the civil war had been raging in the banat and transylvania that the question of giving fresh troops for the suppression of the italian war was brought before the assembly at pesth, july 22, 1846. now, what are the accusations m. szemere brings forth against kossuth in reference to the italian question? the pith of m. szemere's reasoning is, that the ministry agreed, in the protocol of july 5, upon construing the pragmatic sanction as binding hungary to protect the integrity of austria; "yet that kossuth, as the organ of the ministry, spoke in a way as if he did not approve of the policy, and sought to make the public believe that the protocol was merely a moral demonstration:" further, that when the opposition denied the obligation of hungary to defend austria, the ministry refused to enter into any discussion on an acknowledged principle of constitutional law. in order to show the utter hollowness of this attack, it may be sufficient to look at the date and circumstances m. szemere talks of. the protocol in question was agreed upon on july 5th, the day when the parliament met to provide for the defence of the country. the members, inexperienced in foreign politics and ignorant of the cabals of courts, although presuming that the civil war was kindled in vienna, were at first blinded by the royal convocation of the diet to provide for the safety of the country; putting, moreover, implicit confidence in the sagacity and goodwill of the ministry. when however kossuth opened the debate on the italian question, july 22, affairs looked quite different from what they appeared to be when the protocol was drawn up. the treachery of the dynasty broke upon the mind of the most careless, and its connexions with the leaders of the rebellious tribes had become undeniable facts. it was during that short time, from july 5 to july 22, that our national forces met in the serbian entrenchments of st. thomas, földvar, and turia, regular austrian soldiers: meyerhofe, the austrian consul at belgrade, was openly recruiting bands of servians to reinforce the insurgents; nay, it became even evident that general bechtold, appointed by his majesty to lead the faithful hungarians against the rebellious serbs, led them on in order to get them the sooner decimated and broken. some members of the opposition, headed by general perczel, declaimed loudly against the cowardly and fallacious policy of the ministry, resolving to compel ministers to resign or to induce them to take some more efficacious measures. in short, during this space of time, the government and people found themselves in quite a new position. kossuth, in concert with the ministry, moved a levy of 200,000 men (july 11), which motion the assembly hailed with unparalleled enthusiasm, and which the people witnessed with approval, as affording a guarantee of their liberties. it was in the midst of these moments of excitement and temporary distress that kossuth, as the most popular member of the cabinet, was pointed out as the person most fitted to undertake the very difficult task of speaking on the italian question alluded to by m. szemere. public opinion, aided by the opposition of the house, was convinced that austria, after having subjugated the lombard-venetians with hungarian troops, would then turn to hungary, the enslavement of which might more easily be executed by the country's being bereft of a number of stout arms indispensable to her own defence. kossuth therefore, as a man of true liberal principles, while acknowledging the ground to be right upon which the opposition moved, professed in the speech alluded to that he had agreed then with his colleagues in respect to the italian question, on the ground that the moral power of the protocol would suffice, although as a private individual he could not help rejoicing at the victories of the italian people. now, i submit it to every enlightened englishman to decide whether kossuth evinced a want of civic virtue in declaring that, as a man who wished freedom for himself, he could not rejoice in the sending of troops to subjugate another people struggling against the same tyrant? referring to the policy of the ministry, m. szemere says "that count louis bathyanyi declared, on the 31st march, that the obligation enjoined by the pragmatic sanction was such that hungary was bound thereby to defend the territorial integrity of the austrian monarchy, but that they (the ministers) would carefully avoid interfering in the internal affairs of the states that constituted this monarchy." irrespective of this--that count bathyanyi explained the policy in march, when hungary enjoyed perfect peace, whereas the debate on the italian question happened in the midst of most threatening civil wars carried on directly by austria--it must be remembered that if by the 1st article of the pragmatic sanction hungary was bound to afford aid to austria _etiam contra vim externam_, that same article provided that the states composing the realm of hungary were to be preserved by the monarch _aeque indivisibiliter_ as his hereditary estates; and that by the 3d article of that celebrated law the sovereign promised, for himself and his successors, to compel his subjects of every state and degree to observe the laws and rights of hungary. it is therefore evident that the infraction of this law, by the countenance and aid furnished to the serbs (as also to jellachich), fully exonerated the hungarians from sending troops to italy before they had provided for the safety of their country, and fully justified them and their responsible minister for drawing the attention of their sovereign to it in the address to the crown. m. szemere talks of protecting the integrity of the austrian empire, and carefully avoiding to interfere with the internal affairs of other states. the czar may indeed exclaim, with m. szemere, that in sending his cossacks into hungary he never intended to interfere in our internal affairs. the second charge, as to kossuth's striving to concentrate in his person all power and authority, is, i fear, indicative of the animus which prompted m. szemere to write these letters, namely, jealousy of his great countryman. the charge, however, is entirely without foundation: and the only question is, as to how kossuth acquired such unbounded influence over his countrymen of every rank and station. the means by which kossuth gained such an ascendancy over his colleagues, m. szemere himself must own, were, the implicit confidence the country placed in his patriotism, and the conviction it had acquired of his genius and indefatigable activity. in moments of extreme danger no name was heard but that of kossuth. i am far from asserting that all kossuth has done is exempt from censure; but it must, on the other hand, be admitted that all that was grand in our revolution happened by his instrumentality. his mere appearance, as, for instance, in debreczin, january, 1849, when the second danger seemed to overwhelm the country, roused the frightened people of the thesis, who crowded under the national standard and shattered to pieces the austrian forces. the fall of hungary can only be traced to the following three circumstances:--1st. that it was not believed that european diplomacy would allow russian intervention. 2d. that our plan of warfare, directed by the council of war, and not by kossuth, wanted that concentration which could alone have ensured success. 3d. that the character of görgei, whom our generals never accused of treacherous designs, was a mystery: nay, the patriotic general perczel, who proclaimed loudly görgei's treachery from the very beginning, had the satisfaction to be laughed at and hooted down. to impute these disastrous circumstances to kossuth alone, is to render one's self guilty of the greatest perversion of generally acknowledged and incontrovertible facts. a hungarian exile. 