Midst the Wild Carpathians Part 34

Then up! to horse! and scale the height, Bold Magyar! Szekler steeled in fight!

And st.u.r.dy Saxon hind!

A laggard he who doth not hie When straight before the road doth lie; And where there is no road to go, then climb, nor look behind!"

This song, sung by thousands and thousands of warriors, gradually died away in the distance.

George Veer, on reaching Klausenburg, no longer found Banfi there. The Lord-Lieutenant with two hundred hors.e.m.e.n had departed an hour before.

Veer, after allowing his men a brief halt, followed Banfi all night long without being able to overtake him; the Baron had always the start of him, though sometimes only a few minutes.

It was already late in the night when Banfi with his two hundred hors.e.m.e.n reached the point where the Koros intersects the woody dale; just where a bridge crosses the stream the Turk had pitched his camp.

Watchful Bedouins lay stretched on their bellies there, with their long muskets in their hands. It was impossible to surprise them.

In the direction of Banfi-Hunyad a red glow illuminated the sky, alternately waxing and waning.

Leaving his hors.e.m.e.n in ambush on the opposite sh.o.r.e, Banfi with four companions descended to the stream to seek for a ford. The Koros is there so rapid that it can unhorse the firmest rider. Fortunately it had fallen so much in consequence of the summer drought, that Banfi soon found a place where the water flowed more calmly, and waded successfully through it with his escort. One of them he sent back to fetch the rest, but he himself with the other three remained on the opposite bank looking steadily in the direction of the fire.

Meanwhile a patrol of Bedouin hors.e.m.e.n, who were keeping watch on the bank, perceived the three riders and their leader, and challenged them.

Banfi would have fallen back, but three of the Bedouins charged upon him forthwith, while the three others with couched lances fell upon his comrades.

"Bend your heads down over the necks of your horses, and seize their lances with your left hands!" cried Banfi to his companions; and with that they all four drew their swords, went at full tilt against the foe, and collided beneath the dark shadows without another word.

Banfi was in the centre. The lances of the three Bedouins whizzed through the air simultaneously, and Banfi's comrades fell on both sides of him, transfixed, from their horses, while he with his left hand skilfully disarmed one of the spearmen, at the same time dealing him a blow with his right hand which cleft his skull. He then turned single-handed upon his two nearest a.s.sailants, and cut down one with his lance and the other with his sword.

But now the three remaining hors.e.m.e.n fell furiously upon him.

"Come on then!" shouted Banfi, gnas.h.i.+ng his teeth; and with that terrible humour peculiar to certain warriors in the hour of danger, he added--"I'll teach you how to wield the spear, my boys!" and setting his back against a clump of trees, he stuck his sword into its sheath, seized his spear with both hands, and not three minutes had elapsed before all three Bedouins had fallen from their horses to the ground.

Then he looked around to see if any more were coming, and was delighted to observe that the Turks at the bridge had heard nothing of the tussle, while his two hundred hors.e.m.e.n had come down to the river-side and were noiselessly crossing to the opposite bank.

Some of the fallen Bedouins were still moaning and groaning.

"Smash their skulls in, that they may not betray us with their cries!"

"Ought we not to await Veer's troops?" asked one of the captains.

"We cannot. We haven't time!" replied Banfi, with his eyes fixed upon the ruddy horizon, and the little band proceeded covertly through field and forest.

Soon a distant hubbub struck upon their ears, and when they had climbed to the top of a little hill, Banfi-Hunyad emerged before their eyes.

Banfi gave a sigh of relief. It was not the town that was burning, but the haystacks. The roofs of the houses had been taken off beforehand by the inhabitants themselves to prevent the enemy from setting them on fire. Even the church and castle were roofless, and the Turkish host could be seen swarming round them by the light of the conflagration, whilst from the battlements a fiery rain of sulphur and pitch, occasionally intermingled with heavy beams, poured down upon the besiegers, and drove them back from the walls.

Ali Pasha had not waited for his artillery,--it had stuck fast in the wretched roads,--imagining that he could easily storm a place defended only by women and peasants. But it is notorious that despair makes every one a soldier, and that even scythes and axes are good weapons in resolute hands.

At this spectacle Banfi's features grew flaming red. He fancied he saw a white female form on the pinnacle of the tower, immediately gave his horse the spur, and rushed forward like a whirlwind, crying to his hors.e.m.e.n--

"Don't count the enemy now; we shall have time enough for that afterwards, when we have cut them all down!" and in a quarter of an hour the little band had reached the camp before the town.

There every one was slumbering. Whilst one half of the host was storming the town the other found time to repose. Even the heads of the sentries hung drowsily down. There they lay, close to their horses, and only awoke out of their dreams when Banfi was already charging through their ranks.

The Baron, who seemed bent upon relieving the besieged single-handed, cut down everything that came in his way; while the Turks, scared out of their slumbers, blindly s.n.a.t.c.hed up sword and spear, and began ma.s.sacring each other, despite all the efforts of the Tsahusz's to restore order.

Meanwhile Banfi was madly forcing his way through the Turkish host surrounding the church. The foremost rows fled back aghast at this unexpected onslaught; but a brigade of Ali Pasha's picked Mamelukes rode forward and arrested the flight.

A gigantic Moor stood at the head of this troop. His horse too was an extraordinarily big beast, a stallion sixteen hands high. The protuberant, swelling muscles of the dusky giant's naked arms shone like steel in the h.e.l.lish glare of the burning haystacks, his broad mouth was bleeding from the blow of a stone, and the whites of his eyes gleamed ghost-like out of his dark countenance.

"Halt, Giaour!" roared the Moor, with a voice which rose above the din of battle, and he went straight for Banfi. In his enormous fist sparkled a sabre as broad as a man's hand; it appeared too heavy even for him.

Two hussars riding in front of Banfi fell right and left before two blows from the monster, one without his head, the other cleft to the shoulder. Throwing back his arm for a third stroke, the Moor rose in his stirrups, and exclaimed with a voice of thunder--

"I am Karia.s.sar, the invincible! Thank thy G.o.d that thou diest by my hand!" and with that he swept his sword backwards, and dealt a tremendous blow at Banfi's head.

The Baron, with the utmost sangfroid, brought his sword in front of his face, and at the very moment when Karia.s.sar let fly at him, made with lightning-like swiftness a dextrous lunge at the Moor's fist--it was what fencers call _an inner cut_--striking off Karia.s.sar's four fingers, so that the heavy scimitar fell clas.h.i.+ng out of the fingerless hand.

The black's face grew pale from rage and pain. With a frightful howl he instantly threw himself on Banfi, and disregarding fresh wounds on his face and shoulders, seized Banfi's right hand with his left, and must have dragged him from his horse by sheer brute force if the Baron had not had an uncommonly firm seat.

It seemed as if the Moor were capable of crus.h.i.+ng him with only one hand. But Banfi was a good rider, and now he pressed his horse tightly with his knee, whereupon the n.o.ble beast reared and plunged; and while the giant was struggling with his master, and tearing at his lacerated arm with a lion's strength, the war-horse turned suddenly on the Moor, struck him a blow on the thigh with its front hoof, bit his brawny breast with foaming mouth, and shook the bitten part between its teeth.

Karia.s.sar yelled aloud, and suddenly relinquis.h.i.+ng the Baron, grasped his poniard with his left hand, and writhing with pain, drew it from its sheath; but at the self-same moment Banfi dealt a rapid stroke at the giant's neck. The huge head rolled suddenly to the ground, and while the blood shot up in a threefold jet from the severed neck, the headless figure remained for an instant swaying on its horse, and spasmodically waving its poniard--a fearful spectacle to friend and foe.

At the sight of their leader's fall the terrified Mamelukes scattered in all directions, trampling one another down in their panic-flight. At the same time the defenders of the church threw down their barricades and made a sortie, Dame Vizaknai at their head with a drawn sword, and close behind her the priests as standard-bearers with the church's banners. The great besieging host, thus caught between two fires, was cut in two, leaving a free s.p.a.ce on one side for the scythes of the peasants, and on the other for the csakanys of the hussars.

The csakany, by the way, is a mighty weapon in the hands of those who know how to use it. Its strokes are almost unavoidable. Its long, pointed beak smites down with such force as to crush s.h.i.+eld and helmet to pieces, and a sword is no defence against it.

Step by step the besieged and the relief party drew nearer to each other, driving before them the Janissaries, who contested every inch of ground, and even when lying on the ground half-dead, aimed with their daggers at the feet of the horses which trampled them down.

Dame Vizaknai sprang towards Denis Banfi and seized his horse by the bridle.

"The danger is great, my lord! The Turk is twenty to one. Come behind the churchyard wall."

"I'll not budge a single step," replied Banfi coolly; "but that is no reason why you should not save yourself behind your barricades."

"Not another step do I budge either," rejoined Dame Vizaknai.

"I can defend myself!" cried Banfi vehemently.

"And I too!" replied the lady proudly.

The next instant fresh squadrons came streaming up from every quarter, as if they had fallen from the clouds or sprung from the earth--infantry and cavalry with long muskets, bows and arrows, and ribboned darts.

"Ali! Ali! Allah akbar!"

The Hungarian forces ranged themselves in battle array, with their backs to the churchyard wall, and awaited the attack. From the end of the street a glittering array of hors.e.m.e.n was seen approaching; it consisted of a picked corps of Spahis[39] on stately Arabs, whose emerald-set saddles sparkled in the firelight. In their midst rode Ali on a slender, snow-white Barbary steed, in his hand flashed a diamond-hilted scimitar; on his head he wore a turbaned helmet; his long black beard fell down over his silver breastplate. On coming within gunshot of Banfi's host, he halted and marshalled his squadrons.

[Footnote 39: _Spahis._ Light Turkish cavalry.]

Hitherto Banfi had not touched his pistols, the wonderfully-carved ivory handles of which peeped forth from his holsters. But now he drew them forth and handed them to Dame Vizaknai.