Neath the Hoof of the Tartar Part 26

"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 Gabor, will go to-day as soon as it is dusk, to old G.o.dri, the charcoal-burner. You can take Jako'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 Gabor. 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 gra.s.s under the snow, down in the valleys. Jako 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, Gabor, and myself; and you must trust everything else to us!"

Moses would dearly have liked to raise a mult.i.tude 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 Jako with you, instead of Gabor? Gabor is a good, trusty fellow and active, but he is not equal to Jako."

"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 Gabor is that I want to send him to seek my father by one route, while we take another. Jako 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 a.s.sented, 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 Gabor 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 pa.s.sage, 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 Gabor; 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 Gabor, the horseman, a small purse, which, had she but known it, was likely to be of small a.s.sistance 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 mult.i.tudes 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 superst.i.tious 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 ma.s.sacres 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 ma.s.sacred 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 pa.s.sage; 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 a.s.sault, 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 n.o.ble 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 s.h.a.ggy 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.