Part 9 (2/2)

At that moment a fresh cry resounded from the fortress: ”Ali! Ali!” The Pasha himself was advancing with his picked guards, with the valiant Janissaries, with those good marksmen, the Szaracsies, who can pierce with a bullet a thaler flung into the air, and with the veteran Mamelukes, who can fight with sword and lance at the same time. He himself rode in advance of his host on his war-horse, his big red face aflame with rage; in front of him his standard-bearer bore the triple horse-tail, on each side of which strode a negro headsman with a broadsword.

”Come hither, ye faithless dogs! Is the world too narrow for ye that ye come to die here? By the shadow of Allah, I swear it, ye shall all be sent to h.e.l.l this day, and I will ravage your kingdom ten leagues round.

Come hither, ye impure swine-eaters! Your heads shall be brought to market; everyone who brings in the head of a Christian shall receive a ducat, and he who brings in a captive shall die.”

Thus the Pasha roared, stormed, and yelled at the same time; while Topay tried to marshal once more his men who were scattering before the fire of the Turks, galloping from street to street, and re-forming his terrified squadrons to make head against the solid host of the advancing Turks, which was rapidly gaining ground, while Kokenyesdi's followers only thought of booty.

”A hundred ducats to him who shoots down that son of a dog!” thundered the Pasha, pointing out the ubiquitous Topay, and, finding it impossible to get near him, roared after him: ”Thou cowardly puppy! whither art thou running? Look me in the face, canst thou not?”

Topay heard the exclamation and shouted back very briefly:

”I saw _thy_ back at Banfi-Hunyad.”[13]

[Footnote 13: See ”'Midst the Wild Carpathians,” Book II., Chapter IV.]

At this insult Ali Pasha's gall overflowed, and seizing his mace, he aimed a blow with it at Topay, when suddenly a sharp crackling cross-fire resounded from a neighbouring lane, and amidst the thick clouds of smoke, Rakoczy's musketeers appeared, sticking their daggers into their discharged firearms, a practise to which the bayonet owed its origin at a later day. The Turkish cavalry, crowded together in the narrow street, was in a few moments demoralised by this rapid a.s.sault.

The improvised bayonet told terribly in the crush, swords and darts were powerless against it.

”Allah is great!” cried Ali. ”Hasten into the fortress and draw up the bridge, we are only peris.h.i.+ng here. Only the fortress remains to us.”

His conductors, against his will, seized his bridle, and dragged him along with them; and when a valiant musketeer, drawing near to him, cut down his charger, the terrified Pasha clambered up into the saddle of one of his headsmen, and took refuge behind his back.

A young Hungarian horseman was constantly on his track. n.o.body could tell Ali who he was, but one could see from his face that he was the Pasha's fiercest enemy, and animated by something more than mere martial ardour. This young horseman gave no heed to the bullets or blades which were directed against him; he was bent only on bloodshed.

It was young Rakoczy, to whom bitterness had given strength a hundredfold. Forcing his way through the flying hostile rabble, he was drawing nearer and nearer to Ali every moment, cutting down one by one all who barred the way between him and the Pasha, and the Turks quailed before his strong hands and savage looks.

At length they reached the bridge, which was built upon piles, between deep bulwarks, and led into the fortress, the front part of whose gate was fortified by iron plates and huge nails, and could be drawn up to the gate of the tower by round chains. On the summit of the tower of the citadel could still be seen the equestrian statue of St. Ladislaus derisively turned upside down between the severed legs of two felons.

The Hungarians and the Turks reached the bridge together so intermingled that the only thing to be seen was a confused ma.s.s of turbans and helmets, in the midst of a forest of swords and scimitars, with the banner of the Blessed Virgin cheek by jowl with the crescented horse-tails.

At the gate of the citadel stood two long widely gaping eighteen-pounders commanding the bridge, filled with chain, shot, and ground nails; but the Komparajis dare not use their cannons, for in whatever direction they might aim, there were quite as many Turks as Hungarians. On the bridge itself the foes were fighting man to man.

Rakoczy was at that moment fighting with the bearer of the triple horse-tail, striving to take the standard pole with his left hand, while he aimed blow after blow at his antagonist with his right.

”Shoot them down, you good-for-nothings!” roared Ali Pasha, turning back to the inactive and contumacious Komparajis. ”Reck not whether your bullets sweep away as many Mussulmans as Hungarians, myself included!

Sweep the bridge clear, I say! Life is cheap, but Paradise is dear!”

But the gunners still hesitated to fire amongst their comrades, when Ali sent two drummers to them commanding them to aim their guns aloft and fire into the air.

The contest on the bridge was raging furiously; the Janissaries had placed their backs against the parapet, and there stood motionless, with their huge broad-swords in their naked fists, like a fence of living scythes, tearing into ribbons everything which came between them.

Then it occurred to a regiment of German Drabants to clamber up the parapet of the bridge, and tear the Janissaries away from the parapet; some ten or twenty of these Drabants did scramble up on the bridge, when the parapet suddenly gave way beneath the double weight, and Janissaries and Drabants fell down into the deep moat beneath, throttling each other in the water, and whenever a turbaned head appeared above the surface, the Germans standing at the foot of the bridge beat out its brains with their halberds.

Meanwhile, the two fighting heroes in the middle of the bridge were almost exhausted by the contest. They had already hacked each other's swords to pieces, had grasped the banner, the object of the struggle, with both hands, and were tearing away at it with ravening wrath.

The Turkish standard-bearer then suddenly pressed his steed with his knees, making it rear up beneath him, so that the Turk stood now a head and shoulder higher than Rakoczy, and threatened either to oust him from his saddle or tear the standard from his hand.

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