a wild beast, but Thou vouchsafest to me to be once more a man!" He turned to his companions. "To horse!" he cried; "let the troop assemble." They sprang to their horses, and soon upon all sides the signal-whistle was heard. In ten minutes, a hundred and eighty men, well mounted and armed, mustered round the fire. "Friends and comrades," cried Sandor, "that which we have so long desired has come to pass. We are no longer robbers-our country pardons us. It is granted us to atone our crimes by an honourable death. Is there one amongst you who does not repent his past life, and rejoice to be allowed to end it in honour?" "Not one!" was the unanimous shout. "Will you follow me to the battle?" The vow was brief. Many died, and no one could say what had killed them. The rough uneducated soldiers were pining away in home-sickness, like flowers transplanted to a foreign and ungenial soil. An experiment was tried. Some of the sick men received leave to go home. The next day-they were well and hearty. It became known that some one was at work secretly innoculating the soldiers with this strange malady; but it was impossible to detect the person. The soldiers!-oh, not one of them would betray him; and all snares were laid in vain. With the officers he never meddled. The private soldiers were his men. With them he felt himself secure from treachery. And the seed he scattered abroad produced an abundant harvest. The dejection of the troops became daily more striking. The soldiers grew wild and intractable. No longer, when riding their horses to water, did they sing, as had been their wont, "We joyfully swear to shed our blood for our fatherland!" "Add," said George to Rosa, "and joyous ditties in praise of wine and to give no quarter!" NOSTALGIA. The soldier is dying of home-sick ness. On a sudden an epidemic broke out amongst the Hungarian troops stationed in foreign lands. A mysterious man wandered from place to place, visiting the wine-houses frequented by the hussars, and joining in their conversation. The words he spoke, repeated from mouth to mouth, spread far and wide amongst the light-hearted soldiers, whose lightheartedness then suddenly left them. The stranger told them of things which had happened in their native land; and, when he departed, he left behind him printed verses and proclamations. These the privates took to their serjeants to have read to them. When they heard them read they wept and cursed, and learned by heart both verse and prose, from the first word to the last, and repeated them from morning till night. Then many took to their beds, and neither ate nor drank; and when the doctors asked what ailed them, they pointed to their hearts, and said, Home! home!-let us go home!" women. Their songs were now sad and strange-sounding; mournful words to yet more dismal tunes. They sang of their country, of their dear native land, and of strife and bloodshed, in dirge-like strains; and the burden of every couplet was Eljen Magyar!" Like the last accents of a dying man were the tones they uttered, sinking deeper and deeper, and ending in piteous long-protracted cadences. 66 Still are such songs to be heard in Hungary's forests, and around her villages, in the silent night-time. Now, more than ever, do they sound like funeral dirges, and their long sad notes like wailings from the grave. groom went to visit his bride. He was a tall slender man, with the bloom of youth still upon his face; but his high forehead was already bald;— "Sun and moon together," as the Hungarian proverb says. At The bride was a fair and delicate lady, with abundant black locks, a pale nervous countenance, and blue eyes of that unusual lustre which one finds only in Polish blue eyes. sight of her lover, her alabaster cheek was overspread with the roses of love's spring-time, and her eyes beamed like the rising sun. The bridegroom would fain have appeared cheerful; but it is hard to deceive the gaze of love, which reads the beloved one's trouble in each fold of the brow, in each absent glance of the eye. Tenderly she approached him, smoothed his forehead's wrinkles with her hand, and imprinted a kiss in their place. But again they returned. "What ails thee, dearest? How is this? Sad on the eve of our wedding-day?" I? Nothing ails me. But I am annoyed at an incident—a casualty – which I cannot postpone. The courtmartial has condemned a man to death. I have just now signed the sentence. The man is to be shot tomorrow just on our bridal-day! I would it were otherwise!" "The man is doubtless a criminal?" "According to military law. He has been debauching soldiers from their duty-exciting them to desert and return home to fight the Serbs. Death is the penalty of his crime." "And you have signed the sentence? Are you not a Magyar? Love you not your native land ?" "I am a soldier before everything. I respect the laws." "Impossible! You, who love so well, cannot be devoid of that most ennobling kind of love-patriotism." "I can love, but I cannot dream. Of the maxims and principles of revolutionists, I understand not a word; but thus much I know, revolutions never end well. Much blood, little honour, eternal remorse." "Say not eternal remorse, but eternal hope. Hope that a time must come, which will compensate all sufferings and sacrifices." The fair enthusiast quitted her bridegroom's side, seated herself at the piano, and played with feverish energy the well-known song, "Noch ist Polen nicht verloren!" her eyes flashing through tears. Her lover approached her, removed her hand, which trembled with emotion, from the keys of the instrument, and kissed it. When, at the "Poor Poland! Well may thy daughters weep over thy fate; but alas! in vain. I was lately in Pesth. Passing along a street where a large house was building, I noticed amongst the labourers a woman, carrying stones to and fro upon her head, for the use of the masons. Twicethrice-I passed before her. The sweat streamed from her face; her limbs could scarcely support her. She was no longer young, and the toil was severe. This woman once possessed a palace in Warsaw-far, far more magnificent than the house she was then helping to build. Its portals were surmounted by a prince's coronet; and many are the joyous hours I have spent beneath its hospitable roof. sound of the noonday bell, she seated herself at her wretched meal, I accosted her. For a long time she would not recognise me; then she turned away her head and wept. The other women only laughed at her. I offered her money; she thanked me, and took very little. She, once the mistress of millions, besought me to send the remainder to her little daughter, whom she had left a dependant on a rich family in a distant town. I promised to seek out her daughter. When I had last seen her she was a lovely child, six years of age. Eight years had elapsed, bringing her to the verge of womanhood. I reached the house. In answer to my inquiries, a girl appeared-not that fair and delicate being whose sweet countenance still dwelt in my memory, but a rude creature, with hard coarse features and wild eyes. She did not recognise me, often though she had seen me. I spoke to her in Polish; she understood not a word. I asked after her mother; she stared vacantly in my face. Truly, the fate of Poland is a terrible example of what a nation may expect from its neighbours when it engages in a struggle with one more powerful than itself; and woe to the Magyar if he does not profit by the warning!" "Ah! it is no Magyar who can talk thus !" "Anna! thy first husband fell in battle on the morrow of thy wedding day. Wouldst thou lose thy second bridegroom on its eve ?" "I? With contrition I avow my culpable weakness; I love you more than my country, more than liberty. Until to-day, no man ever heard these words from a Polish woman. I wish you to sacrifice yourself? Did you seek to do so, I should surely hold you back-which no Polish wife ever yet did to her husband. All I crave of you is to leave that man his life, whose patriotism was stronger than your own. On our bridal eve, I ask you for a man's life as a wedding. gift." "And a soldier's honour!" "Punish him otherwise." "There is but one alternative. The man has instigated mutiny and desersertion; the law has doomed him to death. I must execute the sentence, or fly with him to Hungary. And thence, I well know, I should never return. In a case like this, the judge punishes, or is an accomplice of the criminal. In one hand I have the sword of justice, in the other the banner of insurrection. Choose! which shall I raise?" The sky was scarcely reddened by the dawn when the prisoner was led forth to execution. Silently, without other sound than that of their horses' hoofs, marched the square of hussars. In the centre, on an open cart, was the chaplain, a crucifix in his hand; and beside him, in a white shirt, bareheaded and with fettered hands, the culprit, George of St Thomas. The sun rose as they reached the appointed place. The plumes of the hussars and the grey locks of the condemned man fluttered in the morning breeze. They took him from the cart: six hussars dismounted and unslung their carbines; the remainder formed up. The adjutant unfolded a paper and read, in a stern and merciless voice, the sentence of death passed upon George of St Thomas. According to customary form, a soldier stepped up to the adjutant, presented him with a wand, and thrice implored mercy for the condemned man. The third time the officer broke the wand in two, threw it at the criminal's feet, and said in solemn tones, "God is merciful!" At these words the doomed man raised his head; his attitude grew more erect, his features glowed. He gazed around him in the faces of the assembled soldiers, then upwards at the purple clouds, and spoke in enthusiastic tones. "Thank thee, O God!" he said; "and thanks also to you, comrades, for my death. Life has long been a burthen to me; death is welcome. I have lost everything—wife and child, house and home; my country alone remained to me, and her I could not free. I rejoice to die. You, comrades, bless God, that yonder, beyond the mountains, you have a mother, a beloved bride, a faithful wife, an infant child, waiting your return. Yonder beyond the mountains you have your homes, your cottages, your families. Pray to God that at your last hour you may welcome death as joyfully as I, who have nothing left upon earth." He paused, and sank upon his knces, as if power had departed from his limbs. The soldiers stood motionless as statues. The adjutant waved the paper in his hand. Gloomily the six hussars raised their carbines. Once more the adjutant raised the folded paper, when behold! a young non-commissioned officer dashed ont of the ranks, snatched the fatal document from his hand, tore it, and threw the fragments at the feet of the firing-party. Two hundred sabres flashed from their scabbards, and, amidst a cloud of dust, two hundred chargers scoured across the plain. The wedding guests were waiting. The bridegroom was there in full uniform, glittering with gold, and the beauteous bride in her graceful robe of white lace. Yet a moment, and she would be his wedded wife. The moment was very long. The bridegroom awaited his adjutant's return from the execution. Until then, he would not approach the altar. What if, at the very instant the solemn Yes! passed his lips, there reached his ears the rattle of the life-destroying volley, which he, the thrice happy lover, had commanded? What if, whilst God's servant implored Heaven's blessing on their union, the angry spirit of the criminal, invoking vengeance on his judge's head, appeared at the footstool of the Almighty? Still no adjutant came. The bridegroom was uneasy. Yet uneasier grew the bride. "Perhaps," she whispered, "it were better to postpone the ceremony." "Or," he replied, “to hasten it." A foreboding of evil oppressed them both. And still the adjutant came not. Two, three hours elapsed beyond the appointed time. Noon approached; each minute seemed an eternity. At last hoofs clattered in the court. Hasty steps and jingling spurs were heard upon the stairs. All eyes were fixed upon the door. . . . It opened, - the adjutant appeared, pale, dusty, exhausted, the sweat streaming over his face. "Remain without!" cried the bridegroom. "You bring a message of death-enter not here!" "No message of death do I bring," replied the officer hoarsely, "but a hundred times worse. The condemned man has taken the hussars away with him, all, towards the Hungarian frontier. A couple of leagues off they released me to make my report !" "My horse!" shouted the bridegroom, hurrying madly to the door. But he paused at sight of his bride, paler than ever and with terror in her glance. "WAIT BUT A MOMENT, dearest love!" he said, clasped her to his breast, kissed her, and threw himself on his horse. The animal reared beneath him and would not leave the court. The rider struck the spurs sharply into its flanks. Once more he looked back. There she stood, the beloved one, in her bridal dress upon the balcony, and waved her kerchief. be back," she said. "You will soon She never saw him again. their rapid coursers, forward towards the blue mountains-ever forward. Through forest wildernesses, over pathless heaths, up hill and downever forwards to the distant mountains. Right and left steepled cities appeared and vanished; the vesper bells greeted them as they passed; loudly neighing, their horses swept along, swift and ever swifter. Amongst them rode the grayheaded man, guiding them by untrodden paths, over swamp and moor, through silent groves of pine, forwards to the mountains. In the evening twilight they reach the banks of a stream. Here and there on the distant hills glimmer the shepherds' fires; beyond those hills lies the Magyar's home, and in their valleys this stream takes its rise. Here, for the first time, they dismount, to water their horses in the wave whose source is in their native land. Whilst the horses sup the cool stream, their riders strike up that gay and genial song, whose every note brings memories of home,— "Hei! auch ich bin dort geboren, Wo der Stern dort strahlt." Who ever rode so merrily to death? But the vedettes make sudden sign that some one comes. In the distance a horseman is seen; his steed vies in swiftness with the wind, his long plume and laced pelisse stream behind, the gold upon his schako glitters in the red sun-rays. "The Captain!" is murmured around. The hussars mount, draw their sabres, form line, and when their captain appears in their front, they offer him the customary salute. Breathless with fury and speed, at first he cannot speak. Motionless in front of the line, his sabre quivering in his hand, he is at a loss for words to express his indignation. Before he can find them, four hussars quit the ranks; the youngest-the same who tore up the sentence-raises his hand to his schako, and addresses his chief. "Welcome, Captain! You come at the right moment to accompany us Forward raced the hussars upon to Hungary. Short time is there for "Ha! I too was yonder born, where brightly beams the star." deliberation. Decide quickly. We will seize your horse's bridle, and take you with us by force. Well do we know that you come willingly; but so will you avoid disgrace, should defeat be our lot. You must with us-by force. If we succeed, yours the glory; if we fall, the guilt is ours, since we compel you. Play your part! Defend yourself! Cut one or two of us from our saddles, the first who lays hand on your rein-see, I grasp it! Strike, Captain, and with a will." He did as he said, and seized the horse's bridle; whilst, on the other side, an old serjeant laid hand on its mane. The horse stirred not. The Captain gazed hard at them, each in turn; but he raised not his sabre to strike. Behind him his forsaken bride, before him the mountain frontier of his native land. On the one hand, a heaven of love and happiness; on the other, glory and his country's cause. Two mighty passions striving against each other with a giant's force. The fierce conflict went nigh to overpower him; his head sank upon his breast. Suddenly blared the trumpets in rear of the squadron; at the martial sound his eager war-horse bounded beneath him. With awakening enthusiasm the rider raised his head and waved his sabre. "Forward, then," he cried, "in God's name!" And forward 'he sprang into the river, the two hussars by his side; the cloven waters plashing in pearls around their heads. Forward, forward to the blue mountains! In lengthening column, the hussars followed across the stream-the horses bravely breasting the flood, the bold riders singing their wild Magyar ditty. But dark and gloomy was their leader's brow, for each step led him farther from happiness and his bride. In the midst of the troop rode George of St Thomas, in his hand the banner of Hungary. His cheek glowed, his eye flashed: each step brought him nearer to revenge. The troubled stream is once more stilled, the fir-wood receives the fugi tives, their horses' tramp dies away in the darkness. Here and there, from the distant mountains, the herdsman's horn resounds; on their flanks the shepherd's fire gleams like a bloodred star. Forward, forward! Back to thy lair, bloodthirsty monster, back and sleep! Let the forest-grass grow over the ensanguined plain. How much is destroyed, how much has passed away. How many good men, who were here, are here no longer; and how many who remain would grieve but little if they, too, were numbered with the dead. The hero of battles is once more a robber and a fugitive. The iron hand of the law drives him from land's end to land's end. In the mad-house mopes a captain of hussars, and ever repeats,-"WAIT BUT A MOMENT!" None there can guess the meaning of his words. Only George of St Thomas is happy. He sleeps in a welcome grave, dreaming of sweet renown and deep revenge. We have suppressed two chapters of this tale, both for want of space, and because they are unpleasantly full of horrors. They are chiefly occu pied with the vengeance wreaked by George, who is frightfully mutilated in the course of the war, upon the Serbs, and especially upon his deadly foe Basil; and include an account of the capture by assault, and subsequent conflagration, of the town of St Thomas. They are in no way essential to heighten or complete the interest of those we have given; and L'Envoy is as appropriately placed at the end of the third chapter as at the close of the fifth. The plot of the whole tale, if such it may be called, is quite unimportant; but there is an originality and a wild vigour in many of the scenes, which justify, in combination with other German translations from the Magyar that have lately reached us, an anticipation of yet better things from the present generation of Hungarian poets and novelists. |