Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 423, January 1851Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 423, January 1851
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
"To arms! To arms! all who are men!" was shouted on every side, and
the people thronged through the streets and lanes of the city. "To
arms!--to arms!" was re-echoed from house to house, and in an hour's
time ten thousand furious men stood armed and equipped, and ready to
set out for St Thomas.
Then there got abroad a sullen apprehension, speedily succeeded by a
fierce resolve. Some one chanced to say:--
"But what if, when we march away, the Raitzen rise up and murder our
children?"
The words passed from mouth to mouth.
"They shall die!" exclaimed many voices. "Let them perish, as our
brothers perished at St Thomas! They must die!"
And with terrible ferocity the people turned against their own city,
and like a mountain torrent, overpowering all restraint, poured into
their neighbours' dwellings, and slew the Raitzen to the very last man.
This occurred on the sixth day after the extermination of the Magyars
at St Thomas.
THE ROBBER-CAPTAIN.
George took his dead child in his arms, carried her into the forest,
dug a grave at the foot of a poplar tree, and laid her in it. He lacked
the courage to throw clods upon her pale and beautiful countenance, but
he plucked leaves and twigs from the bushes, laid them thickly over
her, and then covered all with the black earth. When the grave was
filled in, and whilst he was smoothing the green moss over the mound,
anguish tore his heart; but, instead of soothing tears, the fire of
hell gleamed in his eyes.
Then he took out his knife, to cut his child's name on the bark of the
tree which was to be her living monument. But when the letters were
complete, there stood, graven by his own hand, the name of BASIL. For
he thought no longer of his daughter, but of her murderer. And more
terribly significant than a thousand curses and vows of vengeance, was
that name, graven in that hour and that place.
George rose from the ground, and wandered forth into the forest. He had
walked some distance, when a longing desire came over him once more to
gaze upon his daughter's grave. He turned to seek it, but the trees
were all alike: in vain he sought the one beneath which his child lay
buried, and at last night overtook him in the very heart of the forest.
Still he walked on, whither and wherefore he knew not. The wood grew
thicker, and the night darker; the birds, startled at his footsteps,
flew screaming from their perch. At last he stumbled over a tree-root,
and fell. Why should he get up again? As well there as anywhere. He
let his weary head sink upon the ground, whispered a "good night" to
his child, and fell asleep, and dreamed of burning towns and scenes of
slaughter.
Towards midnight the neighing of a horse roused him from his restless
slumbers. Near at hand he saw a saddle-horse, snorting and pawing the
ground. Behind some bushes he heard a woman's plaintive tone, and the
harsher voice of a man, mingled at intervals with the prattle of a
child.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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