Historical fiction; Hungarian fiction -- Translations into English; Transylvania (Romania) -- History -- Fiction
The Turkish army was now completely beaten; more than a thousand of its
dead lay in the streets and around the church, and only the mountain
passes, into which it was not prudent for the Hungarians to follow them,
saved them from utter annihilation.
George Veer therefore sounded the recall, whilst Banfi, with restless
rage, rushed hither and thither after the flying foe. All in vain; every
way was barred by the trunks of trees which the Turks had hewn down in
hot haste.
"We must let them escape!" cried Veer, thrusting his sabre into its
sheath.
"Say not so! say not so!" cried Banfi excitedly, and riding up to the
top of a hillock, he seemed to be observing something in the distance.
Suddenly he exclaimed with a joyful voice--"Look yonder. The
fire-signals have just been lit!"
And indeed on the crests of the Gyalyui Mountains the fire-signals could
be seen flashing up one by one in a long line.
"Those are our people!" cried Banfi, with fresh enthusiasm. "The Turk is
caught in the trap. Forward!" And remarshalling his squadrons, he
galloped towards the barricaded forest paths, heedless of the warnings
of the more circumspect Veer.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Ali Pasha, abandoning his tents, camels, and booty-laden
wagons to the enemy, sent Dzem Haman, the Albanian commander, on before,
to level the roads over the snowy mountains.
As now Dzem Haman was advancing through the darkness and superintending
the labours of his Albanian pioneers, he heard voices in the steep rock
above his head, and a company of armed men suddenly emerged from the
mountain passes before his eyes.
The troops on both sides challenged each other simultaneously.
"Who are ye? What are you doing?"
"We are carrying stones," answered Dzem Haman. "And you?"
"We too are carrying stones," was the answer from above.
"We are Dzem Haman's men, who are removing the stones from the path of
Ali Pasha--and ye, are you not Csaky's men?"
"We are collecting stones for the head of Ali Pasha, and are Michael
Angel's people," resounded from above, and at the same time a terrible
rain of stones rolled down upon the heads of the Albanians, by way of
confirming the statement.
"Michel Anchal is here also!" roared the terrified Albanians, falling
back aghast, and creating a panic among those behind them by declaring
that they were surrounded.
At these tidings, the Turkish host, harassed from before and behind,
resolved itself into a disorderly mass, on which, at break of day, the
Hungarian infantry began rolling enormous masses of stone and rock.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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