His kinsmen and friends, hastening to the spot, found the hero in the throes of death by the side of the dead boar. They rushed up with loud lamentations, and bound up his throat with their kerchiefs. "It is nothing, my children; it is nothing!" he gasped, and expired. "Alas! poor warrior!" sighed those who stood around him. "Alas! my country!" sobbed Helen, raising her tearful eyes to heaven. The gala-day had become a day of mourning; the hunt a funeral. The guests sorrowfully followed the body of their best friend to Csakatorny. Only the bald-head took the opposite direction. "Didn't I say that life was meant for other and better things?" murmured he. "Well, well! the world is large, and men are many. I'll go a kingdom further on." * * * * * Thus died Nicolas Zrinyi[6] the younger, his country's greatest poet and bravest son. [Footnote 6: It is not without reason that Jókai alludes to Zrinyi as "the hero." He was one of the greatest warriors of his day (1618-1666), and his victories over the Turks were many and brilliant. As a poet he stands high, even judged by a modern standard. His chief works are his great epic, _Szigeti veszedelem_, and his religious poems, _Keresztre_, "On the Cross!"] Thus died the man whom Fortune always respected, the darling, the bulwark, the ornament of his fatherland. In vain will you now seek for his hunting-box or his castle. All has perished--the name, the family, nay, the very remembrance of the hero. The general and the statesman are forgotten; only one part of him still survives, only one part of him will live eternally--the poet. CHAPTER II. THE HOUSE AT EBESFALVA. And now we too will go "a kingdom further on." Let us go one kingdom forward and four years backward. We are in Transylvania; the year is 1662.