"Feriz," cried Kucsuk to his son, "just take down that sabre from the wall, and show our friends that thou canst wield it like a man." The boy sprang up, and, proudly confident in his own strength, chose from the weapons that hung on the wall not a sabre but a huge club--seized it by the extreme end of the handle, and swung it with outstretched arms in every direction with an ease and a dexterity which would have done honour to any man. His feat was rewarded by enthusiastic applause. "Deuce take it!" cried the astonished Beldi; "that is what I call a good graft, a Magyar scion on a Turkish stock. You did not carry off his mother for nothing. Come, Kucsuk--give me that lad!" "Be it so! But give me thy daughter." "Which? Make your choice." "She who sits next to him. When she has grown up they will make a good pair, and then we shall both have a son and a daughter." Beldi laughed heartily, and both the women exchanged a smile. Kucsuk looked with an air of satisfaction at his son, who took his aigrette from his turban, tore off the diamond buckle which had pleased Aranka so much, and handed it to the little girl with lavish gallantry. The child timidly stretched out her tiny hand towards the costly gift, the material as well as the moral worth of which she was far from suspecting, but which nothing in the world would now have made her relinquish. The parents suddenly became silent. Their faces still wore a smile, but there was a melancholy earnestness in their eyes. CHAPTER VI. THE BATTLE OF NAGY SZÖLLÖS. Meanwhile Michael Apafi, comforted by Ali Pasha's assurance that help was nigh at hand, had thrown himself into Segesvar, and there awaited the turn of Fortune's wheel. John Kemeny came out against him with a vast host. He had with him an imposing array of German and Hungarian troops, but what his army really wanted was an enterprising general. Michael Apafi had very little to oppose to such a host--a few hundred stubborn, undisciplinable Szekler spearmen, a handful of Saxon burghers, and a bodyguard of blue Janissaries, altogether only about a tenth part of Kemeny's army. Acting therefore on the advice of his brother Stephen, the Prince resolved to remain strictly on the defensive at Segesvar till auxiliaries should reach him from his Turkish protector. This resolution pleased the Saxon burghers immensely, for they were well able to defend themselves behind the walls of their own city, but never felt quite at ease in the open field. Upon the Szeklers, however, Apafi's resolution produced just the contrary effect. It was Nalaczi's mission to keep the Szeklers in a martial humour, and one evening he took them all into the tavern, and filled them with such ardour that at break of day they marched clamorously beneath the windows of the Prince, and swore by hook and by crook that they must have one of the city gates opened for them at once, so that they might fall upon Kemeny there and then and fight him to the death.