"Not in vain does my blood flow in her veins! Ha, ha! For valour I'll match her with the best of men. Have no fear for her! The time is coming when she will face greater perils than any of to-day, and still hold her own."[3] [Footnote 3: The Amazon was Helen Zrinyi. She married first the young cavalier with whom we now meet her, Francis Rakoczy, and subsequently the famous Emerich Tököly, whose acquaintance we shall make presently. Her spirited defence of the fortress of Mohacz, 1689, against the Emperor is well known.] After these prophetic words, the rider pressed his spurs into his horse's sides; the wounded beast plunged and reared, but the pressure of a knee as hard as steel quickly brought it to reason. "Follow me!" cried he, and the picturesque little group dashed after him into the depths of the forest. Let us anticipate them. Let us go whither the stag rests at noonday in the shady groves, whither the heron bathes and the turtle basks in the sun. What habitations are these which rise up before us, built upon piles, in groups of five and six, between the waters and the wilderness, little huts carved out of the stumps of trees with round, clay-plastered, red-thatched roofs? Who has built that dam there, so that the water may never fall too far below the thresholds of those tiny houses? Here dwell the diligent beavers whom Nature herself has taught the art of building. This is their colony. 'Tis they who have gnawed through the thick trees with their teeth; they who have brought those logs hither; they who have thrown up a bank to make a dam, and watch over its safety all the year round. Look there! One of them has just glided out of the lowest storey of his dwelling, which is under the water. With what mild and gentle eyes he looks around him! He has never yet seen man! Let us go on further. In the shadow of an old hollow tree rests a family of stags. A buck and a doe with her two little fawns. The buck has come forward into the sunlight; his stately form seems to give him pleasure; he licks his smooth, shiny coat again and again; softly scratches his back with his branching antlers, and struts about with a proud, self-confident air, daintily raising his slender legs from time to time: the undulating movements of his slim and supple form show off to the best advantage the play of his elastic muscles. The doe lies lazily in the rank grass. From time to time she raises her beautiful head, and looks with her large black eyes so feelingly, so lovingly at her companion or at her sportive little ones, and if she perceives they have strayed too far, she utters an uneasy, plaintive sort of whine, whereupon the little creatures come bounding back to her helter-skelter, frisking and gambolling about their dam; they cannot keep still for a moment, all their limbs quiver and shake, and all their movements are so graceful, so lively, and so lovely.