Wherein, then, lay its mysterious strength? In the fact that Pest lay outstretched at its feet, and for every cannon-ball directed against the fortress it could retaliate with a deadly shower of fire and iron. The enemy on the hill said to his foe across the river: "If you draw your sword against me I will slay your wife and daughters and the infant in its cradle." Nevertheless the sword was drawn. For the fiery and impetuous, nothing tries the patience more than the forced inactivity of a siege,--the sitting down before a blank wall from behind which the enemy sticks out his tongue and laughs in derision. Before three days had passed, nine-tenths of the besieging army had become fretful with impatience. The men were eager to storm the enemy's stronghold on all sides. Even in the council of war the spirit of impatience was rife and the commanding general was urged to order an assault. Violent scenes were enacted, in which the best friends fell to quarrelling. All were divided between two parties, the hot-headed and the cool-headed. Thus it came about that the two Baradlay brothers, Ödön and Richard, found themselves opposed to each other in the council, and on the fourth day of the siege they went so far as to exchange hot and angry words. "We must bring the siege to an end," declared the younger brother, vehemently. "And I say," rejoined the elder, "that we have but just begun it and must wait for our heavier guns before we can think of making an assault. Otherwise we shall provoke a deadly fire on Pest, and all to no purpose." "What is Pest to us in this crisis?" cried Richard. "Ten years ago the great flood destroyed the city, and we rebuilt it. Let the enemy burn it down; in ten years it will have risen from its ashes, more beautiful than ever." "Yet even at that fearful sacrifice are we at all sure that we can take the fortress? Can we scale its heights in the face of the enemy's fire?" "Yes. A subterranean channel, constructed by the Turks, runs from Buda down to the river. Through this a company of infantry could make its way into the fort while a hot attack was maintained from without." "I have studied the situation, too," returned Ödön, "and I have learned positively that the upper end of the subterranean passage is in ruins; but even if it were not, and a company of our men succeeded in effecting an entrance, would they not, in all probability, be cut down before they could open the gates to us or we could join them?" "Do you, then, place no confidence whatever in the courage and determination of our soldiers?" asked the other. "On the contrary," was the reply; "but even courage and determination cannot prevail against such overwhelming odds." Richard's eyes flashed fire. He was in that tense and irritated condition in which a man feels that he must utter a sharp retort or burst with passion. "You say that," he exclaimed hotly, "because, like all civilians, you are a coward at heart."