"If the good God would only lead us to a village!" was the prayer of many a young hussar. But their prayers met with an ill response. They had prayed for some snug little village, and they came to a city instead. Gaining a hilltop, they suddenly beheld in the valley before them a pretty town with six church-spires. Their prayer had been more than answered. The town was girt with a wall, after the old German custom, and it seemed unwise to trust themselves within its embrace. A road led around it, to be sure, but was commanded by a high-walled building that looked, to the experienced eye, suspiciously like cavalry barracks. A reconnoissance seemed hazardous where every eye was on the watch for the fugitives; therefore, they were forced to retire to the woods they had just left, and wait for night. Yet they feared to tarry too long, well knowing that Palvicz would send a messenger across the river by boat to notify the garrison commander of their presence in the neighbourhood. At nightfall the uncertainty of the hussars was dispelled. A bugle sounded its familiar note from the barracks, and the horses pricked up their ears. That well-known "trarara trarara" had always meant to them that their masters were bringing oats for the night and spreading straw for their beds. But no such good luck this time. The fanfare was heard four times,--once at each corner of the wall,--and when the trumpets became silent a roll of drums followed. All this indicated to the listeners that troops were quartered in the town. To make a détour and avoid both town and barracks was impossible; horses and riders would have perished in the swamp. But go on they must in some way; it was out of the question to bivouac in the open air that cold autumn night. Yet which way were they to turn? Possibly the reader may wonder that two hundred and twenty Hungarian hussars, those centaurs of modern mythology, should have even stopped to ask such a question, so long as they held their good swords in their hands. But consider, dear reader, that these hussars had not slept for two nights, or eaten anything since the preceding day; that their horses were worn out, their clothes wet through, and their limbs chilled and stiffened by the autumn frost. Military men know only too well how many battles have been lost because of empty stomachs. Many a brave army that has marched out as if to subdue the world has been routed in the end by a despised and inferior enemy, simply because the latter had eaten a good dinner before the battle and the other side had not. At last help came from an unexpected source,--from that cold and penetrating dampness of which the shivering riders were so bitterly complaining. Such a dense mist arose and spread over the landscape that one could not see twenty steps ahead.