now and then, and never seriously thought of endeavoring to thoroughly crush the Turkish power. Under his feeble successors, the Turks, who easily recuperated from the losses of single battles, grew into a formidable power, which soon brought Hungary to the verge of ruin. We have described, in the preceding pages, the fatal battle of Mohács, fought on the 29th of August, 1526, in which the youthful King Louis II. opposed an army of hardly 25,000 men to Solyman’s 300,000, to be swept away by the torrent of overwhelming numbers. To give an adequate idea, however, of this awful catastrophe in the annals of Hungary, we will add here that seven bishops and archbishops, thirteen lords of the banner, five hundred magnates, and many thousand nobles laid down their lives on the bloody battle-field. The nation was seized with indescribable terror on learning the details of this dreadful calamity; entire villages were deserted by their inhabitants, who scattered in every direction. The widowed queen, finding herself utterly deserted in Buda, fled to Presburg, and the capital of Hungary, one of the finest cities of Christendom, which but a little more than a generation before had been made one of the chief centres of European learning and culture, passed, in less than two weeks after the fatal day of Mohács, without any resistance, into the hands of the victorious Solyman. The Turks sacked and set fire to the beautiful city, and all its magnificent buildings, save the royal palace, were destroyed by the flames. The victorious enemy met with as little opposition in ravaging and massacring in the country as they had encountered at the capital. There was no one to stay their devastations. The miserable peasantry still made some feeble attempts at defence; here and there a few thousand men collected at some fortified position to protect themselves and their families. Thus some 20,000 men retreated into the Vértes mountains, and, under the leadership of Michael Dobozy, entrenched themselves near the village of Marót, in a camp fortified by a barricade constructed of wagons. But the Turks had their guns carried up to the nearest eminence, and opened a fire on the occupants of the improvised wall. The peasants were struck with terror, and the undisciplined boors, the wailing women and children, deserted their sheltering wagons in despair. Dobozy, seeing that all was lost, mounted his gallant steed, and placing his young wife on the saddle before him, he sought safety in flight. The elated Turks fell upon the flying Hungarians, frightfully massacring their ranks. Among the fugitives, Dobozy especially attracted the enemy’s attention, owing to the superiority of his armor, indicative of gentle blood, and more particularly because of the young woman he carried in his arms. They pursued him like bloodhounds. The distance between the pursuers and pursued gradually diminished, and Dobozy’s horse began to show signs of exhaustion under the double burden.