Many were still found in other parts of the country to follow the stirring example set by Juricsics, but unfortunately success but rarely attended their devotion. Most of them were fated only to be martyrs to the sacred cause, shedding their blood on the altar of their tottering country. The farther the Turkish conquests extended the more precarious and perilous became the position of the isolated commanders of the Hungarian border fortresses. The safety of a whole territory or country often depended upon the possession of one of these strongholds. Thus were the wealthy mining towns and the entire Hungarian mining region protected by the fortified place of Drégel, and it naturally attracted the attention of the Turks, always thirsting for plunder, who hastened to lay siege to it, hoping, by its possession, to open the road to the mines. Gallant George Szondi, the commandant of the fortress of Drégel, was a determined and magnanimous man who, fully conscious of the great importance of the place, was ready to defend it with his life. The fortress itself was not one of the first order, and was guarded only by a small garrison. In July, 1552, a Turkish army numbering about 10,000 appeared under the walls. Ali, the Pasha of Buda, himself a chivalrous and noble-minded soldier, stood at the head of the besiegers, and, under the fire of his guns, the bastions crumbled to dust in the course of a few days. When the great tower too, was but a heap of ruins, and the walls were showing wide gaps everywhere, and all hope of being able to continue the defence seemed to have vanished, Ali sent a message to the commandant of Drégel. He employed a clergyman by the name of Márton, the parish priest of a neighboring village, to go to Szondi and to tell him that: “Ali reverently bowed before Szondi’s bravery and determined spirit, the report of which had reached him long ago, and of which he had had good occasion to convince himself during the present siege, but as the position could be held no longer, Szondi ought to preserve his heroic life and to surrender the crumbling fortress, and if this were done free departure should be guaranteed for himself and his people.” Szondi silently listened to the message of Ali, whom he knew to be a noble and chivalrous foe, but manfully declined to lay down his arms. He was resolved to defend the place to his last breath, and rather bury himself under its ruins than negotiate with the enemy. But he in turn asked now a favor of Ali Pasha, not for himself, but for two youthful troubadours, two young bards who were in the fortress, and for whom the Hungarian hero wished to provide before his death. He had the youths dressed in purple velvet and sending them, under the care of Father Márton, to Ali Pasha, he requested the latter to take these youths—some say they were his own sons—into his service, as he himself would not be able to bring them up, and to make brave men of them.