CHAPTER VII.

SENT TO PRISON.

It would be interesting, no doubt, if we could follow Michael's career step by step; but the next two years of his life must be passed over very briefly.

It was true that the king had made a man of him, and already Tornay was a marked personage--a man whose name was often in people's mouths, and well known in the army as a rising young general.

There was plenty of work for the Black Legion in those days; for the Turks were perpetually invading the southern provinces, and the Hungarians were left to fight them almost single-handed--though, as the king reminded Louis the Eleventh of France, "Hungary was fighting for all Christendom," as she had been doing for many a long year past.

Michael had distinguished himself more than once for his courage, and for a daring which amounted at times to actual foolhardiness, and now he had outdone his previous exploits by the gallant rescue from extreme peril of General Rozgonyi.

The general was cut off from his men, and absolutely alone in the midst of a band of Turks, when Michael made a bold dash into their midst, scattering them right and left, and succeeded in extricating himself and Rozgonyi from their clutches.

It was a bold exploit and a rash one--madly rash, indeed--but it was successful; and as Michael rode back to his men, wounded, but not seriously so, he was received with loud applause; and perhaps, if the truth must be told, he felt himself something of a hero.

But the king, who had watched him with much anxiety, was considerably provoked; and when the battle was over, he summoned him to his tent, where Michael found him sitting alone and looking very much more grave than was his wont.

He raised his eyes when Michael entered, but his voice sounded stern, and instead of saying "thou" to him as he usually did, he addressed him quite formally.

"Mr. Tornay," said he, "you have been behaving like a madman, like a common soldier whose horse has such a hard mouth that he can't control it; or--you must have been pouring more wine down your throat than you ought to have done."

King Matthias had a great horror of drunkards, and did his best to stop all excessive drinking in the army and elsewhere.

But Michael was utterly taken aback. He had been a good deal flattered and complimented, and had quite expected that the king was going to thank him for saving the general's life, or at least would show that he was well pleased with him, and give him a few of those words of approval which he valued above everything. To be received in this way was rather crushing.

"Sir--Your Highness," he stammered, in great surprise, "I was only doing my duty."

"That is precisely the very thing you were not doing," said the king with some warmth, his large dark eyes flashing as he spoke. "You are a general; you were in command, and you left your troops in the lurch, as St. Paul left the Wallachians.[10] You rushed among the Turkish spahis entirely alone, and to what, as far as you could tell, was certain death, like a man who was weary of his life, his king, and his duty. You ought to be ashamed of yourself; and understand that what may be meritorious in a private is worse than cowardice in the officers."

[Footnote 10: A common saying. St. Paul is supposed to have lost patience with them.]

Tornay was so thunderstruck that he could not find words to defend himself.

"Speak!" said Matthias, in a tone of displeasure. "We wish to hear what you have to say in your defence; it is not our custom to punish any one without hearing him."

"Sir--Your Highness," said Tornay, with gentle deference, but with the manner of one who has an easy conscience, "I did not think I was guilty of cowardice in going to the rescue of one of your best generals!"

"God be thanked that you were successful!" said the king, "but it is more than you had any right to expect. The fact is that it was vanity which led you to risk your head in an experiment which was not merely hazardous, but so desperate that there was hardly the remotest reasonable hope of success; and vanity under such circumstances is cowardice. I honour courage; as for insane foolhardiness, it belongs not to the knight but to the highwayman."

Tornay listened abashed, and though much hurt he felt that Matthias was right.

"I should have a great mind to punish you," the king went on, "but that one of my best generals owes his life to your folly, so for his sake I pardon you."

"What can I do?" said the young man in a low voice--"what can I do to regain Your Highness's favour? I can't live if I know that Your Highness is angry with me--me who owe everything, all that I am, to you."

"Always be on your guard, my little brother," said the king; and now, seeing how distressed he was, and wishing to comfort him, he spoke in the kind, pleasant voice which won all hearts. "Do only what you can give a right and satisfactory reason for, and then you will never miss the mark."

So Michael went back to his quarters comforted, and promising himself to lay the king's simple advice well to heart.

There was a grand banquet at the court that night, and many of the great nobles were present; but Miska did not venture to show himself, though when once the king had given a reprimand and made the delinquent understand what he thought of his conduct, his anger was over and done with, and he spoke in his usual kindly way again. Miska thought, however, that by thus punishing himself he should soften him.

After all, as he reflected, the king was right: it was the thought of making a soldier's name for himself which had led him to run into such obvious danger. And yet he had a reason to give for what he had done--a good reason too, he had thought; for he had considered that his life belonged to the king, who had given him his career and all that made his life of any importance. And so he had resolved with himself never to trouble his head about risk and danger, when he had an opportunity of proving his fidelity to the king.

But now, as he turned over in his mind the advice which the king had given him, he began to see things a little differently.

"My life belongs to the king, it is true," thought he, "and I must be ready to sacrifice it whenever there is any reason to do so; but just _because_ my life is the king's, I have no right to throw it away."

From that time Tornay tried to make himself more and more useful to the king, by learning all that he could of his profession.

The courage of a private was not enough--it was not what was wanted of him, now that he was an officer in command; and he felt that the courage which made a man strive to acquire the knowledge necessary to those in his own position--generals and commanders, that is to say--was courage of a higher, nobler sort than that which led to deeds of mere daring. Of course the courage of the private was also needful--quite indispensable, indeed, in every soldier, officer or not, who must always be ready to sacrifice his life if need be; but he strove to acquire besides the cool courage which does not let itself be carried away by excitement, which can listen to the sound of the trumpets and the din of battle without being intoxicated, which remains calm and collected, retains its presence of mind, and is capable of seeing and hearing, and, above all, of thinking for others, even when the issue looks most doubtful.

For a general has to remember that he is not merely an individual; he is that, of course, but he is a great deal more--he is the head of a body which depends upon him for guidance. He must not play only his own game, or be thinking only or chiefly of the bold, brave deeds he can do on his own account; he must practise the most stern self-restraint. And he must not think of gratifying his own vanity or desire of distinguishing himself; he must think of those under his command--he must be unselfish.

Hitherto, Michael's one thought when he went into battle had been the enemy, and how much damage he could do him. He had eyes for nothing else, and he was eager to give proof of his own personal valour; but now he began to accustom himself to resist this consuming thirst for action, and to restrain his longing to rush madly into the fight, for he was learning that he must not think only of himself.

When the army was drawn up in battle array, fronting the enemy and all ready for action, the young soldier would begin to ask himself what he should do if the king were presently to give orders, as he might some day, that he, Michael, was to take the chief command and lead the army to battle.

And then his blood would boil, his eyes would flash, and he felt an almost irresistible longing to dash forward and do some valiant deed. But now he controlled and recovered himself, and repeating to himself the king's words, would say, "Now, Mihaly, how could you do such a thing? what reason could you give for it?"

He began to scrutinize the ranks of the enemy in a much more scientific way, reminding himself that he was not now a private, or even a subaltern officer, in the Black Legion, but a general, whose duty it was to think, not of bold ventures, but of sober plans. This gave quite another turn to his mind, and he felt how much higher and fairer a thing it was to think of others and direct others, and to keep one's presence of mind intact and one's blood cool, when youthful zeal made others lose their heads.

So thinking to himself one day, as he and the men under his command stood facing the enemy, waiting for the signal to advance, he was keeping his eyes upon the opposite ranks, when all at once he observed something that till now had escaped his notice.

"The enemy is remarkably weak in the left wing yonder," he reflected, "and there is a long marsh just in front; I don't think I should be afraid of being attacked from that quarter. If I were in command," he went on, "I would order one division to advance in that direction and outflank the enemy. This would throw him into confusion. Then I would send part of the cavalry forward, and while the enemy's attention was engaged by the sudden attack on his wing, I would fall upon his centre with my whole force."

"Really," the young officer said to himself, "I should like to tell His Highness what I think."

Michael scribbled something in pencil upon a scrap of paper, and sent one of the Black Knights off with it to the king, who was inspecting the ranks, and was now riding down the left wing of the army, surrounded by a brilliant staff, himself more simply attired than any of those about him.

The king read over the crooked lines with not a little astonishment, and for a moment his face flamed.

Then he cried out in lively tones, "Upon my word, advice is becoming from a twenty-years-old general! This man will be somebody one of these days."

Then on the margin of the paper he wrote just these two words--"_Do it!_"

* * * * *

The battle was over and won, and a fortnight later Tornay Mihaly was one of the king's lieutenant-generals.

Matthias had by this time grown extremely fond of the young man. Michael was always so vigilantly on the alert, so blindly devoted to him, and so quick in his ways, that the king had no misgivings about any commission which he entrusted to him. It was certain to be done, and done well. But this was not all. He was pleased, too, with the young man's evident gratitude and nobility of character--though not as much surprised as some others, who fancied that such things were not to be looked for in a beggar lad; for the king could read faces, and he had long since made up his mind about Michael.

In those days there were two bastions on the walls of the castle of Buda, towards Zugliget. They were used as magazines, but in case of a siege--which at that time Buda had little cause to dread--they would be garrisoned with soldiers, and were therefore already provided with guns.

These two bastions, one of which remains, though in an altered form, to the present day, were about a couple of fathoms apart; and now the king gave orders that both were to be set in order and made fit for dwelling-houses.

There was no opening on three of the sides, with the exception of some small windows high up, which let in the light, but would give the intended inmates no outlook; but on the fourth side, where the bastions faced each other, there were four long, narrow windows in each, guarded by strong iron bars.

* * * * *

The king was just now staying in Buda, and had given Michael command of part of the castle garrison; and he was so well satisfied with the way in which he discharged his duties, that hardly a week passed without his giving him some fresh mark of his favour.

As for Michael's passionate attachment to the king, it increased daily; every hint from him was a command, and he was always on the watch to try to interpret his wishes before they were put into words.

One morning he was summoned to the king's presence.

"Michael," said the king, in a good-humoured tone, "I am angry with you, and I am going to punish you."

"How have I been so unfortunate as to deserve the anger of the best of kings and masters?" asked the young man.

"Well, what do you think?" Matthias went on, laughing. "Am I very angry, and am I going to pass a severe sentence?"

"Mr. King," answered Tornay, who saw at once that Matthias was in high good-humour, "I think Your Highness has got hold of your anger by the small end this time, and perhaps you won't go quite so far as to have my head cut off."

"Your head may possibly be allowed to remain in its accustomed place," said the king jestingly. "However, it is not necessary that you should know which part of your person I have sentenced to punishment; it is enough, gossip, that you are to expiate your offence, and that to begin with I am going to send you to prison."

"Perhaps Your Highness is going to entrust me with the command of some abandoned wooden castle?"[11] said Michael.

[Footnote 11: Many small castles of wood and stone had been built in the north by the Bohemian freebooters already mentioned.]

"No," said the king; "you have not found it out this time. I have got other quarters for you."

"Very well, as Your Highness wills; but you won't get much good out of me if I am in prison."

"Listen. You can see the two bastions yonder on the Mount St. Gellert side of the castle. I have had them put in order, and you are to live in one of them."

Tornay listened, but he could not make it out at all. He saw the two bastions sure enough, and as they did not now look at all gloomy or prison-like, he was not alarmed at the idea of living in one of them; but he could not by any means conceive what the king's object could be.

"You are surprised," said the king, "aren't you? But the prison is tolerable enough. You will have four small rooms; and as for the look-out, well, I think you will be content with it; and then you will be your own jailer, so you need have no fear as to the strictness of the discipline. In a word, you are to move into your new quarters this very day."

Tornay retired; but on his way he racked his brains to discover why the king could want him to move into the bastion. What reason could he have? If he was his own jailer, and could go in and out as he pleased, it was not a prison, simply different quarters, and better, at all events, than those he had had before; for he had been living in a very poor apartment of the castle, looking into a by-street.

"Well," thought he, "what do I know as to the king's motives? Who can ever tell what he has in his head? He wishes me to live there--good! then that's enough, and there I will live."

So Tornay took possession of one of the bastions facing Pesth, and was very well satisfied indeed with his new quarters, which the king had had plainly but comfortably enough furnished. Perhaps the king had placed him there only as an excuse for making him more presents.