'Neath the Hoof of the Tartar; Or, The Scourge of God

Hungary was a very garden for fertility; her crops of every kind were abundant, her flocks and herds were enormous; and while the grain-pits and barns were full, and while there...

The Diet, summoned a few weeks before, was still holding its meetings in the open air, with no better shelter than that afforded by a large open tent. Akos Szirmay would be goin...

"What! good Father Roger! Know him? Of course I do!" cried Peter, springing from his chair. "Where is he? Why didn't you bring him in at once? I am not his Grace of Esztergom to...

Father Roger was gone, and Libor the clerk was gone, but Dora and her father were not long left alone. More acquaintances than usual found it convenient to take the mountain cas...

Libor, as already remarked, had never had the least intention of leaving Master Peter's house so soon after his arrival as he had threatened to do, if he could by any possibilit...

In a couple of weeks she had made the sleepy governor, if not active, at least less dilatory; the men-at-arms had been well drilled by himself and Talabor, and the serving men a...

All at once there was a terrific roar from the enemy, which awoke countless echoes among the rocks. But it was no battle-cry of the Tartars or Mongols, for they rush to the fray...

It seemed too good to be true! But it was a fact that the Mongols were really gone--gone as they had come, like one of the plagues of Egypt, for there "remained not one" in all...

The day had closed gloomily, ominously, for the refugees; and to understand how it was that a king so chivalrous as Béla could consent to make a prisoner of his guest, we must g...

Father Roger had been shown all over the house, had seen all the additions and improvements, inside and out, and now felt as much at home in Master Peter's castle as he had done...

Kuthen had no idea that he should occupy Master Peter's town-house for long, nor indeed had he any wish to do so; but still he had done his best to make it home-like. It was he...

A day or two passed, and the good Father Roger began to recover a little of his strength, if not much of his cheerfulness. He was naturally a robust man, and he was, besides, in...

As soon as he was sufficiently warmed to be able in some degree to control his trembling lips, Father Roger explained that he had been captured by the Mongols, from whom he had...

For days, weeks, months, Talabor had been expecting Libor and his Mongols to return and renew their attack upon the castle, whose defences he had strengthened in every way possi...

Duke Friedrich had left him in the lurch; the Kunok were on their way to Bulgaria, wasting and burning as they went; and now King Béla saw the mistake he had made in not exertin...

The time of which we are writing was a critical one in Hungary's history. "She was sick, very sick, and the remedy for her disease was bitter in proportion to the gravity of her...

On the 17th March, six days after Héderváry's imploring cry for help, three after his return, one enormous division of Mongols was in the neighbourhood of Pest, while another wa...

Dschingiz Khan had died in 1227, and by the year 1234 his son and successor, Oktai, had completed the subjugation of Northern China. Two years later he sent his nephew Batu west...

Béla had never appeared more cool and collected than on that eventful morning. As already remarked, he was without military experience, and though his expectations were not extr...

Of the men, some were lying outstretched on wild-beast skins, others were pacing up and down the great vaulted hall, and yet others were busy skinning the game shot during the d...