CHAPTER XVI.

THROUGH THE SNOW.

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 were sheep and oxen to steal, the Mongols lived well. But at last the country was stripped, provisions began to grow scarce, and the year's crops were still in the fields. Whether or no the Mongols themselves ever condescended to eat anything but flesh, the mixed multitudes with them were no doubt glad of whatever they could get, and Batu foresaw that if the harvest were not gathered, and if something were not done to keep such of the population as yet remained in their homes, and bring back the fugitives, there must needs be a famine.

Among his prisoners he had many monks and priests whom he had spared, from a sort of superstitious awe, and these he now called together, and tried to tempt with brilliant promises, to devise some plan for luring the people back to the deserted farms and homesteads. Many and many a brave man rejected his offers at the risk, and with the loss, of his life; but there were some who were ready to do what the Khan wanted, if only they could hit upon any scheme. All their proclamations issued in the Khan's name failed to inspire confidence, however. The people did not return; those hitherto left in peace fled at the approach of the Mongols, the general need increased day by day, and the captives were put to death by hundreds to save food.

The massacres were looked upon as a pleasant diversion and entertainment in which the Mongol boys ought to have their share; to them, therefore, were handed over the Hungarian children; and those who showed most skill in shooting them down were praised and rewarded by their elders.

Yet how to feed half a million men in a country which had been thoroughly pillaged was still a problem.

And then, all over the country there appeared copies of a proclamation written in the King's name, and sealed with the King's seal.

There was no Mongol ring about this, as there had been about similar previous proclamations, and it was given in the King's name, it was signed with the King's own seal! Of that there could be no question.

The news spread rapidly, further flight was stopped, and in a few days the people dutifully began to venture forth from their hiding places, and that in such numbers that a great part of the country was re-populated. Moreover, the Mongols, though still in possession, actually welcomed them as friends, which showed that the King knew what he was about! They were allowed, moreover, to choose magistrates for themselves from among the Mongol chiefs, to the number of a hundred, who met once a week to administer strict and impartial justice.

Magyar, Kun, Mongol, Tartar, Russian, and the rest all lived as amicably together as if they were one family. Farming operations were resumed, markets were held, and peace of a sort seemed to have returned to the land.

At last harvest and vintage were over. Corn and fruit of all descriptions had been garnered, and there was wine in the cellars. And then? Why, then, late in the autumn, the too confiding people were massacred wholesale; and those of them who managed to escape fled back to their hiding-places.

Then followed winter, such a winter as had not often been matched in severity. The Danube, frozen hard, offered an easy passage; there was no European army to oppose them, for the heads of Christendom were fighting among themselves, and the Mongols crossed over to do on the right bank of the river what they had already done on the left.

Always rather savage than courageous, the Mongols obliged their prisoners to storm the towns, looked on laughing as they fell; cut them down themselves from behind if they were not sufficiently energetic, and drove them forward with threats and blows. When the besieged were thoroughly exhausted, and the trenches filled with corpses, then, and not till then, the Mongols made the final assault, or enticed the inhabitants to surrender, and then, with utter disregard of the fair promises they had made, put them to death with inhuman tortures. The Mongols were exceeding "slim," as people have learnt to say in these days. One example of their savagery will suffice.

The most important place on the right side of the Danube was the cathedral city of Gran, which had been strongly fortified with trenches, walls, and wooden towers by its wealthy inhabitants, many of whom were foreigners, money changers, and merchants. As the city was thought to be impregnable, a large number of persons of all ranks had flocked into it.

Batu made his prisoners dig trenches all round, and behind these he set up thirty war-machines, which speedily battered down the fortifications. Next the town-trenches were filled up, while stones, spears, and arrows fell continuously upon the inhabitants, who, seeing it impossible to save the wooden suburbs, set fire to them, burnt their costly wares, buried their gold, silver, and precious stones, and withdrew into the inner town. Infuriated by the destruction of so much valuable property, the Mongols stormed the city and cruelly tortured to death those who did not fall in battle. Not above fifteen persons, it is said, escaped.

Three hundred noble ladies entreated in their anguish that they might be taken before Batu, for whose slaves they offered themselves, if he would spare their lives. They were merely stripped of the valuables they wore, and then all beheaded without mercy.

For weeks Dora and Talabor had journeyed on, avoiding all the main roads, travelling by the roughest, most secluded ways, and seldom falling in with any human beings, or even seeing a living creature save the wild animals, which had increased and become daring to an extraordinary degree.

Wolves scampered about in packs of a hundred or more, and over and over again Talabor had been obliged to light a fire to keep them off. He had done it with trembling, except when they were in the depths of the woods, lest what scared the wolves should attract the Mongols.

Bears, too, had come down from the mountains, and had taken up their quarters in the deserted castles and homesteads, and many a wanderer turning into them for a night's shelter found himself confronted by one of these shaggy monsters.

Traces of the Mongols were to be seen on all sides: dead bodies of human beings and animals, smouldering towns, villages, and forests; here and there, perched upon some rocky height, would be a defiant castle, whose garrison, if they had not deserted it, were dead or dying of hunger; in some parts, look which way they might, there was a dead body dangling from every tree; poisonous exhalations defiled the air; and over woods, meadows, fields, ruined villages, lay a heavy pall of smoke.

Such was the condition to which the Mongols had reduced the once smiling land. Truly it might be said, in the words of the prophet: "A fire devoureth before them, and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness."

But, though they saw their works plainly enough, the wanderers saw hardly anything of the Mongols themselves, which surprised them. Once or twice they had narrow escapes, and had to take sudden refuge from small parties, travelling two or three together; but they encountered nothing like a body of men, and those whom Talabor did chance to see appeared to be too intent on covering the ground to look much about them.

From one or two wanderers like themselves he presently learnt that the Mongols were everywhere on the move, and were all going in the same direction, southwards. But what it meant no one could guess. They were moving with their usual extraordinary rapidity, and but few stragglers on foot were believed to be left behind.

But it might be only some fresh treachery, some trap, and the people dared not leave the caves, caverns, thick woods, where they had hidden themselves, and lived, or existed, in a way hardly credible, on roots, herbs, grass, the bark of trees, some of them even eking out their scanty provisions by a diet of small pebbles!

Needless to say that many died of hunger, while the remainder were reduced to skeletons, shadows, ghosts of their former selves.

From some of these bands of refugees Talabor heard fragmentary accounts of the horrors that had been enacted, and the events that had followed after the battle of Mohi.

Dora had felt more and more confidence in her travelling companion as day had followed day during their terrible journey. He had spared no pains in his efforts to lighten the privations and difficulties of the way; he had thought for her, cared for her, in a hundred ways; and yet with it all, he was just as deferential as if they had been in the castle at home.

Miserable were the best resting places he could find for her for the night, either in the depths of the forest or in some cavern or deep cleft of the rocks. Sometimes he was able to make her a little hut of dry branches, roofed over with snow; and when he could do so without risk of discovery, he would light a fire and cook any game that he had been able to shoot in the course of the day.

But whatever the shelter he found or contrived for her, he himself always kept watch outside, and got what little sleep he could when the night was past.

They had almost lost count of time, and they hardly knew where they were, when, late one night, Dora came to a standstill.

The moon was shining, the cold intense, and the snow, which crackled beneath their feet, lay thick and glittering all around them. It was the sort of night that sends fear into the hearts of all who are compelled to be abroad, and yet are anxious to escape the notice of their fellow men, for it was as light almost as by day, and the travellers showed up like a couple of black spots against the white background.

Talabor, muffled in his cloak, was leading Dora by the hand; she had her large hood drawn over her head, and the two looked as very a pair of tramps as one could meet with anywhere.

The cold cut through them like a knife, though the night was still--too still, for there was not wind enough to cover up the track they had left behind them. It would be easy to trace them, for the snow was powdery, and in many places they had sunk in it up to their knees.

"I must stop, I am tired out! and I am so deadly sleepy," said Dora, in a broken voice, "I feel numb all over, as if I were paralysed."

She looked ghastly pale, worn, thin, a mere shadow of what she had been; and she had been travelling all day, dragging herself along with the greatest difficulty.

"Dear lady," said Talabor gently, supporting her trembling figure as well as he could, "do you see that dark patch under the trees yonder?"

"I can't see so far, Talabor," she stammered.

"I see it plainly," he went on, "and it is a building of some sort, a dwelling-house, I think. If you could just manage to get so far, we should be better sheltered than we are here."

"Let us try," said Dora, summoning all her remaining strength.

"Lean on me," Talabor urged in a tone of encouragement; "we shall be there in a quarter of an hour; but if you can't walk, you must let me carry you as I have done before, it is such a little way."

"You are very good, Talabor," said the girl gratefully, and off they set again.

The building which Talabor had noticed stood on rising ground, on one side of the valley, and, the snow not being quite so deep on the slope, they were able to get on a little faster. Neither spoke, for what was there to talk about? The cold was benumbing, and both were suffering.

Presently Dora felt her knees give way under her, and everything seemed to turn black before her eyes.

"Talabor!" she whispered, holding his arm with both hands, "I--I am dying--you go on yourself and leave me!"

"Leave you!" exclaimed Talabor; and before Dora could say another word, he had thrown back his cloak and picked her up in his arms. She was almost fainting, and overpowered by the deadly sleep induced by the cold.

Light as his burthen was, it was a struggle for Talabor to make his way through the snow, for he, too, had lost much of his accustomed strength during the past weeks of hardship and anxiety. Still, he managed to go straight on without stumbling or faltering. All about them, for some distance and in every direction, there were strange prints in the snow, and these he scanned carefully until he had quite assured himself that they were not made by human feet.

"No Tartars have been here lately, at all events!" he said, by way of cheering his companion, as they drew near the gloomy, deserted building, which was not a ruin, but one of the many dwellings plundered by the Mongols, and for some reason abandoned without being completely destroyed.

It was a small, dark place, and its only defences were its outer walls. There was no moat; and it had probably belonged to some noble family of little wealth or importance, who had either fled or been murdered. The gate was lying on the ground, and the snow in the courtyard was almost waist-deep. Talabor needed all his strength to wade through it and to carry Dora up the stone steps, which he could only guess at, and had to clear with his foot as he went on.

In the tolerably large room which he first entered all the furniture was half consumed by fire, and the door burnt off its hinges; the moonlight, which streamed through the open windows, showed bare, blackened walls, and a scene of general desolation.

Spreading his cloak on the bench, which owed its escape from destruction to the fact that it was covered with plaster, he laid Dora down upon it, gathered up some of the broken furniture already half reduced to charcoal, and soon had a small fire burning. The smoke from it filled the whole room, but still the warmth revived his companion, who had known what it was to spend even worse nights than this one promised to be; for, when Talabor presently took a piece of burning wood from the fire, that he might explore the building, he found an old sack full of straw. The room in which he discovered it opened out of the larger one, and was not quite so desolate looking, for the fire did not seem to have penetrated so far, and, moreover, it had a large fireplace still containing the remains of charcoal and bones.

Talabor lighted another fire here, drew the sack into one corner, and hurried back to Dora, who was now dozing a little, with the light from the crackling fire shining on her face. How deadly pale, how wasted it was!

Talabor stood looking at her for a moment, wondering whether after all he should be able to save a life which every day was making more precious to him.

He piled more wood on the fire, and tried to rub a little warmth into his own numb hands. It was the most bitter night of all their wanderings, and the cold pierced his very bones. Tired out as he was, heavy with drowsiness, he kept going from one fire to the other, as he wanted to take Dora into the smaller room when she awoke, for it was not only a degree warmer, but also free from smoke, and had a door which would shut.

She opened her eyes about midnight, and seemed to be all the better for her two hours' sleep. Talabor had kept her so carefully covered, and had replenished the fire so diligently that her healthy young blood had begun to flow again, and, not for the first time, he had saved her from the more serious consequences of her exposure and fatigue.

"Talabor!" she said, raising herself a little, "I have been asleep! thank you so much! Now you must rest; you must, indeed, for if your strength fails, it will be all over with us both."

"Oh, I am accustomed to sleeping with one eye open, as the Tartars do when they are on horseback. It does just as well for me; but you, dear lady, must rest for at least a few hours longer, and after that I will have a real sleep too."

"A few hours!"

"Yes, here in the next room, where I have found a royal bed of straw, and there is a good fire and no smoke."

By this time the smaller room really had some warmth in it, in spite of the empty window frames; and the sack of straw was a most luxurious couch in Dora's eyes.

"What a splendid bed, Talabor!" said she, gratefully; "but before I lie down, one question--it sounds a very earthly one, though you have been an angel to me but--have we anything to eat? I am shamefully hungry!"

"To be sure we have!" said Talabor, opening his knapsack, and producing a piece of venison baked on the bare coals. "All we want is salt and bread, and something to drink, but there is plenty of snow!"

"Let us be thankful for what God gives us! Our good home-made bread! what a long time it is since we tasted it!"

"We shall again in time!" said Talabor confidently, as he handed Dora the one knife and the cold meat.

"Talabor," said Dora presently, "I am afraid we have come far out of our way."

"I am afraid so too," he answered, "but I don't think we could help it. There has been little to guide us but burnt villages and ruined church-towers. And then, when we have come upon recent traces of the Tartars, we have had to take any way we could, and sometimes to turn back and hide in the forest for safety. How far south we have come I can hardly guess, but we are too much to the east, I fancy."

"You have saved me at all events, over and over again: from wild beasts by night, from horrible men by day, from fire, smoke, everything! I shall tell my father what a good, faithful Talabor you have been! And now I am really not very sleepy, and I should so like to see you rest--you know you are my only protector now in all the wide world, and you must take care of yourself for me!"

"You must have just a little more rest yourself first, dear mistress, and then I will have a sleep."

"You promise faithfully? Then shake hands upon it, for you have deceived me before now, you bad fellow!"

But when next Dora opened her eyes, the moon had set; it was quite dark; the fire had gone out, and the cold was more biting than ever.

"Talabor!" she cried, alarmed and bewildered, for she could not see a step before her.

"I'm here!" he exclaimed, starting up from the bare floor, on which he had been lying near the hearth, and rubbing his eyes as he did so.

"I have been asleep," he said, greatly displeased with himself. "I was overpowered somehow, and our fire is out! Never mind, we will soon have another!" and he set to work again with flint and steel. But when the fire was once more blazing, and both were a little thawed, Talabor would not hear of any more sleep.

"I _have_ slept!" he said, still indignant with himself. "For the first time in my life I have slept at my post, slept on duty--I deserve the stocks!"

"And you are not sleepy still?"

"No!" and then he suddenly jumped up from the floor, on which he had but just thrown himself.

"What is it?" asked Dora nervously, and she, too, started up.

"Nothing! nothing--I think," he answered, taking up his bow and quiver as he spoke.

"I hear some noise, I'm sure I do," said Dora, listening intently. "What can it be? Quick! we must put out the fire!"

At that moment, just in front of the house, and, as it seemed to both, close by, there was a long-drawn howl.

"It's wolves, not Tartars," said Talabor, much relieved.

"Oh! then make haste and fasten the door!"

"They won't come in here," said Talabor, as he put the door to. It had been left uninjured by the fire, but its locks and bolts were all too rusty to be of the smallest use. There was a heavy little oak table which had survived the rest of the furniture, however, and this Talabor pushed up against it, saying, "The fire is our best protection against such visitors as these; but dawn is not far off now, and perhaps it would be better not to wait for it before we move on. I should not care to have them taking up their quarters in the yard."

"What are you going to do?" exclaimed Dora, in alarm, "surely you are not going to provoke them?"

"No! and if I should annoy one of them, he will not be able to do much harm after it!"

"I forbid you to do anything rash! You are not to risk your life, Talabor. You are to sit still here, if you don't want to make me angry."

Dora's vehemence was charming, but Talabor never did anything without reflection; and he was not going to have her life imperilled by any ill-timed submission on his own part.

"You may be quite easy," he said, "I am not going to stir from here, and they are not going to come in either!"

The wolves meantime had been drawing nearer and nearer, to judge by their howls. Perhaps they had scented the smoke, and expected to find the dead bodies of men or cattle, as they commonly did in every burning village in those days.

Talabor was standing at the window, bow in hand, when he presently drew back with a hasty movement.

"Quick!" he said in an undertone. "We must put out the fire!"

Dora rushed to it and began scattering and beating it out with a piece of wood.

"What is it?" she whispered; and Talabor whispered back, "I saw someone that I don't like the look of!" Then, holding up his forefinger, he added, "Perhaps there are only one or two; don't be afraid."

These few words, intended to be re-assuring, did not do much to allay Dora's fears, and she went up to Talabor, who was back at the window again, now that the fire was put out. Trembling, she stood beside him, while her cold hand fumbled in her pouch for the dagger which she carried with her.

It cannot be denied that at that moment, in spite of all her high spirit, Dora was terrified.

Thanks to the snow and the stars, Talabor could see clearly enough what was going on outside; and this is what he saw: two muffled figures hurrying towards the house, by the very same path which he himself had trodden only a short time before; tracking him by his deep footprints in all probability.

But a few moments after he had told Dora to put out the fire, one of the two figures, an unmistakable Tartar, was overtaken by the wolves, and there began one of those desperate conflicts between man and beast, which more often than not ended in the defeat of the former, firearms not being as yet in existence.

"Here! Help! Father!" shouted the one attacked. He had beaten down one wolf, with a sort of club, and was trying his utmost to defend himself against two others. At this appeal, made, by-the-bye, in the purest Magyar, the man in front hurried back to the help of his son.

"Surely he spoke Magyar!" whispered Dora.

"There are only two of them, at all events," was Talabor's answer, that fact being much the more reassuring of the two in his eyes, for he had heard, during their wanderings, that there were more "Tartar-Magyars" in the world than Libor the clerk.

He fitted an arrow to his bow, as he spoke, and added, in an undertone, "They are coming, and the wolves after them! but there are only two, nothing to be afraid of; trust me to manage them!"

In fact the two men were already floundering in the courtyard, and close at their heels rushed the whole pack, disappearing now and again in the deep snow, then lifting up their shaggy heads out of it, while they kept up an incessant chorus of howls.

Tartar-Magyars might be enemies, but wolves certainly were, thought Talabor, as he let fly his arrow and stretched the foremost wolf upon the ground, just as it was in the act of seizing one of the Tartars.

Apparently the fugitives had not heard the twang of the bow-string, for as soon as they caught sight of the open door, they hurried towards it with the one idea of escaping their pursuers, so it seemed.

But when Talabor again took aim, and a second wolf tumbled over, one of the men looked up, saw the arrow sticking in the wolf's back, and cried out, as if thunderstruck, "Tartars! per amorem Dei patris!" (Tartars! for the love of God!) And having so said, he stopped short, irresolute, as not knowing which of the two dangers threatening him it were better to grapple with.

Talabor heard the exclamation, and, whether or no he understood more than the first word, at least he knew that it was uttered in Latin. The fugitives must surely be ecclesiastics, who had adopted the Tartar dress merely for safety's sake.

"Hungari, non Tartari--We are Hungarians, not Tartars!" he replied in the same language, leaning from the window as he shouted the words. Whereupon that one of the "Tartars" who had spoken before called out again, as if in answer, "Amici! Friends," and turned upon the wolves, two of which had been so daring as to follow him and his companion even up the steps. The nearer of the two he attacked with his short club; but his comrade, who had been hurrying after him, slipped and fell down, and the other wolf at once rushed upon him and began tearing away at his cowl.

Talabor meanwhile, being completely reassured by the word "Amici," turned to Dora saying, "Glory to God, we are saved! They are good men, monks, as much wanderers as ourselves!"

He pulled the table away from the door, snatched a brand from the still smouldering fire, waved it to and fro till it burst into flame, and then rushed out with it through the hall into the entry, where the learnèd one of the two supposed Tartars was hammering away at the head of the huge wolf which had got hold of his friend, whose rough outer garment it was worrying in a most determined manner. The rest of the pack, about twenty, seemed not at all concerned at the loss of their four companions lying outstretched in the snow, for they were drawing nearer and nearer to the entry, and were lifting up their heads as if desirous of joining in the fray going on within, while they howled up and down the scale with all their might.

But the moment Talabor appeared with his flaming torch they were cowed, turned tail, and tumbled, rather than ran, down the steps in a panic. Head over heels they rushed towards the gate, some of the hindmost getting their tails singed as they fled.

Meantime the two strangers seeing the enemy thus put to flight, took courage, and thought apparently to complete the rout, for they rushed off after the retreating wolves and were for pursuing them even beyond the gate, when they were checked by a shout from Talabor, who called to them to stop.

They stood still, up to their waists in snow, and looked at him, wondering and half doubting who and what he might be.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Magyars! infelices captivi--Unfortunate captives," answered the learnèd one.

"We are Magyars!" said the other in Hungarian.

"If you are Magyars, follow me," said Talabor, and the strangers obeyed.

It was dark no longer, but still it was difficult to judge of the men by their looks, for they wore the rough Tartar hoods over their heads, and the one who had been mauled by the wolf had his hanging about his face in lappets and ribbons.

Talabor could see just so much as this, that neither was very young, that both were wasted to the last degree, and that they were as begrimed as if they had been hung up to dry in the smoke for some weeks.

"Come along, come along!" he said, for he was anxious to get back to Dora, and to make up the fire again. Should he take them into, the warmer inner room, or keep them in the other until he knew more about them? He was still undecided what to do when a sudden exclamation from one of the wanderers, followed by the fervent words, "Glory be to Jesus!" startled him.

More startled still was he to hear from Dora the response, "For ever and ever!" and to see her clinging to the begrimed "Tartar."

"Father Roger! Father Roger!" she exclaimed tremulously, and for the moment could say no more.