Part 4

Bela Kun smiled softly. "Not so quickly, friend Szamuelly. I have now sent for one Wenzel who claimed to be a better man than the White Knight, and yet--I am afraid Comrade Wenzel must hang. At any moment now he may arrive, and you shall hear, before he dies, how he fared."

"In the meantime----?"

"We will discuss affairs of State. For instance, I am informed by Comrade Agoston that there are treasures still untouched in the Castle Gisella. We ought to teach its occupants the meaning of the word Communism. What say you, friends?"

"Ay, ay." The confirmation was unanimous.

Before anyone could speak again there was an interruption. The doors of the council chamber swung open and an officer of the Red Army entered.

"Well!" Annoyed by the intrusion, Bela Kun turned to the man, who stood there, unshaven, dirty, and utterly disreputable. Once he had been a refractory private; but on the strength of a long record of disciplinary breaches and subsequent punishment he was considered worthy of a better rank in the proletarian army.

"Comrade Wenzel has disappeared."

Kunfi laughed gutturally. "He took your threat to heart, comrade."

Bela Kun ignored his fellow-councillor and frowned at the officer.

"Friend, I gave you orders to arrest Comrade Wenzel. How mean you he has disappeared?"

The other shrugged his shoulders. "Merely that when I arrived Comrade Wenzel was not there. Neither had he been at his room for several days. One cannot arrest an absent man." He laughed slightly, as if memory of the past tickled his sense of humour.

"Did you search his room?"

"Yes, and found----"

"What?" Impatiently Bela Kim leaned forward.

The soldier stretched out his right hand, which was clenched. Slowly he opened his fingers, exposing on his palm something which made the Communist sit upright with a slight start. That at which he looked was a white knight.

* * * * * *

The Great Hungarian Plain, awe-inspiring in its rugged splendour, rises here and there to rocky peaks and granite eminences, upon many of which stately castles and impregnable fortresses proudly rear their turrets, for the Great Plain has been, for past centuries, the Armageddon of Europe. Here the fierce Magyars have stemmed the invasion of the Turkish hordes, have battled and died for the Cross. Here, too, at different times have the Roman Empire, Byzantium, Friuli, and Saxony all paid tribute to the unconquerable fighters of Hungary.

Now once again, not yet recovered from the ravages of the Great War, it was to be the scene of a tussle, perhaps not so bloody in its action, yet none the less significant in its outcome. As Hungary, in the past, had withstood the onslaught of the fanatics of the Crescent, saved Europe from Mahomet, now in 1919 it was to fight for Europe once again, for here, on the Plain, the encroaching Bolsheviks were encountering the indomitable peasants, the tillers of the soil, the defenders of the country.

The battle was not of swords, of guns, or of cannon, but of insidious propaganda undermining common sense, of bombastic promises, impossible innovations, promiscuous hangings, against all of which only tradition and unswerving loyalty to the Fatherland made stand.

The saga of the Great Plain is unsung, the epic of its peasantry unwritten, but the time will come when the world will awaken to its obligations, and in all gratitude repay the debt it owes in story, song, and history. As yet, however, stunned by the years of travail, bewildered by defeat, hypnotized by the imported emissaries of Lenin and Trotsky, the peasants listened to the rantings of the Communists, and slowly absorbed their teachings. Twenty-five acres of land free for each man--the prospect was enticing--to those who had worked the day long for the big magnates, the autocratic landowners of Hungary, as had their fathers, even their grandfathers, before them. They listened, and in the end their brows frowned, their faces creased into ugly lines, and they looked toward the castles and the fortresses and growled....

The Gisella Castle stood alone in its grandeur, the nearest town three miles away. Built many hundred years ago, its solid sides seemed untouched by the passage of time. If the outer walls were green with moss they were nevertheless as formidable and unapproachable as ever, prepared to yield only to modern high-powered explosives.

Here lived Imre Kiss and his daughter Elizabeth, all unconscious that away in Budapest Bela Kun and Company had cast envious eyes upon its splendours; and so, on a sparkling spring morning, when all nature seemed to sing with joy, they peacefully broke the fast.

Even Imre, conquering his fading sight only with the aid of _pince-nez_, could not fail to notice an air of elation in Elizabeth's manner as she joyfully partook of her meal.

"Why, daughter, what witchery are you up to this morning? It is a long time since I have seen you so happy."

Elizabeth glanced at him lovingly and smiled. "Father dear, you have not forgotten?"

"Forgotten!" The old man wrinkled his forehead and peered at her with a puzzled expression upon his face. "Have I forgotten something? Does Francis, your cousin, visit us this day?"

She laughed crooningly, so that its music rippled and echoed round the panelled hall. "Father dear, it is the fifteenth to-day. Does that date mean nothing to you?"

He looked at her, dismayed. "Bless my heart, child, it is your birthday! Dear, dear! Then to-day you are twenty-three years of age--and--and--" across the table his glance rested steadily upon her, longer than it had done for many years, "--why, dearest child, you are more beautiful than ever."

He gazed entranced upon the picture she presented. Through the leaded windows the sun was throwing a golden gleam, in the path of which she sat, so that she was bathed in its brilliancy.

"My child--twenty-three to-day." Murmuringly the words escaped; they were but thoughts which passed through his mind. "Just twenty years ago--she--died, and now--yet did she die? Is not my daughter Elizabeth she, the other Elizabeth? Are not those big, dark eyes, so full of pride and sympathy too, her eyes? It was when I first looked into them that I worshipped her. It is her chin you lift so proudly, dear; there is no doubt that you are born and bred a Magyar. You love Hungary too, don't you, daughter?"

At the mention of the word Elizabeth's face changed yet again, just as her expressions had altered following the trend of his reverie. From joy and happiness to naïve pleasure at his praise, then sadness, and a vague, indefinable longing. Then once more her features mirrored her thoughts. Pride of birth, of race, of country! Imre needed no affirmation to his question.

He shook his head from side to side. "But now, your birthday has arrived and I have no present for you. Tut, tut! My memory is becoming execrable. Perhaps it is my work--I devote too much time to it."

He looked away, out of the window, dreaming of his lifelong work, his chosen task. Once he had been a soldier, but that was many years ago. He married late, and when his beloved wife died he became a scholar. He dipped and delved into the past, until slowly there was born within him a passion to write of the lives of the kings of Hungary. So he began when Elizabeth was but a child of ten.

Soon now, perhaps in two or three years, he would write "Finis," but at times he feared, frightened that the Reaper would forestall him in his cherished ambition.

Of late the apprehension had become deeper; it seemed to him that there were moments when his heart fluttered strangely, and so he flung himself into his work, studying from morning till night. Thus he had forgotten an important anniversary, and he chided himself.

He need not have done so. Elizabeth understood and sympathized. She left her chair and knelt by his side, laying her head on his knees.

"Father darling, you must not say that. Your work means as much to me. I long for the time when your name will ring throughout Hungary, echo from town to town, and later trumpet to the world the glories of our saintly kings, and all they have done for mighty Europe."

Bending forward so that his thick, snow-white locks swept over his forehead, he placed his lips upon the masses of her black hair, after which he ran his fingers through its tresses, lovingly caressing the silky texture, admiring the healthy sheen.

"Well, well, child, let us hope that the time will come very soon. But now, what news to-day from Budapest? How proceeds the Peace Conference in Paris? Assuredly the Entente will be merciful to broken Hungary. England and America will not forget us."

Elizabeth frowned. "Again there are no papers, Father. I do not understand their absence and I am nervous."

"Nervous! God bless my soul! What nonsense are you talking? Why should you be nervous?"

She sighed. "I do not know. It may be merely a vague impression, yet since King Charles was dethroned----"

"Tut, tut, child! Do you not believe that it was diplomacy on the part of Count Michael Karolyi? The Government is in his hands. He is inclined to the Left. His Radical tendencies, we admit, are pronounced, but he could not stab his friends in the back. He is one of our class, one of our own people. Is not his wife the daughter of our greatest statesman? Fear not, child; rest your faith on Count Karolyi."

For his sake she smiled suddenly and gaily jumped to her feet. Yet the worry was not altogether driven from Elizabeth's mind by her father's optimism.

"Come, Father, to work."

"To work! Ah!" Imre's lined face softly wreathed into smiles, and his eyes brightened. Once more he would pick up his beloved pen, to write in words of gold of past glories, all unaware of the ghastly present.

Carefully, with the aid of a stick which now never left his side, he rose to his feet, and made his way to the window. Throwing it open he gazed at the glorious vista before him, breathing in the pure air of the Great Plain.

"What a morning! Come, child, stand by me and tell me what you see. Does the town still stand enshrouded by the filthy smoke of industrialism?"

Elizabeth did not reply, and Imre became conscious that her grip upon his arm was tightening.

"What is the matter, Elizabeth?" he asked, surprised.

"Father, there is a man riding towards us as if he were pursued by a demon."

"Pshaw! Do not all our horsemen ride thus? Perhaps he brings us the newspapers."

Elizabeth endeavoured to believe in this supposition, but receptive to occult influence, a heritage of gipsy blood, she had a premonition that the rapidly approaching rider bore news of ill-omen, and her heart beat quicker with anxiety.

At last, after an apparently interminable period, he reached the massive iron gates of the castle, and a moment later the clang of a deep-toned bell resounded throughout the purlieus of the walls.

A brief interval, hurrying footsteps, and then Peczkai, from the village, was shown in.

His face was covered with sweat and streaked with dirt, his clothes were white with dust. Gasping for breath he turned to the old man.

"Excellency!" He could say no more, and Imre motioned him to be quiet. His hoarse breathing became easier.

"Excellency, the Communists are on their way here!"

"Communists!" Imre gazed at the peasant in bewilderment. "What mean you? I do not understand."

"The Communists, Excellency, are coming here, by order of the Soviet."

"Soviet!" The old man choked and a hastily aroused temper began to display itself. Seeing him thus Elizabeth spoke to the man.

"You must tell us more, Peczkai. What you have said to us is a mystery. We have had no news for some time now, our newspapers have not arrived."

"God help you, then, when you hear the news. The Karolyi Government has resigned, and the country has been taken over by a group of Jews who call themselves the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Hungary is Bolshevik, Red. The _bourgeoisie_ and the aristocracy are fleeing for their lives. Everything is nationalized, the property of the country, and anyone may take what they please. It is bloody revolution, Excellency!"

They looked at the man incredulously, hesitating to believe a word he said. Yet Elizabeth was the first to realize the truth.

"Oh, Mother in Heaven!" she whispered to herself, yet the sound pierced the stillness of the room with a sharp echo.

Imre, after a moment's hesitation, remained unmoved. "Impossible!" he announced, and his eyes flashed. "Hungary turned Bolshevik! Impossible!" Proudly he lifted his head and met the peasant's steady gaze.

Peczkai groaned. "Excellency, I could not believe until I saw, with my own eyes. Red guards are everywhere, pillaging and looting in the name of the Soviet. Rumours have reached us from Budapest of death, of mysterious disappearances. Our late Prime Minister and many others have been thrown into prison. Excellency, you must believe! The Communists are on the way here now! Any moment they may arrive. You must flee; it will be better so."

Hesitation to believe battled with a hopeless recognition of the truth in Imre's heart. He did not move or speak; just stood still while the blood receded from his face and his eyes became shadowed with an overwhelming horror.

While he wrote of Hungary's greatness, this, this unspeakable sacrilege was taking place. Hungary Red! The country of St Stephen, the birthplace of a long list of valiant warriors--Bolshevik!

"A chair, Elizabeth," he gasped weakly as, unable to bear the sudden weight of sorrow, he felt his knees tottering. Quicker than Elizabeth Peczkai was beside him, holding the older man up in his strong arms.

"Excellency, a short rest only. Then you must go. See, I will take you, guide you to a safe place."

"Go! Go!" Slowly the bowed shoulders straightened, the head lifted, and Peczkai saw Imre's eyes blazing with a kindled fire. "Go! Never! Who are these Communists that I should leave my home, the home of my father, and his father before him? Who are these dogs that I should forsake my castle? Never! Let them come. I will horsewhip them. Not yet is my arm too weak to defend myself and my daughter. Go you, Peczkai, and dare these Bolsheviks to come near."

Despairingly the peasant glanced at Elizabeth, but vainly. As she stood there she smiled slightly, haughtily, disdainfully. The spirit of the fighting Magyars revealed itself in her womanly grace; daughter of a generation of warriors, she feared neither friend nor foe. Once again Peczkai groaned.

"Excellency..." He spread out an arm appealingly.

Imre smiled softly. "God bless you, Peczkai." There was much in his voice which even the uncultured peasant recognized--gratitude, tenderness, scorn, but above all, inflexible decision.

Peczkai, with a bowed head, helped Imre to a chair, and left the room. Bowed, for in the corner of each eye trickled a tear. When the awakening came... He felt an infinite pity for them.

It was soon to come. Even as Elizabeth went to the window to watch the return of Peczkai to the village she saw in the distance the approaching Communists. Her lips curled scornfully. There were many of them, perhaps two dozen, or three--as they came nearer she realized that even this estimate was too low.

"They come, Father."

She looked round. He sat as if he had not heard.

So she waited at the windows, and the Communists came nearer till she was able to see their faces, and for the first time feared. Most of them were villagers, led by a sprinkling of strangers, but the vanguard was packed with cruel faces and criminal countenances. Even many of these men she knew, recognized them as incorrigibles, vagabonds, ne'er-do-wells, every one of them an _habitué_ of prison.

Where were the police that these convicts were let loose? She experienced a thrill of horror: there, side by side with the misdemeanants, walked the renegade police, no longer spick-and-span in their uniforms, but dirty and dissolute, wearing conspicuously their ensign of shame, the Red cockade.

"Oh, Mother in Heaven!" she breathed.

The awakening at last! "Father, the gates! we must close them! Then we can defy them, snap our fingers at them."

Before he had time to reply she hurried from the room and called the servants as she ran.

In the courtyard Joseph and Eugene the coachmen were watching the Communists, whispering to each other in an undertone. Then Elizabeth was before them.

"Joseph, Eugene, the Bolsheviks are coming to occupy the castle. Shut to the gates."

Neither man moved, just glanced uneasily at one another.

"Eugene, do you hear?" The other servants were joining them, all but the women.

The man looked up and scowled. "Yes, mistress, I hear," but he made no attempt to move. Fear tugged at Elizabeth's heart, but the servants did not suspect it, as before her burning looks their own gaze gave way and fell.

"Then obey. Shut to the gates and keep that rabble at a distance."

From the back a voice shouted: "Hold hard, mistress! Don't you call our friends names." Elizabeth endeavoured to locate the voice, but the man had hidden himself behind another servant.

"Friends!" Her voice rang with contempt. "Do you call those men your friends? Do you, Eugene, and you, George, or you, Bela?"

Only Eugene had the pluck to answer. "I choose my own friends, mistress. Times are different now. We are all alike, you and me and Joseph." He laughed coarsely. "You are not our mistress now. You and me are comrades. This castle belongs to the country, and me and Joseph and all of us are going to share it."

Elizabeth did not waste time in words. She stepped forward and flung her hand across his face, and the force of it first whitened the skin then left a livid weal.

There was a deadly silence. One or two of the more timid servants shrank back, still amenable to authority, but Eugene the coachman, his face diffused with evil, stepped forward. "You----" He raised his arm, but Joseph caught hold of it.

"Wait, Eugene, wait for the others. In a few minutes our pretty mistress will soon realize who governs the country now. Comrade Grocz knows how to deal with the _bourgeoisie_. Besides..." he whispered in the other's ear, and afterward they both grinned evilly.

For Elizabeth the end of the world might have come. The servants to revolt, the men who had been in their employ for years, whom she could have sworn would be faithful to death! She looked at the gates. Too late now to close them, for the villagers were on the threshold. She felt a sob rising in her throat at the treachery of the men, but repressed it, and running to the gates stood in the entrance, her arms spread.

Obedient to impulses not yet entirely driven from them the villagers stopped. Only the Communists from Budapest had the courage to advance, and headed by Comrade Grocz they moved forward till they stood in front of her.

"Well, my pretty miss, what do you want?" Grocz laughed and spat on the ground.

Elizabeth looked at him, a fierce anger blazing from her eyes. "Dog!" she cried. "Get back to your kennel."

Some one laughed, otherwise the silence was intense. Elizabeth appreciated the moment, took advantage of it. Coolly ignoring the strangers, she spoke to the villagers, among whom she had been brought up since childhood, and her young voice clearly rang through the air, reaching every man in the crowd.

"Men, what do you want? Why come you here to-day? Are you to be turned into a crowd of barbarians at the command of a handful of Jews from Budapest? Are you so forgetful of your own independence that you must blindly follow on the heels of a few mischief-makers who seek only their own advancement? Have you forgotten the four long years of war? Did you sacrifice yourselves for this?"

Perhaps her words might have had effect, but unconsciously she touched upon the wrong topic.

"Bah! Who started the War, who plunged us peasants into the hell of battle? You magnates, you landowners and blood-suckers. You, who fatten on the work we do for you at starvation pay; you, all of you, started the War to grind us down more than ever!"

The words were greeted by a chorus of affirmative growls. The tide had turned and none knew it better than Comrade Grocz.

"Out of the way! We cannot stand arguing here all day long. Three cheers for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat! Long live Bela Kun! Come along, comrades, worthy Bela Kun has given us Castle Gisella. Shall we let a little chit of a girl stand in our way?"

There was a restless movement. "No, no, move on!"

Out of the corner of her eyes Elizabeth saw Imre approaching, and it seemed to her that he leaned more heavily than usual upon his supporting stick. At all costs she felt she must keep the mob away.

"Back, back!" She faced them desperately, and her dauntless bearing impressed the villagers, so that once again they stopped. It did more: wavering servants, already ashamed of their deviation from loyalty, lined up behind her, heedless of Eugene's cajoleries and threats.

Unseen, unnoticed, Lenin's shadow fell across the _tableau_; the ghastly influence of Bela Kun, the example of Tibor Szamuelly, reached even here. Sneering slightly, an ex-policeman, now a Red guard, sighted his rifle and pulled the trigger.

The shot went wide, but only just, so that its flight whistled past Elizabeth's ear. The blood drained from her face, but she did not move, and at this first sign of open hostility her courage deepened. Nor was it without effect on the invaders. Like a bone thrown into the midst of a pack of starving wolves the shot released a flood of pent-up passion. Gone in a moment were memories of the past; tradition, gratitude, and common sense, all were forgotten.

Jostling, pushing, and shouting out insulting epithets, the mob advanced, led by Comrade Grocz. Some one, she never knew whom, caught her roughly by the shoulders, and she was flung aside like a sack of coal, her dress tearing down to the waist and revealing her underclothing. Even then she might have stood up to them, but a pair of arms weakly encircled her and held her back.

"My daughter, my child! Elizabeth, you are not hurt? The beasts, the cowards! Would that I were twenty, even ten years younger and I would flog them out of the castle on their knees. May I be cursed that my limbs fail me, may I----"

She put her lingers to his lips, and mutely they stood still, helplessly watching the Communists brush past, and the castle which had withstood Mongols, Frenchmen, Germans, Turks, and Austrians fall to the disciples of Karl Marx and Lenin.

* * * * * *

An hour later they ventured in again. In the meantime they had hidden in an outhouse, where one of the female servants found them. To Elizabeth she brought another dress, though, when she looked, Elizabeth did not recognize it.

"This is one of your own?" she said.

"Yes, mistress."

"But why did you not bring me one of mine?"

Looking everywhere but at her mistress the maid stammered an answer: "I--I was afraid of the--the men, mistress."

Decently dressed again Elizabeth decided that her father and she ought to return to the castle, and leaving the shelter of the outhouse they crossed the courtyard. No one was to be seen.

They entered, only to stop, aghast. No wonder the maid had not looked Elizabeth in the eye. On every hand were damage and destruction, from every corner ascended a stench of vile, unwashed humanity. The Communists were everywhere, lounging about, smoking Imre's cigars and cigarettes, spitting on the floor, exchanging obscene jokes.