Before we see how it fared with the four travellers, we must glance atwhat had been taking place in Transylvania, whose warlike inhabitantshad been far less apathetic and incredulous than those of Hungary, andat the first note of alarm had raised troops for the Palatine. HA(C)dervAiryhad been despatched, as already mentioned, to close all the passes onthe east, and this done, and his presence being required elsewhere, hehad departed, leaving merely a few squadrons behind as a guard. He andthey both considered it impossible for the Mongols to force a passage onthis side, so well had they blocked the roads.
Like most of the fighting men of those days, the Hungarian army receivedvery little in the way of regular pay, and nothing in the way ofrations. It lived upon what it could get! and what would have been theftand robbery at any other time, was considered quite lawful when the menwere under arms.
The troops lived well at first. To annex a few sheep, calves, oxen, andto shoot deer, wild boar, or buffalo was part of the daily routine, forthe forests abounded in game. They were at no loss for wine either, assome of the nobles supplied them from their cellars.
On the whole, therefore, the men were well entertained; and, littlesuspecting the serious campaign in store, looked forward to a brush withthe Mongols as involving little more danger than their favourite huntingexpeditions.
And then, one morning they noticed a peculiar sound in the distance. Inone way it was familiar enough, for it reminded them of a hunt, but ahunt on such a scale as none of them had ever witnessed yet. For it wasas if all the game in the dense, almost impassable forests on thefrontier were being driven towards them by thousands of beaters, drivenslowly and gradually, but always nearer and nearer.
They wondered among themselves who the huntsmen could be, and thoughtthat the great lords had perhaps called out the peasantry by way ofbeguiling the time, and that, as the roads were closed against theMongols, they were coming through the woods.
But there was no shouting, which was remarkable, and they could hear nohuman voices, nothing but the hollow sound as of repeated blows andbanging, which came to them from time to time, when the wind was in aparticular quarter, like the mutter of distant storms.
Two days later, this weird and ghastly noise could be heard till dark.No one could imagine what was going on.
But the detachments whose especial duty it was to watch the frontierappeared to be under a spell, for they passed their time in the usuallight-hearted way, and went out shooting and hunting in large parties.They had never known the forest so full of game of all sortsbefore--wild buffalo, bears, wolves, deer, fawns--as it had been since"the woods had begun to talk," as they expressed it.
By the third day the distant sounds had altered their character, andwere no longer like the ordinary noise made by sportsmen and theirbeaters, but more puzzling still.
Then came orders to the various detachments from the Palatine, that afew bodies of men were to be posted here and there, rather as spies thanguards, while the rest hastened with all speed to join the main army inHungary proper.
HA(C)dervAiry did not so much as hint that the "Tartars were coming"; but hewas well aware of the fact, for he had good spies, and that even amongthe Russians who had coalesced with the Mongols.
Early on the morning of their departure some of the men thought they sawscattered clouds of smoke rising over the forests to the east, but theywere a "happy-go-lucky" set, as so many were in those days, and theytroubled their heads very little as to what it might mean.
Someone suggested that, as the blacksmiths were all unusually hard atwork on horseshoes, of which an enormous number were wanted, no doubtthe charcoal burners were especially busy too; and there were many ofthem in the woods and forests; in all probability, the smoke proceededfrom their fires. And with this supposed explanation all were content.
But suddenly, to the now accustomed sound of beating and knocking, whichwas still drawing nearer and nearer, there was added another of adifferent character.
Hitherto, the woods had "talked," and echo had answered them; now theforest "roared." The wind had been light at early morning; now it waspiping and whistling, swaying the trees to and fro, making the tallstems tremble, and knock their long bare arms one against the other.
One of the Palatine's small detachments of about 150 men was stationedin the mountainous district of Marmaros, with a lofty and precipitouswall of rock bounding one side of the camp. The men were just preparingfor a start, when a huge buffalo made its sudden appearance on the edgeof the cliff far above their heads. It had come so far with a rush, butthe sight of the great depth below had stopped it short, and it stoodwith its feet rooted to the ground for a moment--only for a moment,however. It raised its head, and seemed to sniff the air, and then, withone short, faltering bellow, it leapt and fell into their midst,upsetting one horse, and wounding a couple of men.
This was the first; but after the first came a second, after the second,a third!
Helter-skelter the troops retired from the dangerous spot, and from asafe distance they counted five buffalo, one after the other, whichdashed to the edge of the cliff, as if in terror from their pursuers,and took the fatal leap. Only one was able to rise again, and that onejust gave one look round, dug its forefeet into the ground, and thenrushed on straight ahead as if there were a pack of hounds at its heels.
Shortly after, while the troops were riding down the narrow valley atthe foot of the mountains, they could hear the howl of wolves comingnearer and nearer, and a pack so large that no one could even guesstheir number, was seen to be scampering down the dale; some wereclattering down the cliffs, which were more sloping here, while the resttore wildly forward, passing close beside, and even in among the horses,many of which were maddened with terror, and bolted with their riders.
An hour or so later, when the little troop had succeeded in quieting thehorses, and had advanced some way on its journey amid many perils anddangers, the cause of all this excitement among the wild animals wassuddenly revealed. The forest was on fire! It was crackling in theflames, burning like a furnace beneath a canopy of black smoke.
The Mongols had fired it on this side, while in another direction theyhad opened a way forty fathoms wide, through woods over hill and dale,through walls of rock, and across streams and ditches. They were makingready their way before them, and were advancing along it upon theunready country.
Wherever they were reached by the fire, the trees crashed down one uponanother; ravens, crows, jackdaws, and all the winged creatures of thewoods, were flying to and fro above the trees, in dense, dark clouds,and with loud cries and cawing; bears came along muttering, flyingbefore the fire and smoke, climbing trees from which they did not daredescend again, and with which they perished together.
As already mentioned, Batu Khan's army was preceded by pioneers withaxes and hatchets, who drove their road straight forward, through orover obstacles of all kinds. Nothing stopped them, and often their owndead bodies helped to fill up the ditches and trenches; for what was thevalue of their lives to the Mongols? Absolutely nothing! since they weretaken for the most part from the people whom they had conquered.
As soon as the awful news of their advance spread through the country,the people fled without another thought of defending their homes orresisting the enemy, or of anything else but saving their lives and whatlittle property they could carry with them in their wild stampede.
In a few days Transylvania was ablaze from end to end. Towns, villages,farms, castles, country seats, strongholds, even the ancient walls ofAlba Julia, all were surrounded by the flames, and were crashing andcracking into ruins.
The invaders, stupid in their destructiveness, spared nothing whatever;and their leaders and commanders, themselves as stupid as the brute-likeherd over whom they were placed, occasioned loss to the Khan which waspast all reckoning, for his object was plunder, and they in their ragefor ruin, destroyed what the Khan might even have called treasure, aswell as what might have provided food for hundreds of thousands of thearmy. What
did the Khan Oktai, or Batu, or his thousands of leaderscare! The latter were Little Tartars, Russian Tartars, German Tartars,and what not, to whom the conqueror had given the rank and title ofKnA(C)z, whom he favoured, promoted, and enriched, until his humourchanged, or he had no further use for them, and then--why then hesqueezed them, made them disgorge their wealth, and strung them up tothe nearest tree. They were but miserable foreigners after all!
Transylvania was in the clutches of the enemy, who had entered her intwo large divisions, north and south. But, thanks to the nature of thecountry, and the many hiding-places it afforded, she did not sufferquite so severely as her neighbour.
Orsolya Szirmay, of whom the travellers had heard at Frata, had marriedone BankA cubed, a man of large property and influence, who owned vast estatesboth in Hungary and Transylvania; but Orsolya did not see much of herown relatives after her marriage, for her husband was a man of awkwardtemper, and they rarely paid her a visit; so that when, four or fiveyears before the Mongol invasion, BankA cubed died, she went to live on theTransylvanian property, which was in a most neglected condition, andrequired her presence. BankA cubed had lived to be ninety-three, and his widowwas now an old lady with snow-white hair, but with all her faculties andenergies about her, and eyes as bright, hair as lustrous, as those of ayoung girl.
She had made her home in a gloomy castle among the mountains, but at thefirst rumour of the coming invasion, she left it for Frata, where shehad an old house, or rather barn, which had been divided up into rooms,and was neither better nor worse than many another dwelling-house inthose days.
During her short stay here, the old lady was constantly riding about thecountry accompanied by her elderly man-servant, and a young girl, whohad but lately joined her, and was introduced as "a relation fromHungary."
One morning early all three disappeared without notice to anyone, and itwas only later that it was rumoured that "Aunt Orsolya," as she wascalled throughout the country, had taken refuge in a large cavern amongthe mountains to the north of Frata.
It afforded plenty of space, it was difficult of approach, and it hadbut one, and that a very narrow entrance; the streams which now flowthrough it not having then forced a passage.
How Aunt Orsolya had contrived to stock it with food and othernecessaries we are not told, but she had done it; neither did she lacksociety in this lonely abode after the first week or two, for she wasjoined in some mysterious way by between seventy and eighty personsbelonging to the most distinguished families in the land.
She, of course, was the head, the queen of this strange establishment,for those who fled hither to save their lives, and, as far as theycould, their most precious valuables, found the old lady alreadyinstalled.
She received them, she was their hostess; and besides all this, she wasa born ruler, one to whom others submitted, unconsciously as it were,and who compelled respect and deference.
Orsolya, then, had taken the part of house-mistress from the beginning,and no doubt enjoyed receiving more and more guests, and enjoyed alsothe consciousness that they all looked up to her, and were all ready tosubmit themselves to her wishes--we might say commands.
The old lady herself appointed to each one his place, in one or other ofthe many roomy caves which opened out of the great cavern, and shemanaged to find something for everyone to do.
In a short time the cavern was as clean as hands could make it. Thedriest parts were reserved for sleeping places; and one cave was setapart as a chapel, where service was regularly held by the clergy, ofwhom there were several among the refugees.
When the neighbourhood was quiet, the men went out hunting,and--stealing! Stealing! there is no polite word for it. They stolesheep, cattle, provisions anything they needed for housekeeping. Thosewho came in empty-handed Orsolya scolded in plain language; and the menwho swept and cleaned at her bidding, and the women who boiled andbaked, gradually became as much accustomed to the old lady's resoluteway of keeping house and order as if they had served under her all theirlives.
It was some time in March that Aunt Orsolya had retreated to the cavern,and there she and her companions had remained all through the spring,summer, and autumn, often alarmed, but never actually molested, hearingrumours in plenty, but knowing little beyond the fact that the wholecountry was in the hands of the Mongols, and that the King was afugitive.