d the field,
but the loss of the Turks was more than thirty thousand men.

Hunyady, again left to himself, had again to make his escape. At first
he only dismissed his military suite; afterward he separated from his
faithful servant in the hope that separately they might more easily
baffle their pursuers. Next he had to turn his horse adrift, as the poor
animal was incapable of continuing his journey. Thus he made his way
alone and on foot toward the frontiers of his native land. After a while,
looking down from the top of a piece of elevated ground, he perceived a
large body of Turks, from whom he hid himself in a neighboring lake. He
thus escaped this danger, but only to encounter another. At a turn of
the road he came so suddenly upon a party of Turkish plunderers as to be
unable to escape from them, and thus became their prisoner. But the Turks
did not recognize him, and, leaving him in the hands of two of their
number, the rest went on in search of more prey. His two guards soon came
to blows with one another about a heavy gold cross which they had found
on the person of their captive, and, while they were thus quarrelling,
Hunyady suddenly wrenched a sword out of the hand of one of the two Turks
and cut off his head, upon which the other took to flight, and Hunyady
was again free.

In the mean time, however, George, the Prince of Servia, who took part
with the aristocratic malcontents, and who, although a Christian, out of
pure hatred to Hunyady had gone over to the side of the Turks, had given
strict orders that all Hungarian stragglers were to be apprehended and
brought before him. In this way Hunyady fell into the hands of some
Servian peasants, who delivered him to their Prince. Nor did he regain
his liberty without the payment of a heavy ransom, leaving his son
Ladislaus as hostage in his stead.

He thus returned home amid a thousand perils, and with the painful
experience that Europe left him to his own resources to fight as best he
could against the ever-advancing Turks. The dependencies of the Hungarian
crown, Servia and Wallachia--on whose recovery he had spent so much
blood and treasure--instead of supporting him, as might be expected of
Christian countries, threw themselves in a suicidal manner into the arms
of the Turks. They hoped by their ready submission to find favor in the
eyes of the irresistible conquerors, by whom, however, they were a little
later devoured.

After these events Hunyady cont