CHAPTER III. THE STORY OF THE ZILAHS

Andras Zilah, Transylvanian Count and Prince of the Holy Empire, was one
of those heroes who devote their whole lives to one aim, and, when they
love, love always.

Born for action, for chivalrous and incessant struggle, he had
sacrificed his first youth to battling for his country. "The Hungarian
was created on horseback," says a proverb, and Andras did not belie the
saying. In '48, at the age of fifteen, he was in the saddle, charging
the Croatian hussars, the redcloaks, the terrible darkskinned Ottochan
horsemen, uttering frightful yells, and brandishing their big damascened
guns. It seemed then to young Andras that he was assisting at one of
the combats of the Middle Ages, during one of those revolts against the
Osmanlis, of which he had heard so much when a child.

In the old castle, with towers painted red in the ancient fashion, where
he was born and had grown up, Andras, like all the males of his family
and his country, had been imbued with memories of the old wars. A few
miles from his father's domain rose the Castle of the Isle, which, in
the middle of the sixteenth century, Zringi had defended against the
Turks, displaying lofty courage and unconquerable audacity, and forcing
Soliman the Magnificent to leave thirty thousand soldiers beneath the
walls, the Sultan himself dying before he could subjugate the Hungarian.
Often had Andras's father, casting his son upon a horse, set out,
followed by a train of cavaliers, for Mohacz, where the Mussulmans had
once overwhelmed the soldiers of young King Louis, who died with his
own family and every Hungarian who was able to carry arms. Prince Zilah
related to the little fellow, who listened to him with burning tears of
rage, the story of the days of mourning and the terrible massacres which
no Hungarian has ever forgotten. Then he told him of the great revolts,
the patriotic uprisings, the exploits of Botzkai, Bethlen Gabor, or
Rakoczy, whose proud battle hymn made the blood surge through the veins
of the little prince.

Once at Buda, the father had taken the son to the spot, where, in 1795,
fell the heads of noble Hungarians, accused of republicanism; and he
said to him, as the boy stood with uncovered head:

"This place is called the Field of Blood. Martinowitz was beheaded here
for his faith. Remember, that a man's life belongs to his duty, and not
to his happiness."

And when he returned to the great sombre halls of t