s, stood out against the white background like demons of revenge;
and the hymn, feverish, bold, ardent, echoed through the snow-covered
branches like a hurricane of victory. They were wandering musicians,
who, the evening before, had been discovered in a neighboring village by
some of Jellachich's Croats, and whom Prince Sandor had unceremoniously
rescued at the head of his hussars; and they had come, with their
ancient national airs, the voice of their country, to pay their debt to
the fallen hero.

When they had finished, the wintry night-wind bearing away the last
notes of their war-song, the pistols of the hussars and the guns of
the honveds discharged a salute over the grave. The earth and snow were
shovelled in upon the body of Sandor Zilah, and Prince Andras drew away,
after marking with a cross the place where his father reposed.

A few paces away, he perceived, among the Tzigani musicians, a young
girl, the only woman of the tribe, who wept with mournful sobbings like
the echoes of the deserts of the Orient.

He wondered why the girl wept so bitterly, when he, the son, could not
shed a tear.

"Because Prince Zilah Sandor was valiant among the valiant," she
replied, in answer to his question, "and he died because he would not
wear the talisman which I offered him."

Andras looked at the girl.

"What talisman?"

"Some pebbles from the lakes of Tatra, sewn up in a little leather bag."

Andras knew what a powerful superstition is attached by the people of
Hungary to these deep lakes of Tatra, the "eyes of the sea," where, say
the old legends, the most beautiful carbuncle in the world lies hidden,
a carbuncle which would sparkle like the sun, if it could be discovered,
and which is guarded by frogs with diamond eyes and with lumps of pure
gold for feet. He felt more touched than astonished at the superstition
of the Tzigana, and at the offer which, the evening before, Prince
Sandor had refused with a smile.

"Give me what you wished to give my father," he said. "I will keep it in
memory of him."

A bright, joyous light flashed for a moment across the face of the
Tzigana. She extended to the young Prince the little bag of leather
containing several small, round pebbles like grains of maize.

"At all events," exclaimed the young girl, "there will be one Zilah whom
the balls of the Croats will spare for the safety of Hungary."

Andras slowly detached from his shoulder the silver agraffe, set with
opals,