am very fond of, Baroness, I confess, especially when they are
just a little--you know!"

"But this romance of Prince Andras is by no means just a little--you
know! It is--how shall I express it? It is epic, heroic, romantic--what
you will. I will relate it to you."

"It will sell fifty thousand copies of our paper," gayly exclaimed
Jacquemin, opening his ears, and taking notes mentally.

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 B