try, this fruitful country, was now covered
with gibbets and corpses.

CHAPTER IV

"WHEN HUNGARY IS FREE!"

All these bitter memories Prince Andras, in spite of the years that had
passed, kept ever in his mind one sad and tragic event--the burial of his
father, Sandor Zilah, who was shot in the head by a bullet during an
encounter with the Croats early in the month of January, 1849.

Prince Sandor was able to grasp the hand of his son, and murmur in the
ear of this hero of sixteen:

"Remember! Love and defend the fatherland!"

Then, as the Austrians were close at hand, it was necessary to bury the
Prince in a trench dug in the snow, at the foot of a clump of fir-trees.

Some Hungarian 'honveds, bourgeois' militia, and Varhely's hussars held
at the edge of the black opening resinous torches, which the wintry wind
shook like scarlet plumes, and which stained the snow with great red
spots of light. Erect, at the head of the ditch, his fingers grasping the
hand of Yanski Varhely, young Prince Andras gazed upon the earthy bed,
where, in his hussar's uniform, lay Prince Sandor, his long blond
moustache falling over his closed mouth, his blood-stained hands crossed
upon his black embroidered vest, his right hand still clutching the
handle of his sabre, and on his forehead, like a star, the round mark of
the bit of lead that had killed him.

Above, the whitened branches of the firs looked like spectres, and upon
the upturned face of the dead soldier fell flakes of snow like congealed
tears. Under the flickering of the torch-flames, blown about by the north
wind, the hero seemed at times to move again, and a wild desire came to
Andras to leap down into the grave and snatch away the body. He was an
orphan now, his mother having died when he was an infant, and he was
alone in the world, with only the stanch friendship of Varhely and his
duty to his country to sustain him.

"I will avenge you, father," he whispered to the patriot, who could no
longer hear his words.

The hussars and honveds had advanced, ready to fire a final salvo over
the grave of the Prince, when, suddenly, gliding between the ranks of the
soldiers, appeared a band of Tzigani, who began to play the March of
Rakoczy, the Hungarian Marseillaise, the stirring melody pealing forth in
the night-air, and lending a certain mysteriously touching element to the
sad scene. A quick shudder ran through the ranks of the soldiers, ready
to become avengers.