The national hymn rang out like a song of glory over the resting-place of
the vanquished. The soul of the dead seemed to speak in the voice of the
heroic music, recalling to the harassed contestants for liberty the great
days of the revolts of the fatherland, the old memories of the struggles
against the Turks, the furious charges of the cavaliers across the free
puszta, the vast Hungarian plain.

And while, with long sweeps of his arm, the chief of the Tzigani marked
the measure, and the 'czimbalom' poured forth its heartrending notes, it
seemed to the poor fellows gathered about that the music of the March of
Rakoczy summoned a whole fantastic squadron of avengers, horsemen with
floating pelisses and herons' plumes in their hats, who, erect in their
saddles and with sabres drawn, struck, struck the frightened enemy, and
recovered, foot by foot, the conquered territory. There was in this
exalted march a sound of horses' hoofs, the clash of arms, a shaking of
the earth under the gallop of horsemen, a flash of agraffes, a rustle of
pelisses in the wind, an heroic gayety and a chivalrous bravery, like the
cry of a whole people of cavaliers sounding the charge of deliverance.

And the young Prince, gazing down upon his dead father, remembered how
many times those mute lips had related to him the legend of the czardas,
that legend, symbolic of the history of Hungary, summing up all the
bitter pain of the conquest, when the beautiful dark girls of
Transylvania danced, their tears burning their cheeks, under the lash of
the Osmanlis. At first, cold and motionless, like statues whose calm
looks silently insulted their possessors, they stood erect beneath the
eye of the Turk; then little by little, the sting of the master's whip
falling upon their shoulders and tearing their sides and cheeks, their
bodies twisted in painful, revolted spasms; the flesh trembled under the
cord like the muscles of a horse beneath the spur; and, in the morbid
exaltation of suffering, a sort of wild delirium took possession of them,
their arms were waved in the air, their heads with hair dishevelled were
thrown backward, and the captives, uttering a sound at once plaintive and
menacing, danced, their dance, at first slow and melancholy, becoming
gradually active, nervous, and interrupted by cries which resembled sobs.
And the Hungarian czardas, symbolizing thus the dance of these martyrs,
kept still, will always keep, the characteristic of contorti