The Red, White, and Green Part 67

All this takes long in the telling; in reality it lasted but a little time, though to me it seemed an age.

With Count Beula and my horse had vanished every hope of escape.

Flight was impossible, and how could I stand against a hundred hussars?

Then I remembered Von Theyer, and gnashed my teeth at the thought of how he would gloat over my capture.

Would he kill me? It was likely enough, since I had been found in company with a notorious outlaw, and not many questions are asked concerning the victims of an unsuccessful revolution.

The bandits had disappeared, and I was standing beside the body of the count's dead horse when the leading hussars galloped up.

Von Theyer was not amongst them, I saw at a glance, and smiled.

The leader was the young sublieutenant who had attacked me so furiously in the fight.

He had mounted a fresh horse, but his sword was sheathed, and he looked at me quite good-naturedly.

"You must surrender!" cried he genially. "You have made a good fight, but the odds are against you. One man, though a Magyar, cannot overthrow a hundred."

He spoke in German, and I replied in the same tongue, giving him my sword, and acknowledging myself his prisoner.

Just then Von Theyer arrived, and with a savage scowl exclaimed harshly,--

"Tie that fellow up. Make sure of him, Ober, and put him on your horse.

If he gets away, you'll swing in his place."

Ober, a spare but muscular hussar, saluted respectfully, and, helped by another fellow, tied my arms tightly.

Then they lifted me into the saddle; Ober sprang up behind, and we were all galloping hard after Batori and his men.

Von Theyer was in the front again, where I could not see his face; but the one glance had shown I need expect no mercy from him. Even if he forgave my making friends with the pretty Theresa, he must always hate the author of that disfiguring scar across his cheeks.

The wound had in truth spoiled his good looks for ever, and Von Theyer had been a very handsome youth in the days of the insurrection.

The excitement of the ride, however, soon blew these thoughts out of my head; and, as well as my cramped position would allow, I looked eagerly for any signs of the fugitives. Of Batori and his men we did not catch another glimpse; but the brigand chief left us a specimen of his handiwork on the roadside. Von Theyer was the first to see it, and as he stopped the others did the same.

It was a ghastly object, and my blood ran cold at sight of it.

From the bough of the very first tree we reached Count Beula hung lifeless.

Across his breast was fastened a sheet of paper, on which some one had written in Hungarian and German characters the words: "Hungary has no need of cowards."

"The brigand has saved us a job," exclaimed Von Theyer. "If we catch him we'll hang him on the same tree."

Now you may be sure I had no wish to ask a favour of Von Theyer, yet the spectacle of the hapless count swinging there in the breeze nerved me to ask that the body might be cut down and decently buried.

"Buried!" cried Von Theyer scornfully. "Let the dog hang. The kites will bury him fast enough when we are gone."

"You are a brute!" I cried hotly, caring little in my indignation for the consequences.

He raised his hand to strike me, but dropped it again.

"We will square our account later," he said, and gave the word to trot.

We rode on accordingly, but I could not drag my mind from that dreadful place.

I saw nothing of the country through which we pa.s.sed. I could only see the grey face of the dead count staring down upon me from that primitive gallows.

I never met Batori again, but one of his men years afterwards related just how the tragedy happened.

The bandits, seeing me jump down to the count's a.s.sistance when his horse fell, and thinking my animal would have to carry the two of us, slackened their speed, so that we might the more easily catch them up.

When Count Beula arrived by himself, and they, looking back, saw me standing alone beside the dead horse, it was easy to guess what had happened.

The count, who was dreadfully excited, made no attempt to hide what he had done, but explained that had the Austrians captured him they would have hanged him on the nearest tree.

"Or beam," added Batori coolly.

"Tree or beam," answered the count. "That's the order which refers to both of us."

"Well," said the brigand, with the laugh his men dreaded to hear, "we shall have to ride a bit farther before we find one or the other. Come on, count! I'll pledge my word that the Austrians shall never hang you!"

Count Beula, little dreaming of the inner meaning of these words, galloped along with the band, and not another word was spoken till they reached the first tree.

Here the robber-captain called a halt, and making a sign that some of the party should surround the count, said to him,--

"This is where the Austrians would have hung you; but now, perhaps, they will hang Captain Botskay instead."

At this Beula, discovering a little shame, replied falteringly that they would only imprison me for a while; but as for him, he would never have got one step past that tree.

As soon as he had made an end of speaking, Batori raised his hand. The count was seized, torn from his horse, bound, a noose put round his neck, and he was placed directly beneath the fatal bough.

"Count Beula," cried the bandit, "you are a coward, and Hungary has no need of cowards. You have left that lad, who risked his life for you, to die. Now you shall die yourself. Though the Austrians have not caught you, you shall be hanged all the same."

The unhappy man begged piteously--not for his life, but that he might be shot.

Batori, however, remained inexorable, and while the poor wretch was still pleading gave the order. The men pulled at the rope, and the body of Count Beula hung swinging in the wind for the vultures and carrion crows to devour.

Thus, in the strangest way imaginable, it came to pa.s.s that Count Beula did hang like a common criminal by the roadside, though the Austrians were not his executioners.

I pitied the poor fellow from my heart, feeling sure that when he left me to face the enemy alone excitement had carried him out of his right senses.

As we rode from the spot I could of course only guess at the details of the tragedy, and indeed years pa.s.sed before I met one of the actors; but the outline of it was so bold and clear that no one could mistake the general drift of the story, especially with Batori's sign-manual to help.

It gladdened me in after years to learn that the unfortunate count did not really fear death, but only the manner of it, as that was how I had read his conduct.

Wrapped in thoughts of this terrible tragedy, I did not at first notice that my captor's horse had dropped to the rear; for though neither Ober nor I carried any superfluous flesh, the double weight told heavily upon the animal.

The difference was more marked when Von Theyer changed the trot into a gallop; and I suddenly became alive to the fact that were my arms free, I might yet make an effort to escape.