[Footnote 78: Szekely (Szekler in German), the inhabitants of the
border districts in Transylvania, said to be one of the most ancient
tribes of the Magyar race, who came over still earlier than Attila.]
The cannons were silent, the battle was over--the brave had fallen.
The field, which so lately had been the scene of wild and desperate
contention, was now silent as the grave; only the thunder of heaven
and the moaning of the breeze were to be heard, while the lurid
lightning gleamed across the plain, as if the spirits of the dead had
begun a new and inexorable strife on high, to guard the gates of
heaven, as, an hour before, they had defended the frontiers of their
country against their foes.
In the churchyard, before the gates of Kezdi-Vasarhely, the Szekely
women anxiously awaited, not the return of the beloved, but the news
of the victory.
They sat in groups on the gravestones and green mounds, listening all
day to the cannon, and trying to distinguish the distant sounds.
"That is ours--that is Gabor Aron[79]--and that the enemy--and now the
thunder of heaven."
[Footnote 79: A common rustic, who, at the beginning of the late war,
astonished his countrymen by his skill in founding cannons, and in the
art of gunnery.]
And, when the cannon had ceased, they waited with beating hearts to
hear of defeat or victory.
And all--mothers, young girls, brides, wives, breathed the same
fervent wish--that if the beloved should return, it might be with
glory; but that if the day were lost which was to decide the fate of
their country, none might return to tell it!
On the threshold of the chapel, by the crypt-door, sat an old man: he
was past eighty--his eyes were dim and lustreless, and his voice faint
and trembling: he, too, had come out to the churchyard to wait the
issue of the battle, for he could not rest at home; beside him sat a
cripple, who had one leg shrunk up, but although the body was weak and
sickly, every thought of his heart was in the battle-field, and he
frequently exclaimed, in bitterness of spirit, "Why cannot I too be
there?"
The cripple knelt beside the old man, and read to him out of the
Bible. The passage was in Samuel, about the battles of Israel--the
holy war, in which thirty thousand had fallen guarding the ark of God.
"Why cannot I be there?" sighed the unhappy youth, and read:
"'And the ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and
Phinehas, were slain.
"'And there ran a man of Benjamin out of the army, and came to Shiloh
the same day, with his clothes rent, and with earth upon his head.
"'And when he came, lo, Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside watching:
for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into
the city, and told it, all the city cried out.
"'And when Eli heard the noise of the crying, he said, What meaneth
the noise of this tumult? And the man came in hastily, and told Eli.
"'Now Eli was ninety and eight years old; and his eyes were dim, that
he could not see.'"
The cripple could read no more; he looked at the old man, his heart
sickened, and his eyes filled with tears.
"Why do you not continue?" asked the old man.
"It is dark; I cannot see the words."
"That is false; I feel the last rays of the sun on my face; why do you
not read on?"