Bela Kun ignored his fellow-councillor and frowned at the officer.
"Friend, I gave you orders to arrest Comrade Wenzel. How mean you he
has disappeared?"
The other shrugged his shoulders. "Merely that when I arrived
Comrade Wenzel was not there. Neither had he been at his room for
several days. One cannot arrest an absent man." He laughed
slightly, as if memory of the past tickled his sense of humour.
"Did you search his room?"
"Yes, and found----"
"What?" Impatiently Bela Kim leaned forward.
The soldier stretched out his right hand, which was clenched. Slowly
he opened his fingers, exposing on his palm something which made the
Communist sit upright with a slight start. That at which he looked
was a white knight.
* * * * * *
The Great Hungarian Plain, awe-inspiring in its rugged splendour,
rises here and there to rocky peaks and granite eminences, upon many
of which stately castles and impregnable fortresses proudly rear
their turrets, for the Great Plain has been, for past centuries, the
Armageddon of Europe. Here the fierce Magyars have stemmed the
invasion of the Turkish hordes, have battled and died for the Cross.
Here, too, at different times have the Roman Empire, Byzantium,
Friuli, and Saxony all paid tribute to the unconquerable fighters of
Hungary.
Now once again, not yet recovered from the ravages of the Great War,
it was to be the scene of a tussle, perhaps not so bloody in its
action, yet none the less significant in its outcome. As Hungary, in
the past, had withstood the onslaught of the fanatics of the
Crescent, saved Europe from Mahomet, now in 1919 it was to fight for
Europe once again, for here, on the Plain, the encroaching Bolsheviks
were encountering the indomitable peasants, the tillers of the soil,
the defenders of the country.
The battle was not of swords, of guns, or of cannon, but of insidious
propaganda undermining common sense, of bombastic promises,
impossible innovations, promiscuous hangings, against all of which
only tradition and unswerving loyalty to the Fatherland made stand.
The saga of the Great Plain is unsung, the epic of its peasantry
unwritten, but the time will come when the world will awaken to its
obligations, and in all gratitude repay the debt it owes in story,
song, and history. As yet, however, stunned by the years of travail,
bewildered by defeat, hypnotized by the imported emissaries of Lenin
and Trotsky, the peasants listened to the rantings of the Communists,
and slowly absorbed their teachings. Twenty-five acres of land free
for each man--the prospect was enticing--to those who had worked the
day long for the big magnates, the autocratic landowners of Hungary,
as had their fathers, even their grandfathers, before them. They
listened, and in the end their brows frowned, their faces creased
into ugly lines, and they looked toward the castles and the
fortresses and growled....
The Gisella Castle stood alone in its grandeur, the nearest town
three miles away. Built many hundred years ago, its solid sides
seemed untouched by the passage of time. If the outer walls were
green with moss they were nevertheless as formidable and
unapproachable as ever, prepared to yield only to modern high-powered
explosives.
Here lived Imre Kiss and his daughter Elizabeth, all unconscious that
away in Budapest Bela Kun and Company had cast envious eyes upon its
splendours; and so, on a sparkling spring morning, when all nature
seemed to sing with joy, they peacefully broke the fast.
Even Imre, conquering his fading sight only with the aid of
_pince-nez_, could not fail to notice an air of elation in
Elizabeth's manner as she joyfully partook of her meal.
"Why, daughter, what witchery are you up to this morning? It is a
long time since I have seen you so happy."
Elizabeth glanced at him lovingly and smiled. "Father dear, you have
not forgotten?"
"Forgotten!" The old man wrinkled his forehead and peered at her
with a puzzled expression upon his face. "Have I forgotten
something? Does Francis, your cousin, visit us this day?"
She laughed crooningly, so that its music rippled and echoed round
the panelled hall. "Father dear, it is the fifteenth to-day. Does
that date mean nothing to you?"
He looked at her, dismayed. "Bless my heart, child, it is your
birthday! Dear, dear! Then to-day you are twenty-three years of
age--and--and--" across the table his glance rested steadily upon
her, longer than it had done for many years, "--why, dearest child,
you are more beautiful than ever."
He gazed entranced upon the picture she presented. Through the
leaded windows the sun was throwing a golden gleam, in the path of
which she sat, so that she was bathed in its brilliancy.
"My child--twenty-three to-day." Murmuringly the words escaped; they
were but thoughts which passed through his mind. "Just twenty years
ago--she--died, and now--yet did she die? Is not my daughter
Elizabeth she, the other Elizabeth? Are not those big, dark eyes, so
full of pride and sympathy too, her eyes? It was when I first looked
into them that I worshipped her. It is her chin you lift so proudly,
dear; there is no doubt that you are born and bred a Magyar. You
love Hungary too, don't you, daughter?"
At the mention of the word Elizabeth's face changed yet again, just
as her expressions had altered following the trend of his reverie.
From joy and happiness to naïve pleasure at his praise, then sadness,
and a vague, indefinable longing. Then once more her features
mirrored her thoughts. Pride of birth, of race, of country! Imre
needed no affirmation to his question.
He shook his head from side to side. "But now, your birthday has
arrived and I have no present for you. Tut, tut! My memory is
becoming execrable. Perhaps it is my work--I devote too much time to
it."
He looked away, out of the window, dreaming of his lifelong work, his
chosen task. Once he had been a soldier, but that was many years
ago. He married late, and when his beloved wife died he became a
scholar. He dipped and delved into the past, until slowly there was
born within him a passion to write of the lives of the kings of
Hungary. So he began when Elizabeth was but a child of ten.
Soon now, perhaps in two or three years, he would write "Finis," but
at times he feared, frightened that the Reaper would forestall him in
his cherished ambition.
Of late the apprehension had become deeper; it seemed to him that
there were moments when his heart fluttered strangely, and so he
flung himself into his work, studying from morning till night. Thus
he had forgotten an important anniversary, and he chided himself.
He need not have done so. Elizabeth understood and sympathized. She
left her chair and knelt by his side, laying her head on his knees.
"Father darling, you must not say that. Your work means as much to
me. I long for the time when your name will ring throughout Hungary,
echo from town to town, and later trumpet to the world the glories of
our saintly kings, and all they have done for mighty Europe."
Bending forward so that his thick, snow-white locks swept over his
forehead, he placed his lips upon the masses of her black hair, after
which he ran his fingers through its tresses, lovingly caressing the
silky texture, admiring the healthy sheen.
"Well, well, child, let us hope that the time will come very soon.
But now, what news to-day from Budapest? How proceeds the Peace
Conference in Paris? Assuredly the Entente will be merciful to
broken Hungary. England and America will not forget us."
Elizabeth frowned. "Again there are no papers, Father. I do not
understand their absence and I am nervous."
"Nervous! God bless my soul! What nonsense are you talking? Why
should you be nervous?"
She sighed. "I do not know. It may be merely a vague impression,
yet since King Charles was dethroned----"
"Tut, tut, child! Do you not believe that it was diplomacy on the
part of Count Michael Karolyi? The Government is in his hands. He
is inclined to the Left. His Radical tendencies, we admit, are
pronounced, but he could not stab his friends in the back. He is one
of our class, one of our own people. Is not his wife the daughter of
our greatest statesman? Fear not, child; rest your faith on Count
Karolyi."
For his sake she smiled suddenly and gaily jumped to her feet. Yet
the worry was not altogether driven from Elizabeth's mind by her
father's optimism.
"Come, Father, to work."
"To work! Ah!" Imre's lined face softly wreathed into smiles, and
his eyes brightened. Once more he would pick up his beloved pen, to
write in words of gold of past glories, all unaware of the ghastly
present.
Carefully, with the aid of a stick which now never left his side, he
rose to his feet, and made his way to the window. Throwing it open
he gazed at the glorious vista before him, breathing in the pure air
of the Great Plain.
"What a morning! Come, child, stand by me and tell me what you see.
Does the town still stand enshrouded by the filthy smoke of
industrialism?"
Elizabeth did not reply, and Imre became conscious that her grip upon
his arm was tightening.
"What is the matter, Elizabeth?" he asked, surprised.
"Father, there is a man riding towards us as if he were pursued by a
demon."
"Pshaw! Do not all our horsemen ride thus? Perhaps he brings us the
newspapers."
Elizabeth endeavoured to believe in this supposition, but receptive
to occult influence, a heritage of gipsy blood, she had a premonition
that the rapidly approaching rider bore news of ill-omen, and her
heart beat quicker with anxiety.
At last, after an apparently interminable period, he reached the
massive iron gates of the castle, and a moment later the clang of a
deep-toned bell resounded throughout the purlieus of the walls.
A brief interval, hurrying footsteps, and then Peczkai, from the
village, was shown in.
His face was covered with sweat and streaked with dirt, his clothes
were white with dust. Gasping for breath he turned to the old man.
"Excellency!" He could say no more, and Imre motioned him to be
quiet. His hoarse breathing became easier.
"Excellency, the Communists are on their way here!"
"Communists!" Imre gazed at the peasant in bewilderment. "What mean
you? I do not understand."
"The Communists, Excellency, are coming here, by order of the Soviet."
"Soviet!" The old man choked and a hastily aroused temper began to
display itself. Seeing him thus Elizabeth spoke to the man.
"You must tell us more, Peczkai. What you have said to us is a
mystery. We have had no news for some time now, our newspapers have
not arrived."
"God help you, then, when you hear the news. The Karolyi Government
has resigned, and the country has been taken over by a group of Jews
who call themselves the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Hungary is
Bolshevik, Red. The _bourgeoisie_ and the aristocracy are fleeing
for their lives. Everything is nationalized, the property of the
country, and anyone may take what they please. It is bloody
revolution, Excellency!"
They looked at the man incredulously, hesitating to believe a word he
said. Yet Elizabeth was the first to realize the truth.
"Oh, Mother in Heaven!" she whispered to herself, yet the sound
pierced the stillness of the room with a sharp echo.
Imre, after a moment's hesitation, remained unmoved. "Impossible!"
he announced, and his eyes flashed. "Hungary turned Bolshevik!
Impossible!" Proudly he lifted his head and met the peasant's steady
gaze.
Peczkai groaned. "Excellency, I could not believe until I saw, with
my own eyes. Red guards are everywhere, pillaging and looting in the
name of the Soviet. Rumours have reached us from Budapest of death,
of mysterious disappearances. Our late Prime Minister and many
others have been thrown into prison. Excellency, you must believe!
The Communists are on the way here now! Any moment they may arrive.
You must flee; it will be better so."
Hesitation to believe battled with a hopeless recognition of the
truth in Imre's heart. He did not move or speak; just stood still
while the blood receded from his face and his eyes became shadowed
with an overwhelming horror.
While he wrote of Hungary's greatness, this, this unspeakable
sacrilege was taking place. Hungary Red! The country of St Stephen,
the birthplace of a long list of valiant warriors--Bolshevik!
"A chair, Elizabeth," he gasped weakly as, unable to bear the sudden
weight of sorrow, he felt his knees tottering. Quicker than
Elizabeth Peczkai was beside him, holding the older man up in his
strong arms.
"Excellency, a short rest only. Then you must go. See, I will take
you, guide you to a safe place."
"Go! Go!" Slowly the bowed shoulders straightened, the head lifted,
and Peczkai saw Imre's eyes blazing with a kindled fire. "Go!
Never! Who are these Communists that I should leave my home, the
home of my father, and his father before him? Who are these dogs
that I should forsake my castle? Never! Let them come. I will
horsewhip them. Not yet is my arm too weak to defend myself and my
daughter. Go you, Peczkai, and dare these Bolsheviks to come near."
Despairingly the peasant glanced at Elizabeth, but vainly. As she
stood there she smiled slightly, haughtily, disdainfully. The spirit
of the fighting Magyars revealed itself in her womanly grace;
daughter of a generation of warriors, she feared neither friend nor
foe. Once again Peczkai groaned.
"Excellency..." He spread out an arm appealingly.
Imre smiled softly. "God bless you, Peczkai." There was much in his
voice which even the uncultured peasant recognized--gratitude,
tenderness, scorn, but above all, inflexible decision.
Peczkai, with a bowed head, helped Imre to a chair, and left the
room. Bowed, for in the corner of each eye trickled a tear. When
the awakening came... He felt an infinite pity for them.
It was soon to come. Even as Elizabeth went to the window to watch
the return of Peczkai to the village she saw in the distance the
approaching Communists. Her lips curled scornfully. There were many
of them, perhaps two dozen, or three--as they came nearer she
realized that even this estimate was too low.
"They come, Father."
She looked round. He sat as if he had not heard.
So she waited at the windows, and the Communists came nearer till she
was able to see their faces, and for the first time feared. Most of
them were villagers, led by a sprinkling of strangers, but the
vanguard was packed with cruel faces and criminal countenances. Even
many of these men she knew, recognized them as incorrigibles,
vagabonds, ne'er-do-wells, every one of them an _habitué_ of prison.
Where were the police that these convicts were let loose? She
experienced a thrill of horror: there, side by side with the
misdemeanants, walked the renegade police, no longer spick-and-span
in their uniforms, but dirty and dissolute, wearing conspicuously
their ensign of shame, the Red cockade.
"Oh, Mother in Heaven!" she breathed.
The awakening at last! "Father, the gates! we must close them! Then
we can defy them, snap our fingers at them."
Before he had time to reply she hurried from the room and called the
servants as she ran.
In the courtyard Joseph and Eugene the coachmen were watching the
Communists, whispering to each other in an undertone. Then Elizabeth
was before them.
"Joseph, Eugene, the Bolsheviks are coming to occupy the castle.
Shut to the gates."
Neither man moved, just glanced uneasily at one another.
"Eugene, do you hear?" The other servants were joining them, all but
the women.
The man looked up and scowled. "Yes, mistress, I hear," but he made
no attempt to move. Fear tugged at Elizabeth's heart, but the
servants did not suspect it, as before her burning looks their own
gaze gave way and fell.
"Then obey. Shut to the gates and keep that rabble at a distance."
From the back a voice shouted: "Hold hard, mistress! Don't you call
our friends names." Elizabeth endeavoured to locate the voice, but
the man had hidden himself behind another servant.
"Friends!" Her voice rang with contempt. "Do you call those men
your friends? Do you, Eugene, and you, George, or you, Bela?"
Only Eugene had the pluck to answer. "I choose my own friends,
mistress. Times are different now. We are all alike, you and me and
Joseph." He laughed coarsely. "You are not our mistress now. You
and me are comrades. This castle belongs to the country, and me and
Joseph and all of us are going to share it."
Elizabeth did not waste time in words. She stepped forward and flung
her hand across his face, and the force of it first whitened the skin
then left a livid weal.
There was a deadly silence. One or two of the more timid servants
shrank back, still amenable to authority, but Eugene the coachman,
his face diffused with evil, stepped forward. "You----" He raised
his arm, but Joseph caught hold of it.
"Wait, Eugene, wait for the others. In a few minutes our pretty
mistress will soon realize who governs the country now. Comrade
Grocz knows how to deal with the _bourgeoisie_. Besides..." he
whispered in the other's ear, and afterward they both grinned evilly.
For Elizabeth the end of the world might have come. The servants to
revolt, the men who had been in their employ for years, whom she
could have sworn would be faithful to death! She looked at the
gates. Too late now to close them, for the villagers were on the
threshold. She felt a sob rising in her throat at the treachery of
the men, but repressed it, and running to the gates stood in the
entrance, her arms spread.
Obedient to impulses not yet entirely driven from them the villagers
stopped. Only the Communists from Budapest had the courage to
advance, and headed by Comrade Grocz they moved forward till they
stood in front of her.
"Well, my pretty miss, what do you want?" Grocz laughed and spat on
the ground.
Elizabeth looked at him, a fierce anger blazing from her eyes.
"Dog!" she cried. "Get back to your kennel."
Some one laughed, otherwise the silence was intense. Elizabeth
appreciated the moment, took advantage of it. Coolly ignoring the
strangers, she spoke to the villagers, among whom she had been
brought up since childhood, and her young voice clearly rang through
the air, reaching every man in the crowd.
"Men, what do you want? Why come you here to-day? Are you to be
turned into a crowd of barbarians at the command of a handful of Jews
from Budapest? Are you so forgetful of your own independence that
you must blindly follow on the heels of a few mischief-makers who
seek only their own advancement? Have you forgotten the four long
years of war? Did you sacrifice yourselves for this?"
Perhaps her words might have had effect, but unconsciously she
touched upon the wrong topic.
"Bah! Who started the War, who plunged us peasants into the hell of
battle? You magnates, you landowners and blood-suckers. You, who
fatten on the work we do for you at starvation pay; you, all of you,
started the War to grind us down more than ever!"
The words were greeted by a chorus of affirmative growls. The tide
had turned and none knew it better than Comrade Grocz.
"Out of the way! We cannot stand arguing here all day long. Three
cheers for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat! Long live Bela Kun!
Come along, comrades, worthy Bela Kun has given us Castle Gisella.
Shall we let a little chit of a girl stand in our way?"