--y lord, though I blew up the Karnthner wall in vain, yet I have news to make my lord-- heart glad. My son and I have taken the German, von Kalmbach. As he left the wall, dazed with fighting, we followed, guiding him subtly to the ruined tower whereof you know, and giving him drugged wine, bound him fast. Let my lord send the emir Mikhal Oglu to the wall by the tower, and we will give him into thy hands. We will bind him on the old mangonel and cast him over the wall like a tree trunk.-- The Armenian took up an arrow and began to bind the parchment about the shaft with light silver wire.
--ake this to the roof, and shoot it toward the mantlet, as usual,--he began, when Rhupen exclaimed,--ark!--and both froze, their eyes glittering like those of trapped vermin--fearful yet vindictive.
Gottfried gnawed at the gag; it slipped. Outside he heard a familiar voice.--ottfried! Where the devil are you?-- His breath burst from him in a stentorian roar.--ey, Sonya! Name of the devil! Be careful, girl--
Tshoruk snarled like a wolf and struck him savagely on the head with a simitar hilt. Almost instantly, it seemed, the door crashed inward. As in a dream Gottfried saw Red Sonya framed in the doorway, pistol in hand. Her face was drawn and haggard; her eyes burned like coals. Her basinet was gone, and her scarlet cloak. Her mail was hacked and red-clotted, her boots slashed, her silken breeches splashed and spotted with blood.
With a croaking cry Tshoruk ran at her, simitar lifted. Before he could strike, she crashed down the barrel of the empty pistol on his head, felling him like an ox. From the other side Rhupen slashed at her with a curved Turkish dagger. Dropping the pistol, she closed with the young Oriental. Moving like some one in a dream, she bore him irresistibly backward, one hand gripping his wrist, the other his throat. Throttling him slowly, she inexorably crashed his head again and again against the stones of the wall, until his eyes rolled up and set. Then she threw him from her like a sack of loose salt.
--od!--she muttered thickly, reeling an instant in the center of the room, her hands to her head. Then she went to the captive and sinking stiffly to her knees, cut his bonds with fumbling strokes that sliced his flesh as well as the cords.
--ow did you find me?--he asked stupidly, clambering stiffly up.
She reeled to the table and sank down in a chair. A flagon of wine stood at her elbow and she seized it avidly and drank. Then she wiped her mouth on her sleeve and surveyed him wearily but with renewed life.
-- saw you leave the wall and followed. I was so drunk from the fighting I scarce knew what I did. I saw those dogs take your arm and lead you into the alleys, and then I lost sight of you. But I found your burganet lying outside in the street, and began shouting for you. What the hell-- the meaning of this?-- She picked up the arrow, and blinked at the parchment fastened to it. Evidently she could read the Turkish characters, but she scanned it half a dozen times before the meaning became apparent to her exhaustion-numbed brain. Then her eyes flickered dangerously to the men on the floor. Tshoruk sat up, dazedly feeling the gash in his scalp; Rhupen lay retching and gurgling on the floor.
--ie them up, brother,--she ordered, and Gottfried obeyed. The victims eyed the woman much more apprehensively than him.
--his missive is addressed to Ibrahim, the Wezir,--she said abruptly.--hy does he want Gottfried--s head?----ecause of a wound he gave the Sultan at Mohacz,--muttered Tshoruk uneasily.
--nd you, you lower-than-a-dog,--she smiled mirthlessly,--ou fired the mine by the Karnthner! You and your spawn are the traitors among us.--She drew and primed a pistol.--hen Zrinyi learns of you,--she said,--our end will be neither quick nor sweet. But first, you old swine, I-- going to give myself the pleasure of blowing out your cub-- brains before your eyes--
The older Armenian gave a choking cry.--od of my fathers, have mercy! Kill me--torture me--but spare my son!-- At that instant a new sound split the unnatural quiet--a great peal of bells shattered the air.
--hat-- this?--roared Gottfried, groping wildly at his empty scabbard.
--he bells of Saint Stephen!--cried Sonya.--hey peal for victory!--
She sprang for the sagging stair and he followed her up the perilous way. They came out on a sagging shattered roof, on a firmer part of which stood an ancient stone-casting machine, relic of an earlier age, and evidently recently repaired. The tower overlooked an angle of the wall, at which there were no watchers. A section of the ancient glacis, and a ditch interior to the main moat, coupled with a steep natural pitch of the earth beyond, made the point practically invulnerable. The spies had been able to exchange messages here with little fear of discovery, and it was easy to guess the method used. Down the slope, just within long arrow-shot, stood up a huge mantlet of bullhide stretched on a wooden frame, as if abandoned there by chance. Gottfried knew that message-laden arrows were loosed from the tower roof into this mantlet. But just then he gave little thought to that. His attention was riveted on the Turkish camp. There a leaping glare paled the spreading dawn; above the mad clangor of the bells rose the crackle of flames, mingled with awful screams.
--he Janizaries are burning their prisoners,--said Red Sonya.
--udgment Day in the morning,--muttered Gottfried, awed at the sight that met his eyes.
From their eyrie the companions could see almost all of the plain. Under a cold gray leaden sky, tinged a somber crimson with dawn, it lay strewn with Turkish corpses as far as the sight would carry. And the hosts of the living were melting away. From Semmering the great pavilion had vanished. The other tents were now coming down fast. Already the head of the long column was out of sight, moving into the hills through the cold dawn. Snow began falling in light swift flakes.
The Janizaries were glutting their mad disappointment on their helpless captives, hurling men, women and children living into the flames they had kindled under the somber eyes of their master, the monarch men called the Magnificent, the Merciful. All the time the bells of Vienna clanged and thundered as if their bronze throats would burst.
--hey shot their bolt last night,--said Red Sonya.--saw their officers lashing them, and heard them cry out in fear beneath our swords. Flesh and blood could stand no more. Look!--She clutched her companion't arm.--he Akinji will form the rear-guard.-- Even at that distance they made out a pair of vulture wings moving among the dark masses; the sullen light glimmered on a jeweled helmet. Sonya-- powder-stained hands clenched so that the pink, broken nails bit into the white palms, and she spat out a Cossack curse that burned like vitriol.
--here he goes, the bastard, that made Austria a desert! How easily the souls of the butchered folk ride on his cursed winged shoulders! Anyway, old warhorse, he didn't get your head.----hile he lives it'sl ride loose on my shoulders,--rumbled the giant.
Red Sonya-- keen eyes narrowed suddenly. Seizing Gottfried-- arm, she hurried downstairs. They did not see Nikolas Zrinyi and Paul Bakics ride out of the gates with their tattered retainers, risking their lives in sorties to rescue prisoners. Steel clashed along the line of march, and the Akinji retreated slowly, fighting a good rear-guard action, balking the headlong courage of the attackers by their very numbers. Safe in the depths of his horsemen, Mikhal Oglu grinned sardonically. But Suleyman, riding in the main column, did not grin. His face was like a death-mask.
Back in the ruined tower, Red Sonya propped one booted foot on a chair, and cupping her chin in her hand, stared into the fear-dulled eyes of Tshoruk.