(Bajdár, it may be remembered, though, of course, neither Father Roger nor Talabor were aware of the fact, had been of the party which had attacked Master Peter's house, and we may readily guess how he had earned this handsome reward.)
Orsolya gave a sigh of satisfaction as Father Roger finished his story.
"There is one traitor less in the world," said she, "and he might think himself lucky that he was only hanged! It was an easy death compared with many!"
And she said the same thing, yet more emphatically, when she heard from Dora and Talabor of their experiences at the hands of the Magyar-Tartar-Knéz.
Gentle Father Roger sighed too, but without any satisfaction, as he thought of the youth, with whom he had lived under the same roof, and to whom, as he was fond of insisting, he and his servant owed their lives.
But when he heard all that Talabor could tell him, he was as indignant as even Orsolya could have wished; for he understood Master Peter, and saw at once what had puzzled so many, the reason why he had left Dora at home instead of sending her to the Queen, out of harm's way.
CHAPTER XX.
LIKE THE PHŒNIX.
It seemed too good to be true! But it was a fact that the Mongols were really gone—gone as they had come, like one of the plagues of Egypt, for there "remained not one" in all Hungary.
As soon as King Béla knew that the unexpected had come to pass, and that the land was clear of the enemy, he hastened home. But what a home he found! It had been one of the fairest and richest in Europe; and now he rode for whole days without seeing so much as a single human being, and his followers had to do battle with the wild beasts, which had multiplied to an alarming degree. Go which way he would, he found the land uncultivated and overgrown with thorns and weeds; and when he did come across an inhabited district, the men he encountered were not men, but spectres. The many unburied corpses, together with the sometimes altogether indescribable kinds of food upon which the people had had to subsist, had produced pestilence of divers kinds, which carried off many of those who had escaped the Mongols.