A few kind words, a cheery smile, a pressure of the hand, a look of sympathy, he distributed impartially; and men of various nationalities must have blessed the handsome Hungarian, who spent himself so freely in their service.
Several times we had to face the gravest dangers. Houses were burning, walls falling; but the helpless must be rescued, and Rakoczy, never blenching himself, inspired confidence in others.
Many pitiful little dramas took place in the streets, where women and children searched, often, alas! in vain, for the bodies of their loved ones.
Thus the night passed, and the return of day revealed the horrors of the scene more plainly still.
During the hours of darkness there had been something grand about the conflagration. The great red blotches lighting up the sky, the vivid tongues of fire leaping, as it seemed, sportively from point to point, darting here and there, now joining, now separating, throwing into bold relief some noble building which again was lost in the black smoke, bringing into view the varied uniforms of the victorious soldiery--all these things powerfully seized the imagination, crowding out the more prosaic horrors.
Daylight restored the true proportion of things, and it was indeed a sorrowful sight on which we gazed.
Charred and blackened walls met us at every turn; half-consumed houses, battered and ruined buildings, huge gaps in the streets where the fire-fiend had worked his will; and, worse than all, the white-faced, sad-eyed women and innocent children, bereaved alike of home and of the strong arms that had hitherto been their support.
Some, wringing their hands in despair, cried aloud the names of their lost ones; the majority, dazed by grief, sought silently and with an unremitting patience that touched the hearts of the beholders.
The fighting, as far as we could tell, had long since ceased, and was not renewed.
A rumour spread that the chiefs had sent to ask for a suspension of hostilities while they talked over the terms of surrender, and I thought they acted very wisely.