The emperor, however, did not sleep. For a while, he lay with closed eyes, and then, raising himself, looked up toward the heavens. Gradually the sky darkened; cloud met cloud and obscured the moon's disk, until at last the firmament was clothed in impenetrable blackness. The emperor, with a sad smile, thought how like the scene had been to the panorama of his life, wherein every star had set, and whence every ray of light had fled forever!
He dreamed on, while his tired men slept. Not all, however, for, far toward the left wing of the army, a band of hussars were encamped around a wagon laden with brandy, and, having much more confidence in the restorative powers of liquor than of sleep, they had been invigorating themselves with deep potations. Another company of soldiers in their neighborhood, awakened by the noisy mirth of the hussars, came forward to claim their share of the brandy. It was refused, and a brawl ensued, in which the assailants were repulsed.
The hussars, having driven them from the field, proceeded to celebrate their victory by renewed libations, until finally, in a state of complete inebriation, they fell to the ground, and there slept the sleep of the intoxicated.
The men who had been prevented from participating in these drunken revels resolved to revenge themselves by a trick. They crept stealthily up to the spot where the hussars were lying, and, firing off their muskets, cried out, "The Turks! the Turks!"
Stupefied by liquor, the sleepers sprang up, repeating the cry. It was caught and echoed from man to man, while the hussars, with unsheathed sabres, ran wildly about, until hundreds and hundreds were awakened, each one echoing the fearful words—
"The Turks! the Turks!"
"Halt! halt!" cried a voice to the terrified soldiers. "Halt, men, halt!"
The bewildered ears mistook the command for the battle-cry of the Turks, "Allah! Allah!" and the panic increased tenfold. "We are surrounded!" shrieked the terror-stricken Austrians, and every sabre was drawn, and every musket cocked. The struggle began; and the screams of the combatants, the groans of the wounded, the sighs of the dying filled the air, while comrade against comrade, brother against brother, stood in mortal strife and slew each other for the unbelieving Turk.
The calamity was irretrievable. The darkness of the night deceived every man in that army, not one of whom doubted that the enemy was there. Some of the terrified soldiers fled back to their camps, and, even there, mistaken for Turks, they were assaulted with sabre and musket, and frightful was the carnage that ensued!
In vain the officers attempted to restore discipline. There was no more reason in those maddened human beings than in the raging waves of the ocean—The emperor, at the first alarm, had driven in his caleche to the place whence the sound seemed to come.