"Prince Eugene," said he, "war has claimed from you a terrible sacrifice. You have lost a brother whom you most tenderly loved. But a soldier must conquer grief; and who more than he should remember that death, however painful, cancels all human woes?"
Eugene rose slowly to his feet, and raised his hand all purple with his brother's gore. "See," said he, "my brother has given me the baptism of war, and now I dedicate myself to strife. This blood- besprinkled hand shall smite the Turk, shall ruin his fields, shall devastate his towns.—Ah, Louis! Ambition has hitherto been my incentive to glory, but revenge is stronger than ambition, and revenge shall lift me to greatness!"
The setting sun poured down a stream of light upon the speaker, who, small, delicate, and insignificant, seemed transfigured into the genius of war. The dragoons around looked upon him with awe; and, long years after, they were accustomed to relate the circumstance of Prince Louis's death, and Prince Eugene's vow.
CHAPTER X.
VIENNA.
"The Turks, the Turks! The Tartars are coming! The Duke of Lorraine has been defeated! We are lost!"
Such were the cries in Vienna, on the morning of the 8th of July, 1683. A courier from the Duke of Lorraine had brought news of the unfortunate skirmish near Petronelle, and had warned the emperor of the approach of the enemy. Leopold had acted upon the information at once, and preparations were making by the royal family to evacuate Vienna.
This fact was no sooner known throughout the city, than thousands of its inhabitants prepared to follow. If the emperor deserted his capital, it was because he knew that it must fall; and those who loved their lives were determined to fly. From palace to hut there was but one common feeling—a frenzied desire to go elsewhere— anywhere rather than remain to be butchered by the infidel.
Whosoever possessed a carriage, a wagon, a cart, was an object of greater envy than he who counted his treasures by millions. Incredible prices were offered and received for the roughest of conveyances. Before every house stood vehicles of every kind, crowded with fugitives, upon whom the poorer classes gazed with longing eyes; many of them, by dint of tears and prayers, obtaining liberty to hang on the wagons as they drove away.
And now amid the throng arose a cry. "The emperor! the emperor!"