"You shall have your wish, Eugene. Your division is to open the engagement. As soon as you hear the discharge of the cannon from the heights of the Kahlenberg, you advance."
With a joyful wave of the hand, Eugene sprang forward, and placed himself at the head of his dragoons, where, rigid as a statue, he stood with his eyes raised to the summit of the Kahlenberg.
The first shot rolled like thunder through the valley gorges. The men grasped their muskets, the horses pawed the ground. The second, the third, followed, and every eye glistened, and every heart throbbed. The fourth—THE FIFTH!
"En avant!" cried Eugene; and the dragoons galloped forward. They were to drive the enemy from the valley of the Nussberg, and force the pass of Heiligenstadt. But the Turks disputed every inch of the ground, making breastworks of every hillock, trenches of every hollow. They defended the way with such desperation that the Austrian cavalry began to waver.
An exclamation of fury was heard from the lips of Eugene. "Victory or death!" cried he; and with these words the intrepid youth struck spurs into his horse, and sprang through the pass; his sabre, flashing like lightning through the air, as right and left it dealt destruction to the Janizaries that disputed his passage.
Amazed at such prowess, the dragoons gave one simultaneous cheer, and leaped into the enemy's midst. From that moment they moved on like a granite wall; onward in the track of their gallant commander, all peril disregarding, they fought their way, until, inspired by his heroism, encouraged by the soul-stirring tones of his blithe young voice, they won the pass, and forced the enemy back.
Meanwhile the imperial and Saxon forces had advanced from the Kahlenberg, in one dense column, the sight of which had sorely shaken the confidence of Kara Mustapha in his power to resist them.
On swept the mighty mass, and in a few moments the deep thunder of the cannon reverberated along the mountain gorges; the clashing of swords and the rattling of musketry mingled with the cries of the wounded, and the groans of the dying; while all above was fire and smoke. The passes were reddened with blood, which drop by drop flowed down their declivities, until it met another life-destroying current on its way; and both glided onward to the Danube, empurpling its waters with the mingled gore of Christian and Paynim.
The battle raged, without any decisive advantage, until long after noon. At four o'clock, however, the Ulans of the King of Poland were about to be overpowered by superior numbers, when re-enforcement came in the form of a charge on the right wing of the Turks, by the troops under Charles of Lorraine. Those flying squadrons, beneath whose horses' hoofs the ground is trembling as if upheaved by an earthquake, are headed by Eugene—the indomitable Eugene. On his foam-flecked steed, with a sword in his hand that is gory to the hilt, comes the "little abbe," who was too much of a weakling to obtain a commission in the army of the King of France. If his mother could see him now, she would confess that he was no fit aspirant for a scarlet hat.
Side by side rode Eugene and Louis of Baden, both heading that bloody chase. Over heaps of corpses, over struggling horses, falling timbers, through smoke and fire, they dashed toward the gates of Vienna. Count Starhemberg was there with his handful of braves, making gallant resistance to the Janizaries. But for the mad charge of Eugene, the little garrison would soon have been cut to pieces. But the attack on their rear surprised the Janizaries; they fell back, only to be confronted by the Duke of Lorraine, and, believing resistance to be useless, they fled.