The King of Poland meanwhile was within the gates engaged in a hand- to-hand fight with the enemy in the streets. He was not left long to struggle without help. Once more Eugene and his cavalry came to the rescue; and now the Turkish legions are flying for their lives, while the Christians are shouting for joy and victory!
Kara Mustapha, who was to have made his seat of empire at Vienna, has suddenly become a panic-stricken adventurer. With that singular absence of fortitude which so often distinguishes tyrants in adversity, he fell to weeping like a child, and went whining for protection to the Khan of Tartary.
"Save me, save me!" was his cowardly cry.
The khan shook his head. "We know the King of Poland too well," said he. "Nobody can withstand him."
And from this moment nothing was thought of, in the Turkish camp, but flight. Kara Mustapha's war-horse, with its housings of purple velvet worked in pearls, was too heavy to bear him away from Vienna; he mounted a fleet-footed Arabian, and sped away without thought of the treasures he was leaving behind. His costly tent, his girdles of diamonds, his cimeters inlaid with rubies and sapphires, his six hundred sacks of piastres, all fell into the hands of John Sobiesky.
While joy and jubilee prevailed throughout the streets of Vienna, Eugene of Savoy was on his way to the dwelling of his widowed sister: but, while he sorrowed with Urania and her orphans, his name was being borne upon the trumpet-blast of fame, as chief among the heroes that rescued Vienna from the infidel.
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I.
THE FALL OF BUDA.
As a signal that the conference was at an end, the Emperor Leopold rose from his arm-chair. The president and vice-president followed his example, and the other members of the council bowed and retired. The Margrave of Baden and Count von Starhemberg remained standing by the green table, while the emperor, who had crossed the room, now stood vacantly staring out of a window, drumming with his fingers on one of the panes.