“We’re all agreed!” responded a score of voices, the speakers clutching at their sword-hilts, and facing toward the marquee of the commander-in-chief.
“Listen?” said their leader, an old general, with steel-grey moustaches sweeping back to his ears. “You hear that? Those are the guns of Rüdiger. Too well do I know their accursed tongues. Poor Sandor’s ammunition is all spent. He must be in retreat?”
“We shall stop it!” simultaneously exclaimed a dozen. “Let us demand the order to advance! To his tent, comrades! to his tent!”
There could be no mistaking which tent; for, with the cry still continuing, the hussar officers rushed toward the marquee—the other groups pouring in, and closing around it, after them.
Several rushed inside; their entrance succeeded by loud words, in tones of expostulation.
They came out again, Geörgei close following. He looked pale, half-affrighted, though it was perhaps less fear than the consciousness of a guilty intent.
He had still sufficient presence of mind to conceal it.
“Comrades!” he said, with an appealing look at the faces before him, “my children! Surely you can trust to me? Have I not risked my life for your sake—for the sake of our beloved Hungary? I tell you it would be of no use to advance. It would be madness, ruin. We are here in an advantageous position. We must stay and defend it! Believe me, ’tis our only hope.”
The speech so earnest—so apparently sincere—caused the mutineers to waver. Who could doubt the man, so compromised with Austria?
The old officer, who led them, did.