A Hungarian Nabob

by Mór Jókai

taking short runs at them, like goats often do, throwing up the earth here and there with his horns. God be merciful to the poor youth beneath him!

At length Martin succeeded in extricating himself from his steed. No sooner did the bull perceive that his enemy was on his feet again, than, in a fresh access of rage, he rushed straight at him. A shriek of horror filled the air; many hid their faces. In another moment all would be over.

At that instant, when the savage beast was not more than a yard's distance from its victim, it stopped suddenly, and threw back its head with a jerk. A skilfully thrown noose had gripped it round the neck, and the end of that noose was in the hands of the stranger youth, who now emerged from among the reeds. Hearing a sound like bull-baiting, he had hastened to the spot, and did not arrive a moment too soon. Another second and his rival would have been trampled to death.

The bewildered beast, feeling the suffocating pressure of the lasso about its neck, turned towards its new opponent, but he also now turned his horse's head, and throwing the lasso-line across his shoulder, set off at the top of his speed across the plain.

That was something like a gallop! The heavy wild beast was constrained to run a race with the swiftest of steeds. The cord was pressing tightly round its neck, and blindly, helter-skelter, it had to go in a perfectly straight direction till it dropped.

The youth galloped with it straight towards the racecourse, and then suddenly sprang to one side. The bull bounded away right on, and now the horse remained behind, while the bull flew on in front. By this time it had lost all count of where it was.

The horseman now drew forth his long whip, and began to cut and lash out from behind at the

bull, which rushed on even quicker and quicker. The trampling of the horse's hoofs, the cracking of the whip, the shouting of the people, confused it into utter stupidity. It could only run on and on, the blood trickling from its nose and mouth, its whole front flaked with foam, its tongue lolling forth, till, on reaching the racecourse, which was covered with a roaring mob, its strong legs gave way beneath it, and, unable to hold itself up any longer, it collapsed in a ditch, and, rolling a good distance, rooted up the ground with its snout, then stretched itself out at full length on the sward, and ceased to breathe.

Shouting and huzzahing, the mob escorted the new Whitsun King along all the streets of the town, for he was in duty bound to stop before the houses of the chief magistrate and town councillors, and there drink their healths in a good bumper, which admirable custom goes to prove that the Whitsun King had need to be not merely a good runner, but a good drinker too; and this latter quality was all the more necessary, owing to the circumstance that, when he had done with the rest of them, he had, last of all, to go up to John Kárpáthy's castle in the company of all the sworn jurors, and drink again there.

Now, when the sworn jurors brought in the new Whitsun King to introduce him to Squire John, the great man ordered every one to leave the room incontinently, so that they two might be quite alone together.