"I thought I was going mad. My own mother wouldn't know me! She wouldn't let me get into her carriage. Like lightning the thought flashed through my mind that she it was whom the people were cursing so. No doubt they were cursing her unjustly, but in such times as these that mattered little. Whomsoever the popular fury points out is condemned already. I could not betray my own mother. I hastily threw my silver coin to the toll-collector that they might let the carriage go on. I thought that if once we got beyond the bridge, and my mother had no further fear of pursuit, she would take me into the carriage. So catching hold of the back part of the vehicle, I ran on beside the carriage till we had got beyond the trenches of the fortress and out upon the highway. Then I again began to supplicate, so far as my gasping voice would allow me: 'Mother, dear, good mother! take me into the carriage; I am dropping. I can go no farther.' They would not hear me. They only cursed and scolded: 'Be off! Decamp!' And when I still persisted in clinging on, they at last seized my fingers, which were still clutching the splasher, violently wrenched them off, and gave me a rough push so that I fell at full length into the highway. Then the carriage rolled on farther.
"I had held out till then, but now my strength failed me. I trembled so that I could no longer stand upon my legs. Utterly crushed in mind and body by the sufferings of that terrible day, I dragged myself on my knees to the edge of the wayside ditch. My instinctive fear of death told me that I must avoid the middle of the road if I didn't want to be trampled to death. There then I lay clinging to a roadside poplar, gazing apathetically at the dreadful scene. The fugitive vehicles dashed madly along the highway in threes and fours, colliding every moment. The cursing and swearing were something awful. Every now and then one conveyance overturned another into the ditch, and the women who were sitting in them screamed and cried most piteously. One coachman hit upon the foolhardy idea of forcing his way through the ditch into the open field, and others followed his example. They came so close to me as to all but run over me, and I had not sufficient strength left to draw up my legs out of reach of their revolving wheels.
"Then the blast of trumpets mingled with the hurly-burly. A regiment of Hussars was trying to cut its way through the fugitive carriages with a convoy of hay-waggons, which, as was explained to me later on, the Commandant of the fortress was transferring from the burning town to the village of Izsa across the Waag. The commanding officer was cursing and swearing, and striking all the coachmen he met with the flat of his sword for stopping his soldiers' way. 'Damned rascals! instead of putting out the fire, you all take to your heels. What the devil is the matter with you? There's no enemy behind you! Would that the souls of your ancestors could revivify you!'
"The voice seemed familiar to me, but the face I had never seen before. A spiral moustache, a French beard, a Hussar uniform, and a plumed hat—I had never seen that figure before.
"Thus he appeared before me like the dragon-slaying hero of a fairy tale.
"Hitherto, of all those who scurried past me, not one had noticed the wretched creature lying in the ditch. Some girl or other quite past help, they thought, perhaps. Nobody took any notice of me.
"This officer did notice me. In the midst of the greatest turmoil he perceived a woman lying beneath his horse's feet. He hastily reined in his charger, and called me by my name. 'My lady Elizabeth! how ever did you come here? In Heaven's name, what has befallen you?'
"I recognised him by his mode of addressing me. There was only one man who used to address me in this way, the man who taught me my rôle at those famous amateur theatricals that you remember.
"'Mr. Bálványossi! Mr. Director!' I stammered, in my joy.
"'No, no! Captain Rengetegi is my name. Why, where is your mother? Run away? She did well. Get up, my lady, into my carriage, and I'll take you now to a place of safety.'