"He jumped at it. He gave me soul-stirring examples of the heroic women of history, who had gone to the wars along with their husbands.... He vowed that if I ever returned in safety from my mission he would henceforth call me 'Queen Zenobia.'
"By the evening of the same day I was ready for the enterprise. I made Rengetegi dye his hair, moustache, and beard black, so that it was almost impossible to recognise him."
"So that was your idea!" I cried.
"Then I stowed him away in a peasant's hut at Hetény, with strict instructions not to emerge from his prison till I tapped at the door. Next I set to work to thoroughly disguise my own person. I was to be the leader of a gipsy band. Ah! if you could only have painted my portrait! Then, indeed, I really was lovely! I smeared my face with the juice of green walnut-shells till it was so black that I could pass for a gipsy among the gipsies themselves; I clipped my hair till it only reached down to my shoulders; I put on a jacket which some gentleman or other had worn threadbare before giving it away; hose that certainly were never intended for me, and a shirt that had never been washed: and so I transformed myself into as filthy a shape as ever led a wandering gipsy band."
Here I could not forbear from pressing her hand. What sacrifices will not a woman make for her country and for her lover!
"But all this was a mere joke to what followed. I now had to get together a band. If they catch a gipsy alone they arrest him as a spy; but if he be one of a quartet he may go on his way rejoicing. I provided myself with a violoncellist, a clarinet-player, and a contra-bass. It was easy to persuade them to quit the bombarded town, into which the gentry who had robbed them of their poor hovels had forced them to go. Bread and meat were getting dearer and dearer, and there was nothing to be earned. Who had the heart to pay for music amidst such a frightful carnival?
"Thus, with my little band of three, I set out upon my long and uncertain journey on foot. Gipsies only ride in sledges when a magnate sends for them, and there was no such magnate in the whole district. If on our way we fell in with a cart laden with dried reeds taken out of the swamps for firewood, we would ask for a lift in it. But our legs nearly froze there, and we were glad to get down again and walk.
"In the very first village we came to, O-Gyalla, we fell in with a division of the Austrian investing army, German cuirassiers. The patrol brought us to the major in command. He was indeed a merciless personage. He roared at us, and asked us how we dared to leave the town. We naturally did not understand a word of German, and all four of us, in true gipsy fashion, began to raise objections at the same time: we could not remain in the town, the Honveds posted us right in front of the bombs, and made us play music at the very top of the bastions; all the cannons had fired at us, and that was a thing that gipsies couldn't stand. 'Was sagen die Spitzbuben?' inquired the major of his auditor. The auditor understood Hungarian, and expounded unto him: 'Nix da, you rascals! You are spies, and must be searched. Come! you must undress.' I was not a little alarmed, I can tell you. Not on account of the despatches I had with me, I had put them in a place where they couldn't be found; but they would discover that I was a woman, and that while my face and hands were gipsy, the rest of me was European—and then I should be lost. I hastily said something to the gipsies, and in an instant they out with their instruments and rattled off con fuoco the fine hymn 'Gott erhalte!' At this the frosty face of the old martinet thawed somewhat. 'Well, well, you rascals,' said he, 'as you know what's proper and decent, I won't have you flogged this time, but be off at once and don't remain in the village here. You mustn't play here for anybody. Whoever has an itch for dancing just let him tell me, and I'll give him dancing enough. There's the whipping-post!' Now the clarinet-player was a merry wag, and could not hide his light. 'Devil bless your honour,' said he, 'you pay with big bank-notes.' 'Was sagt der Karl?' asked the major. He says, 'Gott soll segnen den grossen Herren, der zahlt mit grossen Bank[78]-noten!' At this his honour also laughed. 'But for all that you must pack yourselves off at once. You mustn't stop till you reach Ersekuvar, but there you may play as long as you like.' We kissed his hands and feet, and asked him to let us stay the night there. We were half frozen, we said. We had not a morsel in our stomachs: for a whole week we had only eaten ice and drunk water. But he knew no pity. They blindfolded us, packed us into a sledge, and a patrol of horse escorted us out of the village. Now, of course, it was my very dearest desire to get as soon as possible beyond the iron girdle by which the besieged fortress was girt about. If only he can get out into the wide world, the gipsy has no fear of going astray. He can fiddle his way through the whole of Europe if only he gives his mind to it. And so we made our way along the Danube, from one town to the other, and enjoyed to the full all the romantic adventures of a wandering gipsy's life which abound in winter especially."
[78] "God bless the great gentleman, he pays with big bang-notes!"—a poor jest.
"But," interrupted I, "didn't you come across Görgey's Hungarian army, under whose protection you might have continued your journey?"