"I had heard from the officers that in the willow woods of the Theiss, in the neighbourhood of the 'Szikra' inn, some Hungarian guerillas were encamping. If only we could get among them!
"It was a good thing for us that sentinel duty was very laxly ordered in the camp of the Ban of Croatia. At the end of the town was a putri, or semi-subterranean clay hut of the kind in which field-labourers pass the night during the summer. The soldiers who had been sent out on forepost duty were sitting in this hut, and their muskets were all leaning against the door. One of the gipsies said: 'Let us steal the muskets!' The other said: 'Steal your grandfather; I play with clarinets, not with muskets.' I urged them to press forward. We were near to the sand-hills. Before us lay a savage, rugged plain, where one sand-hill followed hard upon another. Some of these hills were half hollowed out by the wind, and the hollows between them sparsely dotted with dwarf fir-trees. A ghostly region. The sides of these sand-hills were white, and the snow-fall on the top of them was still whiter; and every tree-trunk there is also white with its pendant branches[80] bending down beneath the hoar-frost. We dodged up and down among these sand-hills, turning aside from the regular high road so that we might crouch down in case we were pursued. Along the whole length of the plain the broom of the wind swept our footprints over with snow.
[80] To-day this former waste of shifting sand-hills has been converted into a splendid vineyard, which the Hungarian Government has planted with vines from America proof against the Phylloxera.—Jókai.
"'If only we don't come across wolves!' said the contra-bass, with chattering teeth.
"'How can they be here when so many soldiers are about?' said I, by way of encouragement.
"'Nay, but they like to prowl about camps, because carrion is always to be found there.'
"Where the sand-hills ended, a far-extending flat began, and in the distance was a direful-looking object, resembling a ruin. A light mist covered the whole district, in which mist every object seemed as large again; the full moon shone wanly, like a huge broad halo in the misty heavens."
Here I explained to Bessy that this district was the famous plain of Alpar, where the ancient Magyars fought the decisive battle against Zalán, which gave them possession of the land; the ruin was the wall of the desert church of St. Laurence.
"Indeed! and I may add that this desert is memorable to me also. While we were waddling along as fast as we could, with our short mantles turned against the wind, the contra-bass, who was going on leisurely in front, exclaimed:
"'Devil take all these crows! Why don't they all go to sleep in the tower of the Calvinist church?'