"Speak! is the battle lost?"
The youth made a sign of the affirmative.
"And why did you not fall with the rest? Why did you leave the field for the sun to rise on your disgrace? Why have you come hither?"
The youth was silent.
"Wherefore should you desire to outlive your country? And, if you have come to be buried here, better far to have sought a grave where it had been glory to have died—on the battle-field. Away! This churchyard has no place for you—you can have no part among our dead—leave us, and deny that you were born here! Live or die, but forget us."
The youth looked in his mother's face with an imploring expression, and then at the women who surrounded her; but he encountered no glance—no trace of sympathy—his eyes sought his bride, his heart's brightest hopes, the blue-eyed maiden; but she had fallen on her knees at his mother's feet, hiding her face in Judith's dress, to conceal her sobs.
The youth still hesitated—still waited to see if any one would bid him stay; and when he saw that none spoke, not even his bride, he raised himself slowly and silently from the earth, still holding his hand across his breast, and, with tottering steps, turned once more to the trackless plain, and wandered into the woods beyond, where he sank never to rise again.
One or two of the Szekely youths returned afterwards from the lost field, but the women refused them admittance.
"Seek another home," they said, "than the one you could not defend!"
And the few who survived wandered into distant countries, for none dared return who had outlived his country's ruin.