"Let us understand each other," said the other, setting the little boy on his knee and trotting him up and down as he spoke. "Is it reasonable to suppose that we could, without cavalry, artillery, or experienced commanders, attack a fully equipped force with any hope of success, especially after that force has driven an Austrian army corps out of the country and shown itself able to repulse the Russian auxiliaries?"
"No one expects that of us. Our operations are to be confined to raids in the mountains."
"But no enemy is to be found now in the mountains. Don't you know that? You have just come over the mountains. Did you see any sign of the enemy?"
"We have foes enough there still. There is Toroczko." Diurbanu's face, as he said this, was suddenly illumined by a blinding flash of lightning.
"And Torda!" cried a voice from the benches.
"No, we have nothing against Torda," declared Diurbanu, almost angrily.
"But what have we against Toroczko?" asked another voice. "The men of Toroczko have never done us any harm. So far we have received their iron only in the form of ploughs and shovels, scythes and wheel-tires."
"Their sons are serving under Bem," was the rejoinder, "and it is from them that we have received their iron in other shapes. Yet that is not the main reason. Toroczko is a breeding-place of Magyar ideas and Magyar civilisation, an asylum open to Protestant reformers, the pride of a handful of people who hope to conquer the world by dint of their science and industry. The fall of Toroczko would spread a wholesome fear far and wide; it would be almost as if one should report the overthrow of Pest itself. Bem's men would halt on the march, panic-stricken at the news, and Bem himself would be forced to yield to their desires and return to Transylvania. And the more terrible our work of devastation, the more brilliant will be the military success that must follow as its result."
The thunder-claps came at such frequent intervals that the speaker could with difficulty make himself heard. When he had ended, the deep voice of him who wore the clerical gown began in reply:
"Listen to me, Diurbanu. You are deceived on one point. Those on whom you count in this bloody work are sated with slaughter. So long as they thirsted for revenge they were eager to shed human blood; but now they have slaked their thirst and are beginning to rue their deeds. I saw a family being cut down in the open street, and I rushed forward and snatched this little flaxen-haired boy from the murderers' hands and hid him under my cloak. At that a young man, the most furious one of the party, aimed such a stroke at my head with his scythe that he would certainly have split my skull had not my cap deadened the blow. But three days later this same young man came to see the child whose rescue had filled him with such fury that he had lifted his hand with murderous intent against me, his anointed priest; and because the little boy cried for his lost blackbird, the young man went into the woods and caught another for him. More than that, he would now gladly restore the boy's parents to him if he could. Ever since I saved the little one's life he has clung to me and refused to be parted from me."