But now the three remaining horsemen fell furiously upon him.
"Come on then!" shouted Banfi, gnashing his teeth; and with that terrible humour peculiar to certain warriors in the hour of danger, he added—"I'll teach you how to wield the spear, my boys!" and setting his back against a clump of trees, he stuck his sword into its sheath, seized his spear with both hands, and not three minutes had elapsed before all three Bedouins had fallen from their horses to the ground.
Then he looked around to see if any more were coming, and was delighted to observe that the Turks at the bridge had heard nothing of the tussle, while his two hundred horsemen had come down to the river-side and were noiselessly crossing to the opposite bank.
Some of the fallen Bedouins were still moaning and groaning.
"Smash their skulls in, that they may not betray us with their cries!"
"Ought we not to await Veer's troops?" asked one of the captains.
"We cannot. We haven't time!" replied Banfi, with his eyes fixed upon the ruddy horizon, and the little band proceeded covertly through field and forest.
Soon a distant hubbub struck upon their ears, and when they had climbed to the top of a little hill, Banfi-Hunyad emerged before their eyes.
Banfi gave a sigh of relief. It was not the town that was burning, but the haystacks. The roofs of the houses had been taken off beforehand by the inhabitants themselves to prevent the enemy from setting them on fire. Even the church and castle were roofless, and the Turkish host could be seen swarming round them by the light of the conflagration, whilst from the battlements a fiery rain of sulphur and pitch, occasionally intermingled with heavy beams, poured down upon the besiegers, and drove them back from the walls.
Ali Pasha had not waited for his artillery,—it had stuck fast in the wretched roads,—imagining that he could easily storm a place defended only by women and peasants. But it is notorious that despair makes every one a soldier, and that even scythes and axes are good weapons in resolute hands.