But whoever fancies he can drive out of a Szekler's head what he has once got into it is mightily mistaken.
"Either you must let us march against the foe or home we go!" cried they. "We don't mean to lie here for the next ten years like the Trojans, for there's work to be done at home. Apportion, therefore, so many of the enemy to each one of us; let every man go out and slay his lot, and then in God's name dismiss us. We won't submit to be blockaded and rationed on dog and rat-flesh."
"My good fellows, if you don't like stopping here, go home by all means," was Apafi's ultimatum; "but to fight a battle in my circumstances were mere madness."
The Szeklers did not waste another word; but they seized their wallets, shouldered their lances, and marched out of Segesvar as if they never had had anything to do with it.
From that moment the Szeklers became Apafi's enemies to his dying day.
Next day Kemeny's host stood beneath the walls of the town where Apafi now barely had armed men sufficient to guard the gates.
The siege operations were entrusted to Wenzinger as having had most experience in warfare. This great general, true to the principles of the school in which he had been brought up, first of all carefully surveyed every inch of his ground; then he cautiously occupied every position which by any possibility might become important, and took care also that the besieging host should be covered at all points—in short, he so spun out his preparations by his systematic way of going to work, that by the time he had really begun to think about the siege, tidings reached him that the Turkish auxiliaries were advancing by forced marches. Thereupon (still faithful to his system) he re-concentrated his scattered forces, and prepared to march against the Turks, the Hungarian gentry being ready to a man to follow him. But John Kemeny was against a general advance, holding that if the Turkish contingent was strong enough to put his forces to flight, he would have Segesvar in his rear, and thus would be caught between two fires. He therefore preferred to await his opponent's attack, and retiring in consequence from the town, pitched his camp at Nagy Szöllös, whence he looked calmly on while Kucsuk Pasha's horsemen, amid the bray of clarions, made their entry into Segesvar.
Apafi had eaten and drunk nothing for three days from sheer anxiety at the straits into which he had fallen, through no fault of his own, when word was brought him of the arrival of the auxiliaries. It was late in the evening when Kucsuk Pasha, after a fatiguing march along unfrequented mountain paths, entered the town. Apafi rode out to meet him, and saluted the Turks as his guardian angels. But great indeed was his astonishment, after mustering the troops twice or thrice, to find that at the very highest estimate they were only a fifth part of the forces opposed to him.
"What does your Excellency mean to do with this little band?" he uneasily asked the Pasha.
"God alone knows, who reads the destiny of man in heaven above," returned Kucsuk with laconic fatalism; and that was all that the Prince could get out of him. That night the Turks pitched their tents in the market-place, immediately opposite the dwelling of the Prince.