"I mean to keep my seat, if only to show that omens have neither meaning nor terror for me," said Kemeny defiantly; and he ordered the broken bit to be replaced by another. At the same instant Kucsuk Pasha's trumpets sounded a charge.
The Turkish cavalry formed a half-moon with the horns turned outwards. Kucsuk himself rode in the centre.
The Pasha on this occasion wore an unusually splendid costume. His kaftan was of rich-flowered silk wrought with gold; beneath the kaftan peeped forth a dolman of cloth of gold; a costly oriental shawl encircled his loins; his scimitar, buckled on behind, sparkled with gems; a ger-falcon's plume, fastened by a diamond agraffe, waved from his turban. His charger, a fiery barb with slender head, long, twisted mane, and black flying tail, threw back its head proudly and shook its richly-fringed saddle-cloth. A sort of gold netting surrounded its whole body, from the fringes of which depended numbers of large, jingling, golden half-moons.
As soon as Kucsuk Pasha perceived Kemeny's troops, he dismounted, threw himself with his face to the ground, thrice kissed the earth, thrice raised himself on his knees, uplifted his face devoutly to heaven, and called upon the name of Allah. Then he remounted his horse; sent for his son; tore one of the falcon feathers out of his turban, and sticking it in the youthful hero's, said—"Go now to the left wing of the host, and fight as becomes a man of valour! For 'tis better that thou shouldst fall by the hand of the enemy, and lie dead before me, than that thou shouldst fly, and this my sword" (here he smote the scimitar by his side with his fist) "should slay thee!"
Feriz Beg reverentially bowed his head, kissed the hem of his father's kaftan, and proudly galloped to the post assigned to him, feeling that every eye was fixed upon the falcon's feather which his father had fastened to his turban.
The Pasha now rode along the ranks and addressed these words to his cavalry—
"My brave fellows! the enemy is before you! I say not whether they be many or few—you can see for yourselves. They are indeed many times more numerous than we; but trust in Allah, and fight valiantly! It is more honourable to die here sword in hand than to fly like cowards. We are in the midst of Transylvania. He who flies will fall by the sword of the pursuer ere he reaches the frontier, and he who escapes the pursuer will fall by the bowstring of the Padishah. We have no other choice but victory or death!"
Then he turned to the Wallachs. Them he addressed with harsh and wrathful words.
"You dogs, you! I know right well that you are ready to bolt at the first shot; but know that I have ordered the troops behind you to instantly cut every one of you down who so much as looks backward." Then the Pasha, placing himself at the head of his host, waved his naked sword for the trumpets to blow, and glancing once more along the lines, saw the Moorish troops who stood behind him, with melon-shaped, copper-plated helmets, making ready to fire their long muskets.