Kuczuk Pasha had no sooner arrived at Grosswardein than he sent for Badrul Beg, the vizier of the Moorish cavalry, and entrusted him with a special mission.
"This evening," said he, "before dusk, take five hundred horsemen and set off in the direction of Diószeg. Inquire of every person you meet coming or going: 'Does this road lead to Nagy-Kálló?' and then let them go again. This do before nightfall, and then turn suddenly away from the Diószeg road and wade about among the marshy meadows on the left-hand side to obliterate your traces, and when you get out into the fields on the other side you will find the shepherds who look after the sheep and oxen, and take them off with you to Létá. When you perceive the towers of Létá, cut down your guides, and, cautiously approaching the place, turn off into the great forest there. In this forest you will come upon a lime-burner, or a herdsman, who will lead you through the forest to where it comes to an end at Hadház. There again trample your guides beneath your feet, and remain in ambush. On the morrow, or the day after that, or perhaps in a week's time—and till then you will stick to the forest—you will perceive four or five hundred waggons going towards Tokai. These waggons will be packed full with select girls and women, and with lots of money and knickknacks, you may be sure. Seize every blessed one of them. If there are any men with them, cut the men down. What money you find with them distribute among your soldiers. The women-folk, on the other hand, bring hither to me. You understand what I say? Remember that you carry your head in your hands, so keep an eye upon it."
Badrul Beg understood the command and withdrew. The Moorish vizier was just the man to execute the charge committed to him, for he was capable of traversing the whole realm from end to end, through forest and morass, till he came to his appointed place without once dismounting, and there he would contentedly lounge about in ambush, with an empty belly for weeks together, till he had done what he was told to the very last iota.
But Kuczuk Pasha thus apostrophized the good Debreczeners: "So you would smile at me, you would laugh at me? You would rejoice over me, eh? Very well, laugh your fill now while you can, for the day is at hand when it will be your turn to weep."
On the broad highway leading to Tokai a long series of waggons was approaching Hadház; it was the caravan of the Debreczen women.
Five hundred waggons toiling one after another, filled with nothing but women and children, not a single man among them—no, not so much as a man's finger to raise a whip, for the women themselves even drove the horses. Those among the fugitives whom God Himself had created of the masculine gender had their hands nicely folded away under swathing-bands, and were called—babies.
Nothing but a pack of women and girls. Imagine the good humour, the racket which accompanied them on the way! They were telling each other how his Honour the Sheriff had driven the Turks from the town, how frightened they had been, and all the rest of it; they had enough to talk about for weeks to come. Rich indeed is the fancy of souls saved from a great peril.
At the head of every waggon as coachman sat a young woman driving the horses on, and singing one of those melancholy old songs which were then usually sung from the Theiss to Moldavia, perhaps this one, which began—
"The little duck is bathing in the lake so black,
My mother in Poland gets ready the cooking-jack;"