Tales From Jókai

by Mór Jókai

Thus, hiding by day and skulking by night, they made their way gradually but steadily towards the west, so far as the course of the stars pointed it out to them, hoping still somewhere to find a refuge. They had no other food but the eggs of wild ducks and moorhens, and whatever they might find in the nests of the marsh-birds that they lived upon.

One day, when they had already gone a long way and thought that they had well distanced the Tatars, they ventured to emerge from the wilderness of rushes, and by the beautiful light of the moon they then beheld, some distance in front of them, a tower.

That means there must be a town there, they thought, let us make for it, there we shall be in safety, so far the Tatar has not come. For every man in those days believed that then, as had been usual at other times, every robber horde, bursting into a kingdom, when once it has well loaded itself with booty, returns again as a matter of course to its own country.

All night, then, they proceeded in the direction of the tower before them. When they drew close to it they perceived for the first time that this tower had no roof; but when they got closer still they saw that all the houses of the town had been levelled with the ground, and when they entered the street they saw that none dwelt there, but wolves and savage dogs bayed at them from behind the pillars of the gates, within which every sort of human shape was lying, shapes without heads, women transfixed with darts, mothers with long, dishevelled, black tresses covering their children with their dead bodies.

The youths covered their eyes with horror at this spectacle.

But still there they must remain till the night of the following day, concealed somewhere, for dawn was now close at hand and it was not good to come out in the open in the bright sunlight.

So they went into the church that they might hide themselves there, either in the crypt or perhaps in a sacristy.

Hah, the whole church was a funeral vault. There they had cut down the pride, the flower of the nation. Women, men, and children lay heaped up together among the burnt rafters, the pale moon shining through the roofless and dilapidated building illuminated them.

Inside they had to wield their swords with right good will to drive out the wolves who had come hither to perform the office of grave-diggers, and who as often as they were chased away came back and bayed at the open door.

Then said Simon, the elder of the two brethren: "Brother Michael, these evil wolves will give us no peace, and because of them we shall get no rest, and yet, for sheer weariness and want of sleep, we can go not a step further. Lie you down, therefore—your best place will be close beside the altar, for there God is not far from you, and I meanwhile keep guard the door and keep the wild beasts away from you, and when I am aweary, then you shall rise up and watch over me."