Then the murderous Tatars piled up a fire on the altar, slaughtered a horse in the church, broiled it in hunks on huge spits, and squatted down to devour it. It was an abomination to behold them. The Tatar convert ate along with them.
Suddenly a burning ember from the crackling fire lit upon Michael the warrior's extended palm. Simon the warrior saw it well, and trembled lest his younger brother might make some movement under this burning torture, when both of them must needs perish. But warrior Michael, very nicely and quietly, closed tightly the palm of his hand, so that nobody noticed it, and stifled the burning ember so that not even its expiring fizzle was audible.
Towards dawn the Tatars began to set off again, mounted their barebacked horses and scudded further on, never observing that they had left two living men among the dead bodies.
The two warriors were careful not to leave the church till late in the evening, but went on fighting there with the beasts of the field, and, in the daytime, they found yet other adversaries in the vultures who hovered all day above their heads, and all but tore their eyes out with their claws, because they stood between them and the dead bodies. They gave thanks to God when at sundown they were able to quit the horrible place and go on further.
Along the level plain they went as quickly as they could hasten, not even daring to look behind them, though there they would have seen nothing but the black clouds of smoke from the burning towns, which the wind drove over their heads. Behind them the Tatar was coming.
Towards evening they reached a lofty hill, in which dwelt a gipsy. The gipsy was doubly a foe, being both an alien and a heathen, he was, therefore, just the sort of man to give good advice to fugitives.
In those days all sorts of folks were flying from the Tatars, flying whithersoever they saw light before them, some on foot, some on horseback, some on cars, men, women, and children.
"Alas! my dear creatures," wailed the gipsy, "you come to a bad place when you come hither. You would do very much better to turn back in the direction whence the Tatar bands are coming, for they, at least if you surrender, will not cut you down, but will only make slaves of you. But, alas! in front a far greater danger awaits you, for in yonder forest dwell giants, terribly huge monsters with antlered heads and mouths so wide that they can swallow a man down whole. They seize all those who fly towards the forest and roast them on large spits. They don't hurt me because I give them wine to drink when they come hither."
Before now the refugees had heard from the warriors flying from the direction of Grosswardein of these Tatar giants who had scattered a whole host by simply appearing before it. Nay, a herdsman, a worthy man of Cumanian origin, had sworn that he had seen them. They strode over the fields, he said, four ells at one stride, and one of them had sat down quite easily on the roof of a house, with his legs dangling down.
At this rumour, the poor, terrified, common folks preferred to run back into the jaws of the Tatars, rather than fall beneath the fangs of these monsters; but the two Koppands said to one another very prudently—