"A vision?" repeated the colonel, puzzled.
"Yes, sir; that is no uncommon occurrence. Cattle-dealers and butchers know very well what that means, but the ox-herd understands it best of all. You see, the ox dreams just like a human being, and when he has a vision in his sleep he goes mad and runs till he is so tired he can't run another step. Then comes the gathering of the frightened animals together again and driving them back. But you leave that to me: I understand the business. Once let me get after them on my white-faced horse with my long whip, and I'll have every one of them back again in no time."
"Make haste about it then," said the colonel; "for they might stray away out of your reach. And there is one of the sentinels yonder; he shall mount and go with you."
Painfully and with many groans Gregory Boksa climbed into his saddle; but once seated and with his feet in the stirrups, he seemed to have grown there. "Now, Colonel," he cried, "just watch and see how soon I'll be back again."
The officer failed to note the cunning and ironical tone in which these words were uttered, and which was very different from the ox-herd's earlier manner of speech.
With a loud crack of his whip and a goat-like spring of his piebald steed, Boksa was over the hedge and after the vanishing herd, the dragoon galloping after him. Gregory knew that his long-lashed whip was of more use just then than fifty swords. Three cavalrymen could not, to save their lives, catch an ox that had once gone wild. The task before the ox-herd was like a Spanish bull-fight of gigantic proportions; but as often as he cracked his whip, marvellous results were sure to follow. With incredible skill he soon had the fifty runaway cattle together. Turning his horse now in this direction, now in that, he gathered the animals, one by one, about their leader. The dragoon meanwhile followed close at his heels, shouting and swearing at the herd as he rode.
When at length the cattle were gathered into one compact body, Boksa suddenly spurred his horse into their very midst and delivered two stinging blows with his wire-tipped whip-lash on the leader's back, which of course made the animal run all the faster. At this the dragoon began to suspect that Gregory was up to mischief, and he called out to know why he did not turn the herd back toward the camp. But he appealed to deaf ears. All at once Boksa refused to understand a word of German, and the dragoon's command of Hungarian did not extend beyond a few oaths.
"Teremtette![2] Don't chase the oxen like that!" But Gregory was determined not to hear him. "Hold on, betyár,[3] or it'll be the worse for you." The ox-herd, however, only lashed his animals the more furiously. "If you can't hear me when I call," shouted the dragoon, "perhaps you'll listen to this." And drawing one of his pistols, he discharged it at the unruly ox-driver.
[2] Teremtette, zooks!
[3] Betyár, stupid bumpkin.