A few days later Apafi made his entry into Klausenburg with fife and drum.
CHAPTER VIII
AZRAELE
Again we are in Hungary, among the mountains of Homolka, in that part of the country where no one has yet cared to dwell. In a circuit of ten miles there is not a single village to be seen. Over the entire mountain chain not a single roadway; even the footpaths break off suddenly in the rocks, either leading to a waterfall covered over with leaves, or to an abandoned charcoal hut where no grass could grow in the sooty vicinity.
While the sunbeams lie aslant over this region, drawing over it a gilded veil of mist, we can hardly distinguish a single object of the panorama. Gradually a broad ravine draws our attention. The mountain peaks which seemed to close in all sides are blue grey, and in the centre of this ravine rises a huge, solitary rock, looking just as if it had fallen from heaven. A hasty glance passes it by lightly, but a more careful observer discovers a small wooden bridge, supported on piles, which appears to connect this circle of mountain summits with one of the steep walls adjoining. Gradually we become aware that this trestle is not the work of nature; those stones forming walls which appear to continue the mountain heights are really the work of man's hand. It is a massive rock-bastion built as high as its support. And as the walls are built out in all directions as high as the steep edges of the cliff, it looks as if it had grown out of the rock, and as if the vines clinging to the walls were there simply to form a natural tangle.
In the year 1664 the eye that glanced over these walls might see within magic buildings. Corsar Bey, the terror of the country, inhabited this stronghold, and at his bidding hedges of roses sprang up on the bastions, and the castle stood in a grove of orange and pomegranate trees. On all sides could be seen those splendid buildings which Oriental pomp erects for the moment's pleasure: spacious domed buildings overlaid with sky-blue enamel where the sun mirrored itself; gay painted towers on the bastions with balconies decorated with Moorish carvings, and on these vases of flowers; slender white minarets covered over with vines; lattice-work kiosks with slender gilded columns, the whole as light as a card house; nothing but gilded wood, painted glass, enameled tiles, and gay-colored rugs. From the pointed roof-tops waved gay flags and high above all shone a golden crescent. Every kiosk, every dome, every minaret was adorned with crescents and flags. It seemed a magic castle ready to vanish; but the walls surrounding this delicate structure impregnable. On all sides were impassably steep rocks behind which the pursued, if he once reached them, could defend himself against a hundred times as many. The guards stood day and night with lighted fuse by the cannon, which Corsar Bey had had cast on the spot, as there was no way of conveying such defence there. Two of these fiery-throated monsters were turned toward the bridge, to blow it to atoms in case of attack.
From this vantage ground Corsar Bey roved the land, plundering and killing defenseless people; if he fell upon an army he ordered his Spahis and Bedouins to turn about while he, taking advantage of the mountain paths, fled to his castle with the booty loaded on beasts of burden, the Timariots, stationed in reserve, made a barricade of trees and stoned to death those who dared follow into the valleys.
Sometimes he allowed his pursuers to follow him close to the castle, and while they shot at the walls of cliff with their small cannon dragged up with the utmost difficulty, and thought to starve him out, he would play the trick on them of bursting out from some subterranean passage to rob and burn in their rear. Every attempt to surprise him, to surround him, was in vain. The inhabitants of the surrounding villages began to withdraw to more remote places to escape this frightful neighborhood.
After the battle of St. Gotthard, (1664) in which the Turkish general lost twelve thousand men in an engagement with Hungarian and Austrian troops, a twenty years' peace was concluded between the Porte, the Transylvania principality and the Emperor, which left the Turk in possession of all the fortresses conquered or built in Hungary. The men of these fortresses now carried on the war on their own account; robbing and burning where they could. The Sultan could not hold each one accountable; all he could do was to empower the complainants to seize the disturbers of peace and do with them as they would.