"Whilst I sought for a towel, I heard the report of a firearm in the next room. Towel in hand, I threw open the door. The room was full of smoke.
"'What am I to wipe up?' I asked.
"'This blood!' said the lieutenant, who lay upon the ground. The warm heart's-blood flowed from a wound in his breast; in his hand he held a pistol and the letter he had that morning received.
"The letter announced the catastrophe of Vilagos. In two minutes he was dead.
"Thus did my lieutenant make a fool of me, at last.
"Such a merry fellow was my lieutenant."
The various memoirs of the Hungarian war record more than one instance of self-destruction and insanity, amongst the enthusiastic defenders of the Magyar cause, consequent upon Görgey's shameful surrender, and the final downfall of their cherished hopes. As far as the suicide goes, therefore, there is nothing improbable in the conduct of the eccentric lieutenant. Passing over several shorter papers, for the most part clever and spirited, we come to the striking tale, or rather series of scenes, entitled George of St Thomas, which, besides being the most carefully finished of these sketches, includes several of the most terrible and romantic historical incidents of that war. Its construction is favourable to extract, and we propose to translate such portions of it as our limits will allow, and therewith close our notice of the Schlachtfelderblüthen aus Ungarn. The first chapter is headed—
THE FIEND'S FESTIVAL.
It was dark night in the town of St Thomas. Not a star was visible. Well was it that the heavens saw not what then occurred upon earth.
Men who had grown gray together in love and friendship, dwelling in the same street, under the very same roof, who were bound to each other by ties of blood and kindred, of gratitude and duty, who were wont to share each other's joys and griefs, began, upon a sudden, as if frantic with infernal inspirations, to plot each other's extermination, and to fill their souls with bloody hatred against those who had never wronged them.