"From St Thomas."
"Ha! Up! up with him on the scaffold!" cried those who heard his reply.
"A man is here from St Thomas. Up with him, and let him speak to the people!"
The crowd opened a passage, and George was hurried to the scaffold. When, from this elevation, his emaciated and ghastly countenance, furrowed by suffering and despair, his failing limbs, and the faded and ashy pale features of the child upon his shoulder, became visible to the assembled multitude, a deep shuddering murmur ran through its masses, like that the Platten Lake gives forth when tempest nears its shores. At sight and sound of the heaving throng, a hectic flush flamed upon George's cheek, an unwonted fire burned in his bosom; he felt the spirit of revenge descend upon his head like a forked and fiery tongue.
"Magyars!" he exclaimed in loud and manly tones, "I come from St Thomas, the sole survivor of all who there prayed to God in the Magyar tongue. My goods are plundered, my kinsmen slain. Have any of you friends there?—prepare your mourning, for of a surety they are dead. Of all I possessed I have saved but one treasure—my unhappy child. Approach! ye that are fathers, think of your virgin daughters, and behold what they have made of mine!"
As he spoke, he lifted his child from his shoulder; and then only did he perceive that she was dead. Until that moment, he had thought she was only faint and silent, as she had constantly been for six days past.
"Dead!" shrieked the despairing man, and clasped the corpse to his heart. "She is dead!" he repeated. The words died away upon his lips, and he fell, like one thunderstruck, headlong to the ground.
This tragical incident raised to a climax the excitement of the multitude.
"Revenge!—a bloody revenge!" thundered a voice; and the tumult that now arose was like the howling of the storm.
"To arms! To arms! all who are men!" was shouted on every side, and the people thronged through the streets and lanes of the city. "To arms!—to arms!" was re-echoed from house to house, and in an hour's time ten thousand furious men stood armed and equipped, and ready to set out for St Thomas.