Chapters of Turkish History. No. VI.
294
garb as the banditti, whom they had doubtless been accustomed to join in their maurading expeditions. The more timid and less active portion of this pious community acted as a corps de reserve, sheltered behind the tombs which occupied the spacious vaults, and, with their muskets levelled, watched for opportunities of picking off the assailants without danger of injuring their own friends. These opportunities rarely occurred, for the combatants were mingled pell-mell together ; whilst the similarity of their costume, and the flickering smoky light of the torches, several of which had been extinguished at the com- mencement of the fray, rendered it no easy matter to distinguish friends from enemies. It was a struggle in which fire-arms were nearly useless ; the knife and the poniard had to de- cide the victory, which did not long remain doubtful. Nearly half of Melendez's guerillas, finding it impos- sible to jump into the vaults through the opening made by the pickaxes, without falling on the heads of their own comrades, had gone in search of the more regular entrance, through which they now rushed, bayoneting all before them. This reinforcement soon terminated the strife ; the monks and their allies, overwhelmed by the superior force brought against them, threw down their arms and begged for mercy. El Patudo himself had fallen at the beginning of the fight, and more than half his men were now
Sept.
hors de combat. The floor of the vault was a pool of blood.
" Cuartd! Cuartel!" shrieked the survivors, crouching at the feet of their conquerors.
There was a momentary pause, and the victorious guerillas looked to their chief.
" Santa Virgen I " cried Pepito, his countenance expressing astonish- ment at what he considered the im- pudence of such a prayer from such men. " Santa Virgen ! CuartelJ por estos lobos! Wolves that ye are, the mercy that ye showed shall be shown unto you."
And he sheathed his knife in the breast of a monk who was kneeling before him with clasped hands and im- ploring looks.
Before sixty seconds had elapsed, Melendez and his free corps were the only living occupants of the vaults.
" Is that all?" cried the vindictive guerilla, wiping his smoking blade on the cowl of a dead Franciscan.
" All ! " was the reply.
" Pile up the carrion and burn it."
It was done as he commanded, and the thick nauseous smoke arising from the burning carcasses soon rendered it impossible to remain in the vaults.
That night a bright red glare lit up the valley, and illuminated the mountains to their very summits. The next morning a blackened wall and a heap of smoking ruins were all that remained of the Convent of Francis-
CHAPTERS OF TURKISH HISTORY. NO. VI.
THE BATTLE OF UOIIACZ.
THE Magyars, or dominant race of the modern Hungarians, are consider- ed by all writers who have treated the subject, as having sprung from the great Turkish stock in Central Asia ; and their features, temperament, and language, still bear evident traces of their oriental origin. Even in the present day, the cultivation of the soil of Hungary is left in a great measure to the Slavacks, or descendants of the ancient Slavonian inhabitants, while the Magyars occupy themselves chiefly in tending the countless flocks of sheep which constitute at once the pride and the wealth of many of their magnates, and in other pursuits which bear re- ference to the pastoral habits of their
forefathers. Their first appearance in Europe, at the close of the ninth century, displayed the genuine cha- racters of a Tartar invasion. Under their leaders, Arpad and Zulta, they overran Germany and Italy with fire and sword, and emulated the ancient ravages of Attila and the Huns; but successive defeats at length confined them within nearly their present limits; and their conversion to Chris- tianity, and adoption of the feudal system, (both which changes were in- troduced about A.D. 1000, by their canonized king, St Stephen,) brought them fairly within the pale of the European commonwealth. The Chris- tianity of these fierce Pagans, however,
