Portage Sentinel

From the Pittsburgh Post.
SATAN'S HOLIDAY:
A SCENE OF THE WAR IN HUNGARY
Translated from the German by W. J. Rose

It was a dark night in the borough of St. Thomas. No star was visible, nor could it be regretted that Heaven saw not what was passing upon earth. Men who had grown up together in kindness and friendship, who lived in the same street, nay, beneath the same roof, who were bound to one another by the ties of blood, of relationship, gratitude, and duty, and had been accustomed, from their earliest years, to share each other's joy and sorrow, all at once, as if gone mad with some hellish inspiration, began to devise plans for mutual destruction, and to fill hearts with the most blood thirsty hatred against those who had never harmed them.

It was St. Eustatius' Day. The Raitzen assembled in the church, in order, as they said, to worship God. But no gospel teaching, no solemn tones of the organ were heard resounding there,—only wild voices which announced approaching deeds of horror; and the consecrated roof re-echoed hoarse cries of battle and fury.

The inhabitants of the borough were quiet. Those of them who saw the windows illuminated; or noticed the grim faces hurrying past to the church, said to themselves, "The Raitzen hold high festival to-day!" and felt no further concern, but went tranquilly to bed. Towards 12 o'clock, however, the alarm-bells pealed out their summons, the doors of the house of God opened, and the midnight blood bath began.

With ferocious yells the infuriated rabble rushed into the houses of their sleeping neighbors. It seemed as if they had some bitter long remembered injury to avenge, so fierce, so devilish was the rage with which they murdered all those whose windows were not lighted up; or this was the signal which the Raitzen had adopted lest some of their own people might be attacked in their dwellings, by mistake.

In less than two hours, the whole Magyar population of the borough were slaughtered, with the exception of a few, who had managed to escape the common massacre in cars and other vehicles. But even these too, were pursued, and when the uproar in the neighborhood, the noise of conflict, and the clang of the tocsin, had long died away, from time to time a cry of mortal agony and of despair would break from the stillness of the night, from the surrounding fields, as some vehicle, fast imbedded in that treacherous marshy soil, was overtaken, and its fugitive occupant pitilessly butchered.

At length, even these heart rending sounds were hushed. The voices of terror and of pain were no longer heard, but in their stead arose from more than one quarter of the illuminated borough, the sounds of music and dancing and savage merriment.

It was long past midnight, when a car rolled through the now desolate streets of St. Thomas. Within it sat a man closely wrapped in his mantle, and exhibiting extreme astonishment at the numerous lights and the hubbub of loud rejoicing. In front of his own house door, he checked his horse. To his complete amazement, his dwelling too, was illuminated, and from within gay music, the buzz of voices and the rush of dancing feet burst upon his ear.

At once, surprised and alarmed, he stepped on tiptoe to the window and gazed in, through it, upon a number of well known faces.

The company, intoxicated with wine and wild with enjoyment, sang and shouted, and drank out of his glasses, and danced about like maniacs, through his chamber. They were old cronies, and inhabitants of the borough.

Unacquainted, as he was, with the events of this night, the whole scene rose before him like a dream.

But now, a jauntily dressed woman attracted his gaze. She was skipping about among the guests with loud laughter and immodest gestures, and seemed to take the most delighted and prominent part in these abandoned orgies. At first he could not distinguish who she was, but, suddenly he recognizes her:—it is his own wife!

"Stop!"—he rather howled than shouted, and dashed into the room where the Saturnalia was going on. Yet, he knew not what he should say or do; it was hard to find a word that could express the fury which possessed him.

"Stop!"—he thundered, while every fibre of his frame quivered with passion, "What do ye here?"

At his sudden appearance, the guests stood for an instant as if converted into stone. The very boldest stepped back at the sight of this unexpected apparition, as he sprang into their midst, fearful to look upon and ghastly pale; none ventured to approach him. He strode towards his wife—a dark haired—black eyed creature with rosy cheeks and voluptuous figure, who stood there like marble. He fixed his eyes, darting their deadly lightning, upon hers, and cried, "Down on thy knees, wife!"

The woman did not stir.

"Upon thy knees, wretch!" shouted the infuriated man, and dealt her a blow with his clenched hand upon her face, that felled her to the floor.

"Stop, vile dog!" was now the exclamation from all sides. The Raitzen rushed forwards, and the distracted husband was grasped by twenty sinewy hands. He struggled against them, clutched one of his assailants by the throat, and although himself hurled to the floor and trodden under foot, he let not go his hold, until his antagonist had ceased to breathe. The rest, at once, bound his hands, and flung him into a corner of the apartment. They then formed a circle round him.

"What want ye of me?"—he asked, while blood streamed from his mouth.

"What want we? Look around thee. Dost thou not see that here are none but Raitzen?" replied a gigantic, black-eyed Serb, as he scowled darkly upon the unhappy prisoner.

"And I am a Magyar! What more?"

"Ask thy neighbors! Hast thou not heard that, to-day, we celebrate our festival? The festival of the destruction of the Magyars. Thou, too, art one of them; THE LAST in the borough. All the rest are DEAD. As the last thou shalt choose thine own mode of death!"

"Thou, then, art the executioner, Basil?"

"I? yes, I have been chosen by my people," with a fearful curse, such as belongs only to the Hungarian tongue, the Magyar, at these words, spat in his enemy's face.

"Scoundrel!" growled, through his teeth, the exasperated man. "For this, shalt thou weep tears of blood!"

"Weep? What? Who has ever seen me weep? Ye might butcher me, ye might put me on the rack, ye might tear me limb from limb; there are enough of ye to do it, but see me weep ye shall not, should you burst with impotent fury."

"Weep, thou shalt, and I am he who will make thee weep! Know then that it is I who have dishonored thy wife, and for whom she has betrayed thee."

"That is thy shame not mine."

"And thy kindred are murdered."

"Better that they should lie stark and stiff upon the streets than breathe the same air with thee."

"All that was thine is destroyed."

"May God destroy, also, those who do like thee!"

"By my faith, thou art a cold blooded fellow. But stay!—thou hast a daughter, too, a sweet, innocent child—"

The Magyar gazed upon his torturer and shuddered.

"Lina, methinks, was her name," continued the Serb, as, with refined cruelty, he slowly drawled his words.

"What—what meanest thou?" asked the trembling father.

"A comely damsel on my word! Tempting, ravishing to look upon, was she not?"

"The foul Fiend seize thee, villain.—Proceed."

"So young, too, only thirteen years; so delicate and yet—six husbands already.—She was difficult to please. Thy wife could not decide to whom she should belong. Then I stepped in and set matters right. I married her to all six!" And with these words he broke out into a fiendish scream of scornful laughter.

Speechless and benumbed with horror, the wretched father raised himself from the floor.

"I am sorry," continued the Serb, "that thou wast not present at the wedding.—Poor thing! She must have suffered a good deal ere the ceremony was over."

"May the justice of Almighty God strike thee!" exclaimed the miserable parent, with a violent effort restraining his tears.

But the heart of the father overcame the pride of the man. He fell with his face upon the floor, and wept—bloody tears.

"Hoist him up," cried Basil, "that we may see him weeping for the first time in his life. Weep then, a little, George, and you there, sound your fifes that he may have accompaniment to his lamentation."

And thereupon began the drunken band to dance about him with loud jeering laughter and derisive gestures striking and pushing him every time they came near him.

But now, George wept no more. He closed his eyes, and remained perfectly still, enduring all the insults heaped upon him without a sigh or a word of complaint.

"Away with him!" cried Basil, "fling him into the loft, and set a sentinel to watch him. To-day we have celebrated the wedding of his dainty little daughter, to-morrow we'll drink at his funeral. Good night, friend George."

The latter was thereupon securely pinioned, borne away to the loft, and fastened in. In the place whither they had dragged him, he lay upon the floor, motionless, as if all trace of sensation, mental and physical, had left him, awaiting the hour that should bring him a release from all his sufferings in death. The singing and dancing continued awhile longer, then the Raitzen left the house to seek repose, and all was still.

But sleep fled from George's eyes.

"Be patient yet a little," thought he inwardly, "and eternal rest is thine!"

He was lying thus, half-unconsciously thinking of neither the past nor the future, when, suddenly, he noticed a slight noise at the trapdoor. Through the obscurity, he saw what seemed to him a white figure, pass through the narrow opening and grope stealthily towards him. Was it a dream? was it reality? With noiseless step, the figure approached him, and murmured in an almost inaudible whisper—"Father! father!"

"Lina?"

He looked up and strove, anxiously, to distinguish the features of his visitor; but she hastened to embrace him, and kissed him and cut the cords with which his hands were bound.

"My child!" faltered George, and clasped his daughter's trembling knees,—"my darling, my only, my rightfully wronged and outraged child!"

"Let us fly," replied the maiden, in a weak and tremulous voice. "The ladder leans against the window. Haste father, haste!"

The Magyar caught up his shivering daughter in his longing arms, and bore the light burthen quickly down the ladder, through the trapdoor, her head rested on his shoulder, and he covered her cold cheeks with kisses. At the foot of the ladder he stumbled over something; "what is here?" he asked,

"A spade, father; we will take it with us."

"For a weapon!" said the father.

"To dig a grave!" whispered the maid.

They heard a heavy, monotonous tread on the opposite side of the house. He seized the spade and crept noiselessly to the corner of the house. The footsteps drew nearer and nearer; the Serb bent round the corner, and—the next instant lay upon the ground with a cloven skull; he had not time to utter a sound.

George stripped the dead man of clothing and weapons, took his child upon his arm, and left the spot. The morning star was just beaming in the brightened firmament. Towards break of day, and without having interchanged a word during the journey, father and daughter reached the next village. George had many acquaintances there, and hoped that he could leave his daughter with one of them. However, he met with but a cold reception. Nowhere was he permitted to cross the threshold; no one offered him a morsel of bread; all closed their doors against him and conjured him to proceed far from their village, since his presence alone suspended certain destruction over their own heads. The villagers were, naturally, neither hard hearted nor cowardly, but they apprehended, with reason, that so soon as the Raitzen of St. Thomas should hear of their having harbored a fugitive, they, too, would all be slaughtered. His heart racked with mortal anguish, the unhappy man again took up his child upon his arm, and set forth once more.

Six long days he wandered on, over stubble and fallow fields, through storm and cold, by night and scorching noonday heat,—his child his beloved child upon his arm. He asked not what she wanted, and she uttered no complaint.

On the sixth day the poor young maiden gave way to exhaustion and the effects of the dreadful misuse she had endured. The father felt his burthen becoming heavier and heavier; the poor creature who had, hitherto, clasped his neck, now hung from it relaxed and inanimate, and the pallid cheek that rested on his shoulder had grown stiff and cold. But in the distance, the lofty towers of Szegedin, the proud Magyar city, glittered in the sun's rays.

George hastened on with untiring speed, and, at last, ready to expire with fatigue, reached the great and populous mart, about the hour of noon. Before it, on a wide plain, a vast multitude were assembled; more than twenty thousand men had gathered there to hear the inspired words of a popular orator who was addressing them from a stage erected in their midst. George forced his way through the throng—the speaker was, at that moment, depicting the frightful cruelties of the Raitzen. Some of the listening crowd noticed the travel-worn, dusty, wild looking man, gazing around him as if bewildered, with a death-pale maiden whose eyes were closed, drooping on his arm, as he stood there among them like a fugitive from some mad house.

"Whence come you?" they ask.

"From St. Thomas."

"Ha! up there, up with him upon the platform!" was now the cry from all who had caught his answer. A man from St. Thomas is here! Up there with him, and let him speak to the people!

The crowd made way for him, and he was hurried along to the platform.

As, from this eminence, his wan and ghastly countenance, seared with inexpressible suffering and despair—his bent and fainting figure and the clay-cold pallid features of the poor child, drooping on his shoulder—became visible to the assembled multitude, a deep, low murmur ran through the mighty throng, like the moan of the Plattensee when a storm is approaching its darkened shores. At the sight of sympathy so profound, a hectic glow lit up the hitherto ashy cheeks of the fugitive—a fire, till then unknown, inflamed his breast—he felt the spirit of vengeance, like tongues of flames, descending upon his head.

"Magyars!" he exclaimed in a manly, far-sounding, penetrating voice, "Magyars! I come from St. Thomas, as the only survivor of all those who, in that place, once prayed to their Creator in the Magyar tongue! My house is plundered, my kindred are murdered!

Are there any among you who had relatives there? If any—make ready your garments of mourning—your kinsfolk are dead! Of all that I possessed, I have saved but one treasure,—my poor, ill-fated child! Approach ye fathers, come hither,—think of your innocent daughters—the nurslings of your bosoms—and see what has been made of mine!"
And, as he thus spoke, he lifted up his child from his shoulder, and in that instant, he, for the first time, perceived that his darling was dead. Until then, he had fancied that she was merely exhausted and silent, as she had been, all along, during the six days' journey.

"Dead!" shrieked the distracted father, pressing the cold corpse, with frenzied sorrow, to his heart "SHE is DEAD!"

The words expired on his lips, and he fell, as if struck by a thunderbolt, to the earth,

"Vengeance! a bloody vengeance!" thundered a voice, and the tumult that now arose, was like the roar of the hurricane

"To arms! to arms, all who are men!" was the universal cry, and the streaming multitude poured along through the streets and alleys of the city. "To arms, to arms!"—the call went round from house to house, and within the hour, ten thousand exasperated men, armed and mounted, were marshalled and ready to begin their advance upon St. Thomas.

Then said, by chance, a man, "what if while we are marching away, the Raitzen revolt and murder our children."

The words passed from mouth to mouth.

"They shall die!" was the answer of many voices. "Let them perish as our brethren, at St. Thomas, have perished!

They must die!"

And with appalling ferocity, the Magyar host turned again upon their own city, and poured like a mountain torrent, wasting all in its course, into the dwellings of the Raitzen, even to the last man.

This horrible blood bath of the Raitzen took place upon the sixth day after the destruction of the Magyars at St. Thomas.

*Raitzen and "Rascier." are the names of a race of slave origin, who lived in Servia and Illyria, and in the ninth century were known as an obscure and not very numerous people. Now, however, they are scattered throughout all parts of the Ottoman empire in Europe particularly in Siebenbarg and Hungary where many cities as for instance, often contain whole quarters called "Raitzen towns" from the race who inhabit them. They flocked into Hungary under Leopold I st. Of late it has been the custom to denominate all, in the latter country, who are not Magyars, under the general term "Raitzen."
This includes Wallacks, Serbs, &c.,—Trans.