menacing, danced, their dance, at first slow and melancholy, becoming
gradually active, nervous, and interrupted by cries which resembled sobs.
And the Hungarian czardas, symbolizing thus the dance of these martyrs,
kept still, will always keep, the characteristic of contortions under the
lash of bygone days; and, slow and languishing at first, then soon quick
and agitated, tragically hysterical, it also is interrupted by melancholy
chords, dreary, mournful notes and plaintive accents like drops of blood
from a wound-from the mortal wound of Prince Sandor, lying there in his
martial uniform.

The bronzed Tzigani, fantastically illumined by the red glare of the
torches, stood out against the white background like demons of revenge;
and the hymn, feverish, bold, ardent, echoed through the snow-covered
branches like a hurricane of victory. They were wandering musicians,
who, the evening before, had been discovered in a neighboring village by
some of Jellachich's Croats, and whom Prince Sandor had unceremoniously
rescued at the head of his hussars; and they had come, with their ancient
national airs, the voice of their country, to pay their debt to the
fallen hero.

When they had finished, the wintry night-wind bearing away the last notes
of their war-song, the pistols of the hussars and the guns of the honveds
discharged a salute over the grave. The earth and snow were shovelled in
upon the body of Sandor Zilah, and Prince Andras drew away, after marking
with a cross the place where his father reposed.

A few paces away, he perceived, among the Tzigani musicians, a young
girl, the only woman of the tribe, who wept with mournful sobbings like
the echoes of the deserts of the Orient.