Crowds filled the streets, and reports of all sorts were flying about the city.
The Archbishop had met the enemy and defeated him!
Some watchman on one of the towers had seen the Archbishop cut down a Mongol leader, and great part of the Mongols were lying dead on the ground!
More important still, he had felled Batu Khan himself with one blow of his battle-axe!
So it went on all day till late in the evening, when suddenly the news spread that the Archbishop was coming back, but--with only three or four of his men with him! And while the people in the streets were talking together with bated breath, a man rushed into their midst, covered with blood and dust.
"What has happened? Where are you from?" they asked, not at first recognising the furrier, a man belonging to Pest, and well known there.
"Water!" whispered the new-comer, bowing his head on his breast. "Water! I don't know how I got here! Water, quick!"
Several of the crowd hurried off for water, and when he had quenched his thirst, some of them began to wash the blood from his face and to bind up his wounds.
"Ah! they are no matter!" he gasped, "one may get such cuts as these any day in a tavern brawl, but--I'm--done for!"
By the help of a wooden flask of wine the man presently revived enough to satisfy the curiosity of the bystanders, though he still looked terrified.
"I have come straight from Vácz--my horse fell down under me. I was pursued by Tartars--a score of arrows hit the poor beast--three went through my cap and tore the skin off my head!"
"But what is going on in Vácz? they have beaten off the Tartars, eh?"
"There _is_ no Vácz!" said the man, with an involuntary shudder through all his limbs.
All were too dumfounded to utter even an exclamation. They had believed that their troops had but to show themselves, and the Mongols would be scattered.
"The walls of Vácz stand staring up to heaven, as black as soot," the man went on. "The people defended themselves to the last, ay, to the last, for hardly a hundred out of them all have escaped!"
"But the church--there are moats to it, and new walls----" began one of the bystanders.
"There _were_!" said the furrier, "there were! there is nothing left now! The clergy, and the old men, with the women and children, took refuge there, and all the valuables were taken there; even the women fought--but it was no good!"