Washington sentinel., 1854-01-01
Masbiugtnn gsutinsl.
From the Wayerly Magazine.
MAG VAR md THE MOsL Il M /.
AN HUNGARIAN TRADITION.

Among the foremost of the Hungarian mobiles
who fought against the forces of Sultan Soly-
man during his invasion of their country, was
Ladislaus of Keretsenyi, leader eminently
distinguished for his valor and intrepidity, and
to whom common acclaim had awarded the
title Of hero. Unfortunately, however, both
for himself and for his cause, the true heroisn,
of the soul, which engenders generosity and
mercy, was utterly unknown to him. His
courage was merely that brute impulse and
physical instinct which revels in carnage and
SCOTS at danger; and still worse, it was the
offspring of deep hate and virulent revenge.
He had inherited from his father so bitter and
implacable loathing of the Turks, that he no
longer allowed to them the rank of human be-
ings, but for q time affected and ultimately
taught himself to consider them as mere living
machines, destined only to suffer and succumb
beneath the hand of the Christian. In the ex-
tremity of his infatuation, Keretsenyi hugged
this his darling sin, and esteemed it holy, be-
cause he mingled with his individual detesta-
ton the.question of religious creeds; and thus,
after each successive and wanton cruelty to-
wards his Moslem captives, he dared to thank
God and the saints that he had been made the
favored instrument Of their sufferings.
Nor were the occasions scant for indulging
which took place between his own followers
and those of the different Turkish generals, he
inundated without mercy all his prisoners, Of
whatever age or sex and his odious reputation
for cruelty soon became so familiar to his oppo-
nents, that his very name created terror
throughout their ranks; and there was not one
among them who would not rather have
perished beneath his sword than become his
captive. To such extremities indeed had he
carried his blind and bigotted ruthlessness, that
even among his own countrymen he was ia
miliarly known as the "Tormentor of the
Turks
Ere long, this vicious propensity required
such constant aliment that he extended his te-
rocious inhumanity to his own vassals, who
were at that period entirely at the disposal of
their feudal lords, both in life and limb; and
his reckless daring, and unvarying success,
having filled his treasury as well as fed his
hate, he became, in 1860, the purchaser Of the
noble estate Of Nikolsburg, in Moravia; greatly
to the CONSERVATION of the serfs who were trans
ferred, together with the land, from the gentle
although unthrifty sway of the improvident
Christopher Lichtenstein to the iron rule OF the
cruel Keretsenyi.
To this, which became at once his favorite
possession, the Count Ladislaus, was in the
habit of retiring, during the summer months, in
those brief intervals of peace, which were, in
the troublous times of which we write, allowed
to his riven and harrassed country; and hither
he constantly took with him his Turkish prison
ers, who were lodged in the dungeons Of the
fortress, and who served as human targets for
his son Christopher, boy of thirteen years OF
age, in whose young heart his father had
already succeeded in sowing the same seeds OF
cruelty and vindictiveness towards the infdels,
which had taken such deep root in his own
Enthusiastically attached to all warlike pas
times, the youth had become an expert bow
man and his most earnest trials of skill were
made, when, with Keretsenyi as a spectator, he
discharged his arrows at the miserable prison
ers, who were bound to stake in the castle
court; and whose torments, thus wantonly in
ficted, were sometimes resented with curses.
but more frequently sustained in sullen and
disdainful silence. So contemptuous and reck-
less hatred Of the Moslems had the boy already
imbibed, and so callous had he become even
at that early age, to the sight and sound Of
their agonies, that with refinement Of cruelty
worthy Of a. fend, he delighted to take aim at
the limbs of his victims, and to avoid all vital
pa IT'S, in order not to exhaust too speedily his
means ofenjoyment.
Many and earnest had been the expostula-
tions Of such of the Magyar mobiles as were
wont to frequent the society Of Keretsenyi,
against this inhuman practice, which at once
disgraced the Christian creed, and demoraized
the mind and nature Of his only son but the
naughty count spurned at their arguments, and
asserted that he sought to make the boy sol
dier rather than saint, and preferred the steel
corselet to the serge petticoat, he silenced them
by look and manner which at once intimated
L II. IL l.,&o@ ,r,fa a.fa
ence, even from his tried friends.
One prisoner alone had escaped this COM
mon and heartrending fate; the more insup-
portable to the proud and brave, as they felt
that they died the death Of the slave and the
coward, the manacled and powerless tools of a
strippling's ruthless sport; and even the ex-
emption OF this one had proceeded from no
mercy on the part of the ferocious magnate,
but rather from the suggestion Of policy. The
prisoner in question was the son ola powerful
pasha. who had, Immediately on his capture,
offered FIVE thousand ducats for his ransom !;
but whom Keretsenyi had nevertheless retained
for years in his dungeon, refusing to hberate
him upon any terms; while he was at the same
time sufficiently swayed by his cupidity to alb
stain from risking his life in an idle game,
when it would at any moment secure to himself
a large sum in those days, or stand him in still
,rreater stead in the event of his own capture,
or hat of one of his kinsmcn, when an ex-
change Of prisoners might supersede the trans
fer5f the ransom money.
Thus. hoping at every dawn, and despairing
anew at every set of sun, did the brave and un-
fortunate young Moslem drag through long
years Of captivity, rendered doubly bitter to a
fiery spirit from the monotonous inaction oc-
casioned by it; looking upon the same dreary
waste of masonry, fettered by the same chains,
and wrung by the same corroding sorrow,
Ali had heard of young, and noble, and gal
liant prisoners like himself--for the story-telers
of his nation have many such fair legends, to
which the hght-hearted and the imaginative
love to lsten-he had often heard of such good
warriors, whose prison bars had been removed
by the soft hand Of beauty, guided by her yet
softer heart; and sometimes, in the night
watches he would raise himself upon his straw,
and listen eagerly to what his overheated and
distempered fancy whispered to him to be the
faint footballs of a woman. Better for him had
he slumbered on for, alas, il was but the
heavy tread Of the sentinel, or the retreat Of
the relieving guard.
One only consolation was left to him in his
hopeless Imprisonment; but thatone was indeed
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