Page:The folk-tales of the Magyars.djvu/201

one of his servants with a letter to the great king next day, in which he described minutely the whole state of affairs. The spies, however, laid in ambush for the servant, attacked and killed him, took Csabor Ur's letter from him, and handed it to the bishop, who learnt from its contents that Csabor Ur had stolen into the cathedral every night. He, therefore, had the large oak doors closed as soon as the congregation had assembled on the same night, and in an infuriated sermon he informed the people that there was a traitor among them. Hearing this everybody demanded his death, and they were ready to take their oath on the Holy Cross that they were not traitors. Whereupon the bishop ordered a stool to be placed on the steps of the altar, sat down, and administered the oath to all present. Only one man, in a brown fur-cloak, did not budge from the side of the stoup. The bishop, therefore, addressed him thus: "Then who are you? Why don't you come to me?" But the dark cloak did not move, and the bishop at once knew who it was and ordered the man to be bound; whereupon the multitude rushed forward to carry out his command. Thereupon the man dropped his brown cloak; and, behold, Csabor Ur stood erect—like a dark pine—with knitted brows and flashing eyes, holding in his right hand a copper mace with a gilt handle, his left resting on a broad two-edged sword. The multitude stopped, shuddering, like the huntsman, who in pursuit of hares suddenly finds a bear confronting him; but in the next moment the crowd rushed at their prey. Csabor Ur, after cutting down about thirty of them, dropped down dead himself. His blood spurted up high upon the column, where it can still be seen in the cathedral to the left of the entrance although the Roumanian priests tried their best to whitewash it. The great king heard of this, had the head priest imprisoned, and went with an immense army to revenge Csabor Ur's murder. With his army came also Dame Margit, dressed in men's clothes, who wept at the foot of the blood-bespurt column till one day after mass they picked her up dead from the flags.