Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 1.djvu/220

 142 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS offensive warfare beyond the frontier he could not gain the consent of the great nobles. Luckily his private property had enormously increased by this time. The Hungarian Constitution ordered the king to bestow the estates of such noblemen, as died without male heirs or had been condemned for any offence, on such noble men as had approved themselves valiant defenders of the country. Now where could be found a more worthy recipient of such estates than Huniades, to whom the public treasury was besides a debtor on account of the sums he disbursed for the constant warfare he maintained against the Turks ? Especially in the south of Hungary a whole series of lordly estates, many of them belonging to the crown, had come into Huniades' hands, either as pledges for the repayment of the money he had paid his soldiers, or as his own private property. The yearly revenue arising from these vast estates was employed by Huniades not in personal expenditure but i the defence of his country. He himself lived as simply as anyone of his soldiers, and recognized no other use of money than as a weapon to be used for the defence of Christendom against Islam. In the early morn while all his suite still slept he passed hours in prayer before the altar in the dimly lighted church, imploring the help of the Almighty for the attain- ment of his sole object in life the destruction of the Turkish power. At last (1448) he set out against the Sultan with a picked army of 24,000 of his most trusty soldiers. This time it was on the frontier of Servia, on the so-called Field of Blackbirds, that Huniades encountered Sultan Murad, as before with an army of 150,000 men more than five times the number of the Christians. Huniades at first with- drew himself into his intrenched camp, but in a few days felt himself strong enough to engage with the enemy on the open field. The battle lasted without interruption for two days and a night. Huniades himself was several times in deadly peril. Once his horse was shot under him. He was to be found where- ever assistance, support, encouragement were needed. At last on the morning of the third day as the Turks who had received reinforcements were about to re- new the attack, the Voyvode of Wallachia passed over to the side of the Turks. The voyvode belonged to the Orthodox Eastern Church. He had joined Huni- ades on the way, and his desertion transferred 6,000 men from one side to the other, and decided the battle in favor of the Turks. The Hungarians, worn out by fatigue, fell into a discouragement, while Huniades had no fresh troops to bring up to their support. The battle came to a sudden end. Seventeen thou- sand Hungarian corpses strewed the field, but the loss of the Turks was more than 30,000 men. Huniades again left to himself had again to make his escape. At first he only dismissed his military suite ; afterwards he separated from his faithful servant in the hope that separately they might more easily baffle their pursuers. Next he had to turn his horse adrift, as the poor animal was incapable of continuing his journey. Thus he made his way alone and on foot toward the frontiers of his native land. After a while looking down from the top of a piece of elevated