Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/426

 conscious—to all appearance, lifeless. Emmerick doubted not for a moment that the brave soul had fled.

At first the knight could do nothing but weep over the body of his noble friend. But thoughts of home grew upon him. Budiak must not have died in vain. Perhaps his loving spirit was even now watching over his master, grieved and disappointed by his delay. Emmerick braced himself for action, and with but little difficulty effected his escape. But his homeward journey was a hard and toilsome one.

It was the second anniversary of the battle in which Emmerick was supposed to have fallen. After a solemn requiem in the chapel, the Lady Agnes, covered from head to foot in a long black veil, proceeded to the great gate of the castle, for the pious purpose of distributing alms to all such as should be there to receive them. Around her stood her children. Each recipient was expected to repay his benefactress by a prayer for her beloved dead. The distribution had begun, when her eldest son, Geysa, said, "Serve this good pilgrim soon, I pray you, mother, for he seems very faint and weary with toil and want. And he must be a good man; for, see! even amid his rags, he has preserved a picture of Our Lady, which he might have sold for food."

The lady, thus urged, turned towards the mendicant indicated by her son, and at once recognised in the relic a gift of her own made long ago to her husband. For moment she stood speechless, gazing upon that gaunt, squalid figure; then, throwing back her veil, and displaying a countenance like that of one convulsed by a fearful dream, she gasped: "Speak! who and whence are you?"

"Agnes!" exclaimed a well-remembered voice, and the next instant the trembling woman was in her husband's arms.

We must now return to Budiak. Contrary to his expectation, he did not die, but recovered from his faint. In the morning, his condition at once revealed to the Tartars what had taken place. Cadan at first was furious. "Thou shalt die the death of a dog, vile slave!" cried he, "without help or pity.'

"I care not," was the calm reply; "I have saved my master."

"A fine master he! He left thee to perish," sneered the Tartar chief.

"He thought me dead," said Budiak. "I rejoice to think that he is now free, and will soon be in his own halls!"

"Only tell me that thou hast repented of the rash deed, and that, were it yet to do, thou wouldst refuse," urged the wondering chief.

"I may not pass away with a lie upon my lips," replied the castellan. "With this faithful right arm I would joyfully lop off every other limb, could I by the sacrifice ensure my master's happiness. And now, let me die; I have nothing more to live for. The only boon I would crave is that you would leave me in peace to pray for my