atagem practised by Hunyady when he permitted the picked troops of the
enemy, the janizaries, to penetrate within the fortification, and there
destroyed them in the place they thought they had taken. Ten thousand
janizaries had already swarmed into the town, and were preparing to
attack the bridges and gates of the citadel, when Hunyady ordered lighted
fagots, soaked in pitch and sulphur and other combustibles, to be flung
from the ramparts into the midst of the crowded ranks of the janizaries.
The fire seized on their loose garments, and in a short time the whole
body was a sea of fire. Everyone sought to fly. Then it was that Hunyady
sallied out with his picked band, while Capistran, with a tall cross in
his hand and the cry of "Jesus" on his lips, followed with his crowd of
fanatics, the cannon of the fortress played upon the Turkish camp, the
Sultan himself was wounded and swept along by the stream of fugitives.
Forty thousand Turks were left dead upon the field, four thousand were
taken prisoners, and three thousand cannon were captured.

According to the opinion of Hunyady himself, the Turks had never suffered
such a severe defeat. Its value as far as the Hungarians were concerned
was heightened by the fact that the ambitious Sultan was personally
humiliated. There was now great joy in Europe. At the news of the
brilliant victory the _Te Deum_ was sung in all the more important cities
throughout Europe, and the Pope wished to compliment Hunyady with a
crown.

A crown of another character awaited him--that of his Redeemer, in whose
name he lived, fought, and fell. The exhalations from the vast number of
unburied or imperfectly buried bodies, festering in the heat of summer,
gave rise to an epidemic in the Christian camp, and to this the great
leader fell a victim. Hunyady died August 11, 1456, in the sixty-eighth
year of his age. He died amid the intoxication of his greatest victory,
idolized by his followers, having once more preserved his country from
imminent ruin. Could he have desired a more glorious death?

He went to his last rest with the consciousness that he had fulfilled his
mission, having designed great things and having accomplished them. And
the result of his lifelong efforts survived him. His great enemy, the
Turk, for the next half-century could only harass the frontier of his
native land; and his country, a few years after his death, placed on the
royal throne his son Matthias.

[Footnote 1: By