all strike down and then take his discharge. We do not wish to stay
here and be besieged and starved out, and then thrown to the dogs and
rats."

"If you do not wish to stay, my friends, you may go," was the final
decision of Apafi, "but it would be madness for me to be drawn into an
engagement."

The Szeklers said never a word but took up their knapsacks, shouldered
their spears and moved out of Schassburg as if they never had been
there. From this time on the Szeklers were Apafi's enemies and
remained so until his death.

The next day Kemeny's forces were beneath the city walls, where Apafi
had barely armed men enough to guard the gates. Wenzinger was the man
who best understood the art of war. This general, true to the
principles of the military art in which he had been trained, first
inspected the ground, then carefully occupied any point which could be
of any importance, taking care to cover the besieging forces in every
direction; in short, in accordance with a systematic method he
prolonged his preparations so that when at last he was ready to begin,
at that very moment came the news that the Turkish auxiliaries were
approaching on the double-quick. Thereupon, still in accordance with
his system, he assembled the scattered troops and made ready to meet
the approaching Turks. But John Kemeny was in the way. He feared that
if the Turkish force proved large his forces would have to take
flight, and in that case with Schassburg in the rear they would come
between two fires. He preferred to wait the attack of his enemy and
withdrew from the town altogether, taking up his position in
Nagy-Szoelloes in a spot that will for some time still to come be known
as an important battlefield; from that point he watched calmly the
advance of Kutschuk Pasha's horsemen into Schassburg.

Apafi, in his anxiety over a state of affairs into which he had fallen
through no fault of his own, had not eaten anything for three days,
when word was brought him that the auxiliaries had come. It was
already late in the evening when Kutschuk Pasha, after a forced march
over rough mountain paths, entered the city. Apafi rode forward to
greet the Turk, whom he looked upon as his guardian angel. Great was
his astonishment when, after carefully surveying the line, he learned
that they were barely equal to the fifth part of the opposing force.

"What does your Grace intend with this small force?" he asked the
Pasha.

"God knows, who from above