The battle was long and bloody, both
parties struggling with utter desperation. The Turks were repulsed.
After one of the longest continuous conflicts recorded in history,
lasting all one night, and all the following day until the going down of
the sun, the Turks, leaving thirty thousand of their dead beneath the
ramparts of the city, and taking with them the sultan desperately
wounded, struck their tents in the darkness of the night and retreated.
Great was the exultation in Hungary, in Germany and all over Europe. But
this joy was speedily clouded by the intelligence that Hunniades, the
deliverer of Europe from Moslem invasion, exhausted with toil, had been
seized by a fever and had died. It is said that the young King Ladislaus
rejoiced in his death, for he was greatly annoyed in having a subject
attain such a degree of splendor as to cast his own name into
insignificance. Hunniades left two sons, Ladislaus and Matthias. The
king and Cilli manifested the meanest jealousy in reference to these
young men, and fearful that the renown of their father, which had
inspired pride and gratitude in every Hungarian heart, might give them
power, they did every thing they could to humiliate and depress them.
Pages:
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114