But if they were checked to the west, there was nothing to prevent their chasing the King, who was lingering near the Drave. Here they were in no fear of the armies of Europe, and they crossed the Danube by means of bladders and boats.
Béla fled to Spalatro, but feeling unsafe even there, retired with his family to the island of Issa. Furious at finding that his prey had escaped him, the Mongol leader, Kajdán, revenged himself upon his prisoners, whom he set up in rows and cut down; then he hurried on to the sea coast, and appeared before Spalatro early in May. Foiled again, he hurried to Issa, which was connected with the mainland by a bridge; and here he had the mortification of seeing the King and his followers take ship for the island of Bua under his very eyes.
Pursuit, without a fleet, was hopeless, and Kajdán had to content himself with ravaging Dalmatia, Croatia, and Bosnia.
For days, weeks, months, Talabor had been expecting Libor and his Mongols to return and renew their attack upon the castle, whose defences he had strengthened in every way possible to him.
But spring had given way to summer, and summer to autumn, and still they had not come. When a winter of unusual severity set in, he felt the position safer, for the steep paths were blocked with snow or slippery with ice.
Rumours of the fatal battle had not been long in reaching the castle, and fugitives had been seen by one or another of the villagers, whose accounts, though they differed in many respects, all agreed in this, that the country was in the hands of the Mongols, and that the King had fled for his life--whether he had saved it was doubtful. One reported the death of both the Szirmays, another declared that Master Peter had escaped with the King.
The general uncertainty began to tell upon the inhabitants of the castle.
Gradually, one by one, the men of the garrison disappeared. If a man were sent out hunting, or to gather what news he could in the neighbourhood, he not seldom vanished. Whether he had deserted, or whether he had been captured, who could say? In either case he might bring the Mongols down upon them.
At last, when the number of fighting men was so diminished that it would have been out of the question for them to offer any serious resistance, disquieting events began to occur among the house-servants. One day two of them were nowhere to be found! One was a turnkey of Master Peter's, the other a maid-servant, a simple, country girl, whom no one would have supposed capable of counting up to three!