'Blows are heard resounding at the outer gate. 'Tis the hour of midnight; whose the voice so late? "Hasten, dearest mother"--ha! that well-known sound-- "From the host I'm driven, bleed at every wound! Fearful was our fortune, terrible the fray, Scattered all my army, fled they in dismay. Mother, open quickly; infidels pursue, Icy is the night wind, purple blood their cue." "Ha! what say'st thou, stranger? Stephen's far away, Dealing death, strong-handed, where he stands at bay. Of him the mother I; such my son is he. Be thou who thou may'st, my son thou canst not be. (Yet can Heaven have fated, dealt this fearful blow? Can his soul be craven, quail before the foe?) If in truth thou'rt Stephen, faint returning home, Not within these portals shalt thou ever come. Hasten to thy brave ones; for thy country fall; Then maternal love with wreaths shall deck thy pall!" Once more Stephen rallies; lusty sounds his horn; Heroes flock around him on the battle morn. Fierce and dire the slaughter; on that glorious day Falls the Moslem chivalry like the new-mown hay.'
Notwithstanding the great victory which he obtained, the Moslem power was too strong for him, and he is found, before the century's close, allied with them against Poland, to whose sovereign he had but a few years previously sworn fealty, and into which he now made a raid. In 1504 he died a natural death, and it is said that before his decease, either from fear of the Turks, or distrusting the power of his son Bogdan, he advised the latter to make a permanent treaty with the Porte, which he did shortly after his death.[135] The most favourable traits in Stephen's character seem to have been his courage and patriotism, notwithstanding the story which is told of his flight to Niamtz. Like Mircea, he organised an army which is estimated at about the same strength, with the addition of irregular troops. That he was pious after a fashion is most likely, but that he also practised the tyrannic cruelties of his age is undoubted. Shortly after his advent to the throne, the Tartars entered his dominions, carrying fire and sword everywhere, but they were eventually repulsed and driven out by Stephen. In the course of this campaign he took a son of the Tartar chief prisoner, and when envoys came to treat for his liberation he ordered the prince to be decapitated in their presence, a deed which may have been justified as a lesson to the ruthless tribe who had invaded his country. Not content with this, however, he impaled all the envoys but one, whose nose and ears he cut off, and sent him back to his master in that dreadful condition. 'But,' adds the chronicler, 'Stephen, who was a man of his period, only regarded this act as a manifestation of zeal in the faith. Shortly afterwards he built the monastery of Putna, dedicated it to Jesus and the Virgin, and caused to be transported thither the wooden chapel which Dragosch had constructed at Volovitz.' 'These were the ordinary practices of the age,' remarks another commentator; 'and if such treatment was reserved for the high and noble, one may guess what was the fate of the humble.'