'MIDST THE WILD CARPATHIANS

("AZ ÉRDÉLY ARÁNY KÓRA")

BY
MAURUS JÓKAI

TRANSLATED BY
R. NISBET BAIN
FROM
THE FIRST HUNGARIAN EDITION

Authorised Version

LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, Ld.
1894
[All rights reserved]

Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
London & Bungay.

INTRODUCTION.

Hungarians regard Az Érdély arány kora as, on the whole, the best of Jokai's great historical romances, and, to judge from the numerous existing versions of it, foreigners are of the same opinion as Hungarians. Few of Jokai's other tales have been translated so often, and the book is as great a favourite in Poland as it is in Germany. And certainly it fully deserves its great reputation, for it displays to the best advantage the author's three characteristic qualities—his powers of description, especially of nature, his dramatic intensity, and his peculiar humour.

The scene of the story is laid among the virgin forests and inaccessible mountains of seventeenth-century Transylvania, where a proud and valiant feudal nobility still maintained a precarious independence long after the parent state of Hungary had become a Turkish province. We are transported into a semi-heroic, semi-barbarous borderland between the Past and the Present, where Mediævalism has found a last retreat, and the civilizations of the East and West contend or coalesce. Bizarre, gorgeous, and picturesque forms flit before us—rude feudal magnates and refined Machiavellian intriguers; superb Turkish pashas and ferocious Moorish bandits; noble, high-minded ladies and tigrish odalisks; saturnine Hungarian heydukes, superstitious Wallachian peasants, savage Szeklers, and scarcely human Tartars. The plot too is in keeping with the vivid colouring and magnificent scenery of the story. The whole history of Transylvania, indeed, reads like a chapter from the Arabian Nights, but there are no more dramatic episodes in that history than those on which this novel is based—the sudden elevation of a country squire (Michael Apafi) to the throne of Transylvania against his will by order of the Padishah, and the dark conspiracy whereby Denis Banfi, the last of the great Transylvanian magnates, was so foully done to death.

In none of Jokai's other novels, moreover, is the individuality of the characters so distinct and consistent. The gluttonous Kemeny, who sacrificed a kingdom for a dinner; the well-meaning, easy-going Apafi, who would have made a model squire, but was irretrievably ruined by a princely diadem; his consort, the wise and generous Anna, always at hand to stop her husband from committing follies, or to save him from their consequences; the crafty Teleki, the Richelieu of Transylvania, with wide views and lofty aims, but sticking at nothing to compass his ends; his rival Banfi, rough, masterful, recklessly selfish, yet a patriot at heart, with a vein of true nobility running through his coarser nature; his tender and sensitive wife, clinging desperately to a brutal husband, who learnt her worth too late; the time-serving Csaky, as mean a rascal as ever truckled to the great or trampled on the fallen; Ali Pasha and Corsar Beg, excellent types of the official and the unofficial Turkish freebooter respectively; Kucsuk Pasha, the chivalrous Mussulman with a conscience above his creed; the renegade spy Zülfikar, groping in slippery places after illicit gains, and always falling on his feet with cat-like agility; and, last of all, that marvellous creation, Azrael, the demoniacal Turkish odalisk, blasting all who fall within the influence of her irresistible glamour, a Circe as sinuously beautiful and as utterly soulless as her own pet panther—all these personages of a, happily, by-gone age are depicted as vividly as if the author had known each one of them personally.

Finally, the book contains some of Jokai's happiest descriptions, and in this department it is generally admitted that the master, at his best, is unsurpassable. The description of the burning coal-mine in Fekete Gyemantok, of the Neva floods in A szabadság a hó alatt, of the plague in Szomoru napok, or of the Danube in all its varying moods in Az arány ember, stand alone in modern fiction; yet can any of these vivid tableaux compare with the wonderful account of Corsar Beg's aërial fairy palace, poised on the top of the savage Carpathians, or with the glowing picture of the gorgeous harem of Azrael, or with the fantastic scenery of the Devil's Garden, with its ice-built corridors, snow bridges, boiling streams, fathomless lakes, and rushing avalanches?

R. N. B.

CONTENTS.

BOOK I.
BY COMMAND OF THE PADISHAH.

'MIDST THE WILD CARPATHIANS.

CHAPTER I.
A HUNT IN THE YEAR 1666.

Before us lies the valley of the Drave, one of those endless wildernesses where even the wild beast loses its way. Forests everywhere, maples and aspens a thousand years old, with their roots under water; magnificent morasses the surface of which is covered, not with reeds and water-lilies, but with gigantic trees, from the dependent branches of which the vivifying waters force fresh roots. Here the swan builds her nest; here too dwell the royal heron, the blind crow, the golden plover, and other man-shunning animals which are rarely if ever seen in more habitable regions.

Here and there on little mounds, left bare during the long summer drought by the receding waters, sprout strange and gorgeous flowers, such perhaps as the earth has not brought forth since the Flood overwhelmed her. In this slimy soil every blade of grass shoots up like gigantic broom; the funnel-shaped convolvuluses and the evergreen ground-ivy put forth tendrils as stout and as strong as vine branches, which, stretching from tree to tree, twine round their stems and hang flowery garlands about the dark, sombre maples, just as if some hamadryad had crowned the grove dedicated to her.

But it is only when evening descends that this realm of waters begins to show signs of life. Whole swarms of water-fowl then mount into the air, whose rueful, monotonous croaking is only broken by the melancholy piping of the bittern and the whistle of the green turtle. The swan, too, raises her voice and sings that melodious lay which now, they tell us, is only to be heard in fairy-land,—for here man has never yet trod, the place is still God's.

Now and again, indeed, sportsmen of the bolder sort presume to penetrate far into this pathless labyrinth of bush and brake; but they are forced to wind their way among the trees in canoes which may at any moment be upset by the twisted tangle of roots stretching far and wide beneath the water, and it is just in these very places that the swamp is many fathoms deep; for although the dark green lake-grass and the yellow marsh-flowers, with the little black-and-red efts and newts darting about among them, seem close enough to be reached by an outstretched hand, they are nevertheless all under water deep enough to go over the head of the tallest man.

In other places it is the dense thicket which bars the canoe's way. Fallen trees, the spoil of many centuries, but untouched by the hand of man, lie rotting there in gigantic heaps. The submerged trunks have been turned to stone by the water, and the roots of the lake-grass, the filaments of the flax-plant, and the tendrils of the clematis have grown together over them, forming a strong, tough barrier just above the water which rocks and sways without giving way beneath one's feet. The knotty clout-like film of the lake, stretching far and wide, seems, to the careless eye, a continuation of this barrier, but the treacherous surface no longer bears—one step further, and Death is there. This unknown, unexplored region has however but few visitors.

Southwards, the wilderness is bounded by the river Drave. The trees which line its steep banks dip over into its waves. Not unfrequently the fierce stream sweeps them into its bed and away, to the great peril of all who sail or row upon its waters.

Northwards, the forest extends as far as Csakatorny, and where the morass ends oaks and beeches of all sorts flourish. In no other part of Hungary will you meet with trees so erect and so lofty. The wide waste abounds with all sorts of game. The wild boars, which wallow in the swampy ground there, are the largest and fiercest of their kind. The red deer too is no stranger there, and huge, powerful, and courageous you will find him; nay, at that time, even gigantic elks showed themselves occasionally, and made nocturnal incursions into the neighbouring millet-fields of Totovecz; but at the first attempt to lay hands upon them, they would throw themselves into the innermost swamps, whither it was impossible to follow them....

On one of the brightest days of the year in which our story begins, a numerous hunting-party was bustling about an old-fashioned hunting-box which then stood on the borders of the forest.

The first rays of the sun had scarcely pierced through the thick foliage, when the grooms and kennel-keepers led out the hunters by their bridles and the hounds in leashes, which sprang yelping up to the shoulders of their keepers in joyful anticipation of the coming sport. The huge store-wagons, each drawn by from six to ten oxen, have already gone on before to fixed rallying-places, whither all the quarry is to be carried. The villagers for miles round have been enlisted as beaters, and stand together in picturesque groups armed with axes, pitch-forks, and occasional muskets. A few smaller groups have been posted at regular intervals along the wood, with canoes made from the trunks of trees. Their duty is to scare the game back from the swamp, should it turn thither for refuge. Every man, every beast shows signs of that precipitancy, that ardour, that restlessness by which the true huntsman is always distinguishable; only a few of the older hands find time to sit by the fire and roast slices of bacon with perfect equanimity.

At last comes the signal for departure, the blast of a horn from the porch of the hunting-box; the retinue spring shouting upon their snorting horses; the unruly, barking pack drag the kennel-men hither and thither; the huntsmen wind up their heavy shooting muskets, and every one stands in eager expectation of their lord and his noble guests.

They have not long to wait. A cavalcade, with a few attendant pages, descends the hill. Foremost rides a tall, muscular man—the lord of the manor—the rest, as if involuntarily, linger some little way behind him. His broad shoulders and superbly-arched chest indicate herculean strength; his sun-burnt features are wonderfully well preserved, not a wrinkle is to be seen on them; his short clipped beard and his shaggy moustache, which is twisted sharply upwards, give his face a martial expression, and his very pronounced aquiline nose and coal-black, bushy eyebrows lend him a haughty, dictatorial air; while the dreamy cut of his lips, his mild, oval, blue eyes and high, smooth forehead throw a poetic shimmer over his peculiarly chivalrous countenance. A round, unembroidered hat, surmounted by an eagle's plume, covers his closely-cropped hair; his upper garment is a simple green, shaggy jacket, which he wears open, thus allowing you a glance at his under-garment, a white buckskin dolman,[1] trimmed with silver braid. By his side hangs a broad scimitar in an ivory sheath, and the mother-of-pearl handle of a crooked Turkish dagger peeps forth from a scarlet girdle richly set with precious stones.

[1] Dolman. An Hungarian pelisse. A more magnificent kind, worn only on state occasions, is called the attila.

The pair which ride immediately behind him consists of a young cavalier and a young Amazon. The cavalier can scarcely have counted more than two-and-twenty summers, the lady seems even younger. A better-assorted couple you could find nowhere.

The youth has smiling, gentle, pallid features; rich chestnut-brown locks fall over his shoulders; a slight moustache just shades his upper lip; an eternal smile, nonchalance, not to say levity, are mirrored in his bright blue eyes; but for his brawny arms and his stalwart frame, the iron muscles of which protrude at the slightest movement through his tight-fitting dolman, you might take him for a child. His head is covered by a kalpag[2] of marten skin with a heron's plume in it; his dress is of heavy twisted silk stuff; down from his shoulders hangs a splendid tiger's skin, the claws meeting together round his neck in a gorgeous sapphire agraffe. He rides a pitch-black Turkish stallion, whose shabrack, richly embroidered with golden butterflies, is plainly the work of a gentle lady's hand.

[2] Kalpag or Calpak. A tall, skin cap of Tartar origin, part of the Hungarian national costume.

The Amazon, over whom the youth bends from time to time (doubtless to whisper some sweet compliment in her ear), is his very antithesis, and perhaps for that very reason tallies so well with him.

Hers is an earnest, dauntless, energetic countenance; her eyes are brighter than garnets; she loves to pout a little and arch her bushy but delicate eyebrows, which lend a proud expression to her features, and when she raises her flashing eyes and her coral-red lips expand into a peculiar enthusiastic smile, a heroine stands before you whose head, heart, and arm are as strong as any man's. Her jasper-black, braided locks, which fall half-way down her shoulders, are surmounted by an ermine kalpag, from the top of which waves a gorgeous plume of bird-of-paradise feathers. A light, lilac robe, meet for an Amazon, clings tightly to her slim waist, and sweeps down in ample, majestic folds over the flanks of her rose-white Arab. This robe is unbuttoned in front, so as to leave free her heaving bosom, which is covered right up to the neck with lace frills. Her short sleeves, richly trimmed with batiste, are fastened by intertwining gold cords. Over her left foot, which rests upon the stirrup, the long robe is thrown carelessly back, presenting us with a glimpse of her white satin, padded petticoat, and one of her little feet in its red morocco shoe. Her snow-white arms are half protected by silk embroidered buckskin gloves, which do not quite conceal the velvety skin, and the play of the well-developed muscles. Both form and face rather demand our homage than our love. A smile rarely rests on those features; the glance of her large, dark, sea-deep eyes rests from time to time upon the youth who is bending over her, and then there beams from them such witchery, such tenderness—yet all the while her face is without a smile. A loftier, nobler longing is then visible on her face, a longing deeper than love, higher than the desire of fame—perhaps it is that self-consciousness of great souls who foresee that their names will be an eternal remembrance.

Behind the loving pair, ride side by side two cavaliers who, to judge from their dress, belong to the higher nobility. One of them is a man of about thirty, with a long, glistening black beard; he sits upon a full-blood Barbary charger, with a white star upon its forehead; the other is a sallow man advanced in years, whose long, light moustache is already touched with grey; an astrachan cap covers his high, bald, wrinkled forehead; his beard is carefully clipped, and his dress almost ostentatiously simple. No lace adorns his jacket, no fringe of any sort sets off the caparison of his good steed; his neckerchief, which peeps out of his dolman, might almost be considered shabby.

This man does not appear to stand very high in the estimation of his companion, and marks of annoyance at the neglect he suffers are plainly visible on his shrewd, not to say crafty, features. The reader would do well to study this man's face, for we shall often meet with him. Cold, withered features, thin fair hair and beard speckled with grey; a pointed, double chin; disdainful, contracted lips; keen and lively, red-rimmed, sea-green eyes; projecting eyebrows; a lofty, bald, shining forehead which, beneath the play of his emotions, becomes furrowed with wrinkles in all directions. This face we must not forget; the others—the herculean horseman, the laughing youth, the stately Amazon—will only flit across our path and disappear; but he will accompany us all through our story, pulling down and building up wherever he appears, and holding in his hands the destinies of great men and great nations.

The bald-pate drew nearer to the cavalier trotting by his side, who was balancing his spear in one hand as if to test it, and said to him in a low tone, as if continuing a conversation already begun—

"So you will not interfere in the matter?"

"Pray don't trouble me with politics now," replied the other, with a gesture of angry impatience. "You cannot live a day without planning or plotting; but pray spare me for to-day! I want to hunt now, and you know how passionately I love the chase."

With these words he gave his horse the spur, galloped forward, and caught up the herculean horseman.

The other bit his lips angrily at this roughish flout, but immediately turned with a smile towards the youthful cavalier ambling in front of him.

"A splendid morning, my lord! Would that our horizon were only as serene in every direction!"

"It is indeed," returned the youth, without exactly knowing what he was saying, whilst his heroine bent over him with a darkening face, and whispered—

"I don't know how it is, but I am always suspicious of that man. He is continually asking questions, but never answers any himself."

At this moment the stately cavalier reached the hunting-party, returned their boisterous greetings, and halted close to them.

"David!" cried he to an old grey-bearded huntsman, who at once stepped forth, cap in hand.

"Put on your cap! Have the beaters taken their places?"

"Every one is in his place, my lord! I have also sent canoes into the swamp to scare back the game."

"Bravo, David! you know your business. And now set off with the dogs and the huntsmen, and strike into the path which we usually take. Our little company will be sufficient for my purpose. We mean to cut our way straight through the forest."

A murmur of surprise and incredulity began to spread among the huntsmen.

"Your pardon, gracious sir!" returned the old huntsman, who now took off his cap a second time, "but I know that way, and it is no good way for a god-fearing man. The impenetrable thicket, the bottomless waters, the sticky slime present a thousand dangers, and then there is the wide Devil's-dyke which goes right across the forest: no horse or horseman has ever leaped that dyke."

"We at any rate, my worthy old fellow, will go for it; we have done worse bits than that ere now. He who follows me will not come to grief; don't you know that I am Fortune's favourite?"

The old huntsman donned his plumed cap, and set out on his way with the others.

But now the bald-pate rode up to the hero's side.

"My lord!" remarked he calmly, but not without a touch of sarcasm, "I hold it a great blunder for a man to jeopardize his life for nothing, especially when he may turn it to good account. I know indeed that say and do are one with your lordship; but pray be so good as to cast a glance around, and you will perceive that we are not all men here; one of that sex is among us whom it were cruelty to expose to certain peril for the mere love of adventure."

During this speech, the hero gazed fixedly, not at the speaker but at the Amazon, and the fiery pride on his cheeks flamed up still higher when he saw how contemptuously the stately girl measured her unsolicited advocate from head to foot, and with what haughty self-confidence she chose a dart, adorned with ostrich feathers, from a bundle carried by a page, and then like a defiant matador planted the shaft firmly upon her saddle-bow.

"Look at her, now!" cried the hero. "Is that the girl you are so fearful about? I tell you, sir, she is my niece!"

The hero's exalted words rang far and wide through the forest like a peal of bells. There was, at that time, no voice in Hungary like his; so thunderous, so deep, and yet so melodious and penetrating.

The Amazon permitted the cavalier who had called her his niece to embrace her slim waist; she even allowed him to kiss her rosy red cheeks: in those days an Hungarian girl used to blush even when the kiss came from a kinsman's lips.

"Not in vain does my blood flow in her veins! Ha, ha! For valour I'll match her with the best of men. Have no fear for her! The time is coming when she will face greater perils than any of to-day, and still hold her own."[3]

[3] The Amazon was Helen Zrinyi. She married first the young cavalier with whom we now meet her, Francis Rakoczy, and subsequently the famous Emerich Tököly, whose acquaintance we shall make presently. Her spirited defence of the fortress of Mohacz, 1689, against the Emperor is well known.

After these prophetic words, the rider pressed his spurs into his horse's sides; the wounded beast plunged and reared, but the pressure of a knee as hard as steel quickly brought it to reason.

"Follow me!" cried he, and the picturesque little group dashed after him into the depths of the forest.

Let us anticipate them. Let us go whither the stag rests at noonday in the shady groves, whither the heron bathes and the turtle basks in the sun.

What habitations are these which rise up before us, built upon piles, in groups of five and six, between the waters and the wilderness, little huts carved out of the stumps of trees with round, clay-plastered, red-thatched roofs? Who has built that dam there, so that the water may never fall too far below the thresholds of those tiny houses? Here dwell the diligent beavers whom Nature herself has taught the art of building. This is their colony. 'Tis they who have gnawed through the thick trees with their teeth; they who have brought those logs hither; they who have thrown up a bank to make a dam, and watch over its safety all the year round. Look there! One of them has just glided out of the lowest storey of his dwelling, which is under the water. With what mild and gentle eyes he looks around him! He has never yet seen man!

Let us go on further. In the shadow of an old hollow tree rests a family of stags. A buck and a doe with her two little fawns.

The buck has come forward into the sunlight; his stately form seems to give him pleasure; he licks his smooth, shiny coat again and again; softly scratches his back with his branching antlers, and struts about with a proud, self-confident air, daintily raising his slender legs from time to time: the undulating movements of his slim and supple form show off to the best advantage the play of his elastic muscles.

The doe lies lazily in the rank grass. From time to time she raises her beautiful head, and looks with her large black eyes so feelingly, so lovingly at her companion or at her sportive little ones, and if she perceives they have strayed too far, she utters an uneasy, plaintive sort of whine, whereupon the little creatures come bounding back to her helter-skelter, frisking and gambolling about their dam; they cannot keep still for a moment, all their limbs quiver and shake, and all their movements are so graceful, so lively, and so lovely.

Suddenly the buck stands motionless and utters a low cry. He scents danger and raises his nose on high; his distended nostrils sniff the air in every direction; he scratches up the ground uneasily with his feet; runs round and round in a narrow circle with lowered head, and shakes his antlers threateningly. Once more he stands perfectly still. His protruding eyes betoken the terror which instinctively seizes him. All at once he rushes towards his companion; with an indescribable sort of gentle whine they rub noses together; they too have their language in which they can understand each other. The two fawns instantly fly in terror to their mother's side; their tender little limbs are trembling all over. Then the buck disappears into the forest, but so warily that the sound of his footsteps is scarcely audible. The doe however remains in her place, licking her terrified young (which return these maternal caresses with their little red tongues), and hastily raising her head and pricking up her ears at the slightest sound.

Suddenly she springs up. She has heard something which no human ear could have distinguished. In the far, far distance the forest rings with a peculiar sound. That sound is familiar to huntsmen. The hounds are now on the track. The beating-up has begun. The doe throws uneasy glances around her, but ends by quickly lying down in her place again. She knows that her companion will return, and that she must wait for him.

The chase draws nearer and nearer. Presently the buck comes noiselessly back, and turns with a peculiar kind of squeak towards his mate, who immediately springs up and scuds away with her young ones obliquely across the line of the beaters. The buck remains behind a little while longer, and tears up the ground with his antlers, either from fury, or on purpose to efface all traces of his mate's lair. Then he stretches out his neck and begins to yelp loudly, imitating the barking of the hounds, so as to put them on a wrong track, a stratagem which, as old hunters will tell you, is often practised by the more cunning sort of stags. Then, throwing back his antlers, he disappears in the direction taken by his mate.

Nearer and nearer come the beaters. The crackling of the down-trodden brushwood and the shouts of the armed men mingle with the barking of the dogs. The forest suddenly teems with life. Startled by the cries of the pursuers, scores and scores of hares and foxes dart away among the trees in every direction. Sometimes a panting fox makes for an open hole, but bounds back terrified before the fiery eyes of the badger which inhabits it. Here and there a grey-streaked wolf skulks along among the scampering hares, standing still, from time to time, with his tail between his legs, to look round for some place of refuge, and then, as the pursuing voices come nearer, running off again with a dismal howl.

And yet no one pursues these animals; the huntsmen are after a greater, a nobler prey, a stag with mighty antlers. The beaters draw nearer and nearer; the dogs are already on the track; the blast of a horn indicates that they are hard upon the stag.

"Hurrah, hurrah!" resounds from afar. The beaters, advancing from different directions, halt and fall into their places, completely barring the way. The din of the hunt approaches rapidly.

Shortly afterwards, a peculiar rustling noise is heard. The hunted stags, with their young ones, break through the thicket and disappear. A broad chasm lies between them and the beaters. Quick as lightning, both the noble beasts bound over the fallen tree-stumps which lie in the way, and reach the chasm. The pursuit is both before and behind, but the danger is greatest from behind, for there the herculean hero, the bold Amazon, and the ardent Transylvanian huntsman head the chase. The buck leaps across the broad chasm without the slightest effort, raising both feet at the same time and throwing back his head; the doe also prepares for the leap, but her young ones shrink back in terror from the dizzy abyss. At this the poor doe collapses altogether; her knees give way beneath her, and bowing her head she remains beside her young. A dart, hurled by the Transylvanian huntsman, pierces the animal's side. The wounded beast utters a piteous cry, resembling the moan of a human being, but much more horrible. Even her slayer, moved by sudden compassion, forbears to touch her till she has ceased to suffer.

The two kids remain standing mournfully beside their dead dam, and allow themselves to be taken alive.

Meanwhile, the flying buck, shaking his heavy antlers with frenzied rage, rushes with bloodshot eyes upon the beaters who bar his way. The beaters, well knowing what this generally mild and timid beast is capable of in his valiant despair, throw themselves with one accord to the ground so as to allow him a free passage. A few of the dogs, indeed, go at him; but the now furious animal gores them with his antlers, hurls them bleeding to the ground, and then dashes off towards the swamps.

"After him!" roars the hero, in a voice of thunder, and he urges his horse towards the chasm over which the stag has just flown.

"Help, Jesu!" cry the terrified beaters on the opposite side; but the next moment their terror is changed to boisterous joy; the horse with his bold rider has come safely across.

Of the whole of his suite only two dared to imitate him, the stately Amazon and the gentle stripling. Both horses flew over the abyss at the same moment; the lady's long velvet robe flapped the air like a banner during the leap, and she threw a proud look behind her as if to inquire whether any man was bold enough to follow her.

Their suite thought it just as well not to risk their necks over such a piece of foolhardiness. Only the young Transylvanian made a dash at the chasm, although, as his horse had already injured one of its hind legs in the forest, he might have been quite sure that it was unequal to such an effort. Fortunately for him, just before the leap his saddle-girth burst and he was pitched across the chasm, just managing to scramble up the bank on the other side. His good steed, less fortunate, was only able to reach the opposite margin with its front feet; and after a wild and hopeless struggle, fell crashing back into the abyss below.

The three riders alone pursued the flying stag, which, now that he had got clear away, drew his pursuers after him into the marsh-lands. The hero was close upon his heels; the Amazon and her cavalier trotted a little on one side, for the forest was very dense here, and prevented them from going forward abreast. At last the stag forced his way into the thick reed-grown fens and took to the water, with the hero still in hot pursuit. The youthful riders were also on the point of plunging among the reeds, when two hideous, black monsters, fiercely snorting, suddenly confronted them. They had fallen foul of a brood of wild swine. The loathsome beasts had been lying, deaf to everything around them, in their bed of trampled reeds and slush, and only became aware of the presence of strangers when the youth's horse, in bounding over them, trampled to death a couple of the numerous litter that lay crouching by the side of the sow. The rest of the speckled little pigs scattered squeaking among the reeds, while the two old ones, savagely grunting, advanced to the attack. The sow fell at once upon the slayer of her little ones; but the boar remained, for a moment, on his haunches; his bristles stood erect; he pricked up his ears, gnashed his tusks together, then, wildly rolling his little bloodshot eyes, rushed at the Amazon with a dull roar.

The youth flung his javelin at the sow from afar with a steady hand. The dart whirred through the air and then stuck fast, upright and quivering, in the horny skull of the impetuous beast, the point piercing to the very brain. The sow, not unlike a huge unicorn, ran forward a little distance; but its eyes had lost their sight, and it staggered past the rider only to fall down dead without a sound, a little distance off.

The lady calmly awaited the furious boar. She held her dart with a reversed grasp, point downwards, and drew tight her horse's reins. The noble steed stood perfectly motionless, but he pointed his ears, threw a sidelong glance at the boar, and at the very instant when the rabid beast had passed beneath the horse's belly, and was about to rip it asunder with a powerful upward heave of his gleaming tusks, the well-trained charger suddenly reared and sprang over his assailant; at the same instant the Amazon deftly stooped and hurled her dart deep between the shoulder-blades of the wild boar.

The mortally-wounded beast sank bellowing down into the long grass. Once more he would have rushed upon the girl, but the youth sprang, quick as light, from his horse, and gave him the coup de grâce with his dagger.

At that moment the blast of a horn was heard in the distance. The hero had brought down the stag. The other horsemen, who now overtook the leaders of the chase (but only after making a wide circuit), welcomed the hero of the day with loud cries of "Eljen!"[4]

[4] Eljen! = Long live!

The herculean horseman was mud-stained from head to foot, nor did the others look much better; only the Amazon's robe was spotless and untorn. Even at such times a girl knows how to take care of her clothes!

When the hero beheld the wild beast slain by his niece, which, as it lay stretched out stark and stiff before him, looked even larger than life-size, he was at first deeply affected, as if he now, for the first time, fully recognized the greatness of the peril to which his darling had been exposed, and he exclaimed, not without alarm—"My Nelly!" but immediately afterwards he stretched out his hand towards her with a smile, and gazed round triumphantly upon the bystanders.

"Did I not say she had my blood in her veins?"

Every one hastened to pay an appropriate compliment to the radiant heroine, who appeared to experience, on this occasion, something of that peculiar satisfaction which only belongs to the lucky huntsman.

The hero again looked proudly around till his eye fell upon the young Transylvanian, who was now sitting on a fresh horse. Him he at once accosted, and pointing to the dead boar asked—

"Nicolas, my son! prithee tell me, does Transylvania produce such boars as that?"

Now, not to mention that the Transylvanian was already somewhat sore on account of his recent mishap, it was not to be expected that he, a Transylvanian born and bred, would for a single moment permit the assumption that any natural product of Hungary was superior to the like product of Transylvania to pass unchallenged, so he answered defiantly—

"Most certainly, and even finer ones."

Nothing at that moment could have more mightily offended the questioner than this curt answer. What! to tell an enthusiastic huntsman that he will find elsewhere game even finer than what he has just been lauding to the skies; game, too, which the darling of his heart has just slain! It was simply outrageous.

"Very well, my son, very well," growled the hero; "we shall see, we shall see!"

With obvious marks of annoyance on his face, he turned away from his contradictor, and ordered that the quarry should be conveyed at once to the hunting-box. Not another word did he exchange with any one but his Nelly; but her he literally overwhelmed with compliments and caresses.

It was already late in the afternoon when the hunters sat them down to a simple but tasty repast spread upon a huge and level grass-plot in the midst of the wood. Wine and merry jests soon set everything right again; they talked of everything at the same time, of war and the chase, of beautiful dames, of poetry (a fashionable subject then amongst the higher classes), and of the intrigues of courts; but even after all this blithe discourse the hero could not quite forget his grievance, and again he inquired impatiently—

"So there really is excellent sport in Transylvania?"

The young Transylvanian began to feel this perpetual harping on the same string a little tiresome. He had never meant to be taken so literally. The bald-pate, remarking the growing tension, sought to change the conversation, and raising his beaker proposed the following toast—

"God keep the Turks in a good humour."

But the hero angrily overturned his glass.

"God grant no such thing!" cried he savagely. "I'm not going to pray for the goggle-eyed dogs now, after fighting against them all my days. The man who is always trying to change masters is a fool."

"Yet the Turk is a very gracious master to us," put in the young Transylvanian, with an ambiguous smile.

"Ha, ha! didn't I say so? With you, even Turks are bigger and finer than they are with us. Of course! of course! In Transylvania everything flourishes better than in Hungary: the boars are bigger, the Turks are daintier, than they are in this part of the country."

At this moment David, the old huntsman, approached the hero and whispered something in his ear. The hero's features brightened as if by magic, and springing from his seat he cried—"Give me my gun!" then, holding his long, silver-mounted musket in his hand, he turned towards his guests with a radiant countenance. "All of you stay here. There is a colossal boar close at hand. You shall see him, my son," added he, tapping Nicolas on the shoulder. "Twice already have I vainly pursued the fellow; this time I mean to catch him. He is, I assure you, a descendant in the flesh of the Calydonian boar"—and with that, carried away by his enthusiasm, he hastened towards that part of the wood which the old huntsman had pointed out to him. David he presently ordered back: nobody was to accompany him.

"I know not how it is," whispered Helen to the youth at her side, "but I have a foreboding that my uncle is in danger. How I wish you were by his side!"

The youth said nothing in reply, but he instantly stood up and seized his gun.

"Pray don't go after him," remarked the Transylvanian, when he saw the young man about to hasten off. "You will only enrage him. He wants to do the whole business himself, and a man who has exterminated hordes of Tartars can easily dispose of a single brute beast."

And so they kept the youth back from going. The men went on drinking, and the lady remained in a brown study, glancing uneasily, from time to time, at the skirts of the wood.

Suddenly a shot resounded through the forest.

Every one put down his glass and glanced at his neighbour with a beating heart.

A few moments passed and then they heard the roar of a wild beast; but it was not the well-known roar of a mortally-wounded boar—no, it was a peculiar, gurgling, half-stifled sound that told of a fierce struggle.

"What is that?" was the question which rose to every one's lips. "Surely he would call out if he were in danger!" Then came a second shot. Every one instantly sprang to his feet. "What was that?" they cried. "Oh! let us go! let us go!" exclaimed the girl, trembling in every limb, and the whole company hastened in the direction of the shot.

Our hero had scarcely advanced four or five hundred paces into the thicket when, at the foot of a mighty oak, he came upon the wild beast he sought. It was a gigantic boar, with span-long, glistening black bristles on its back and forehead; the tough hide lay, like plated armour, in thick folds about its huge neck; its feet were long and sinewy. Lazily grunting, it was making for itself a bed beneath the bushes in which its shapeless body was stretched out at full length, and it had found a place for its enormous head by rooting out with its tusks bushes as thick as a man's arm.

On hearing approaching footsteps, the monster irritably raised its head, opened wide its jaws, and cast a sidelong glance at its assailant.

Our hero knelt upon one knee so as to take better aim, and fired at the wild beast just as it suddenly raised its head, so that the bullet pierced its neck instead of its skull, wounding it seriously but not mortally.

The wounded boar instantly sprang from its lair, and gnashing its crooked tusks together so that sparks flew from them, rushed upon its foe. It would not have been difficult to have avoided such a furious attack by a skilful side-spring; but our hero was not the man to get out of any opponent's way; so he threw his gun aside, tore his dagger from its sheath, faced the savage beast, and dealt at its head a blow sufficient to have cleaved it to the chine; but the tremendous blow fell short upon one of the monster's tusks, and the dagger, coming into contact with the stone-like bone, broke off short at the hilt.

Half stunned by the shock, the boar only succeeded in grazing the hero's leg, whereupon the latter seized the beast by both ears and a desperate struggle began. Weaponless as he was, he grappled with the monster, which, grunting and roaring, twisted its head about in every direction; but the hero's iron grasp held fast the broad ears of the monster with invincible force, and when the boar tried to overturn its assailant by suddenly going down on its haunches, the hero, with a swift and tremendous blow of his clenched fist, hurled it backwards, falling himself indeed at the same time, but uppermost, and quickly recovering his balance pressed down with his whole weight upon the boar (which valiantly but vainly continued struggling against superior strength), and triumphantly bestrided its huge paunch.

The boar now appeared to be completely beaten; its glassily glaring eyes were protruding, the blood streamed from its jaws and nostrils; it had ceased to bellow, but a rattling sound came from its throat; its legs writhed convulsively, its snout hung flabbily down; it was plain that it could not hold out much longer.

The hero had now only to call to his companions, who were close at hand, but that would have been too humiliating; or to wait till the boar bled to death, but that would have been too tiresome. Suddenly he recollected that he had a Turkish knife in his girdle, and, meaning to put a speedy end to the long tussle, he pressed down the boar's head with his knee and felt for his knife with one hand.

At that moment the report of a gun[5] resounded somewhere in the wood. The down-trodden boar suddenly seemed to feel that the pressure of his opponent's hands and knees was slackening, and rallying all his remaining strength, threw off his assailant and dealt him one last blow with his tusks, and that blow was fatal, for it ripped open the man's throat.

[5] Some pretend that this shot was fired by a secret assassin sent from Vienna. Many doubt whether a shot was fired at all.

His kinsmen and friends, hastening to the spot, found the hero in the throes of death by the side of the dead boar. They rushed up with loud lamentations, and bound up his throat with their kerchiefs.

"It is nothing, my children; it is nothing!" he gasped, and expired.

"Alas! poor warrior!" sighed those who stood around him.

"Alas! my country!" sobbed Helen, raising her tearful eyes to heaven.

The gala-day had become a day of mourning; the hunt a funeral.

The guests sorrowfully followed the body of their best friend to Csakatorny. Only the bald-head took the opposite direction.

"Didn't I say that life was meant for other and better things?" murmured he. "Well, well! the world is large, and men are many. I'll go a kingdom further on."

Thus died Nicolas Zrinyi[6] the younger, his country's greatest poet and bravest son.

[6] It is not without reason that Jókai alludes to Zrinyi as "the hero." He was one of the greatest warriors of his day (1618-1666), and his victories over the Turks were many and brilliant. As a poet he stands high, even judged by a modern standard. His chief works are his great epic, Szigeti veszedelem, and his religious poems, Keresztre, "On the Cross!"

Thus died the man whom Fortune always respected, the darling, the bulwark, the ornament of his fatherland.

In vain will you now seek for his hunting-box or his castle. All has perished—the name, the family, nay, the very remembrance of the hero.

The general and the statesman are forgotten; only one part of him still survives, only one part of him will live eternally—the poet.

CHAPTER II.
THE HOUSE AT EBESFALVA.

And now we too will go "a kingdom further on."

Let us go one kingdom forward and four years backward. We are in Transylvania; the year is 1662.

A simple country-house stands before us, at the lower end of Ebesfalva, being almost the last house in the place. Evidently the architect of this edifice had rather an eye to usefulness than beauty, for each part of it has a style of its own, and differs from every other part in shape, size, and quality. On both sides stand stables, cow-houses, wagon-sheds, fowl-houses, and high-gabled, straw-thatched sheepfolds. In the rear lies an orchard, from which the pointed roof of a beehive peeps forth, and in the middle of the courtyard stands the whitewashed dwelling-house, surrounded by shady nut trees, beneath which stands a round table improvised from a millstone. A stone wall separates the courtyard from a thrashing-floor, in which we see incipient haycocks piled up into hillocks, and enormous stacks of corn, on the topmost point of the tallest of which an adventurous peacock shrieks exultantly. It is evening; the herds are returning home; the oxen are being unyoked from the huge, maize-laden wagons; the herds, jingling their bells, come back from the pastures; the swine jostle one another in the narrow gateway and rush grunting to their troughs; the cocks and hens are squabbling in the large nut tree, where they have taken up their quarters for the night; far away sounds the vesper bell, and further still the song of the village beauty, on her way to the spring; the hands see to their cattle: one carries a freshly-mown bundle of millet-grass across the farmyard, another bends beneath the weight of a huge pitcher, filled to overflowing with yellowish, fragrant, foaming milk, fresh from the udder. Through the kitchen window is to be seen the merry sparkle of a roaring fire, over which a girl with round, red cheeks holds a large pan; the fragrant odour of the savoury mess spreads far and wide. And now the meal is served on large, green platters; the family take their places round the millstone table, and eat with a good appetite, the white watch-dogs looking up respectfully all the while at the hasty gobblers. Then the dishes are cleared away, and the maize is shot out of the wagons beneath the projecting eaves. The peasant girls come trooping in from the neighbouring villages to help to husk the pods, and sit them down upon the odorous heaps. Some merry wag or other scoops out a ripe pumpkin, carves eyes and a mouth in it, sticks a burning light inside, and hangs it up by way of a lantern, and the girls shriek and pretend to be terribly frightened. Then the more handy lads, sitting on over-turned bread-baskets, plait long wreaths out of the maize-husks; and while the tranquil toil proceeds, merry songs are sung and fairy tales are told of golden-haired princesses and persecuted orphans. Now and again the fun requires a kiss or two to keep it going, and loud screams proclaim the daring deed to all the world. The little children cry out for joy if they chance to find an occasional scarlet or mottled maize knob among so many yellow ones. And there they sit and tell tales, and sing and laugh at the merest nothings till all the maize is husked, and then they wish one another good-night, and, chatting and bawling, linger over a long, last good-bye; and then they go singing aloud along their homeward way, partly from fun and partly from pure light-heartedness.

Then every one enters his house, shuts the door behind him, and puts out the fire; the sheep-dogs hold long dialogues in the village streets; the crescent moon rises; the night watchman begins to cry the hours in long-drawn rhythm; the others sleep and do not hear his golden saws. Only in one window of the manor-house a light is shining. There some one still is up.

The watchers are a grey-haired, venerable dame and a much younger serving-maid. The old lady is reading from a worn-out psalter, every line of which she already knows by heart; the serving-maid, as if not content with a long day's work, has sat herself down to her distaff, and draws long threads out of the silky flax which she heckled yesterday and carded to-day.

"Go to bed, Clara," said the old woman kindly, "it is enough if I remain up. Besides, you have to rise early to-morrow morning."

"I could not sleep till our mistress has returned," replied the girl, continuing her work. "Even when all the men are in, I always feel so frightened till she has come home, but when once she is here, I feel as safe as if we were behind the walls of a fortress."

"Quite right, my child; she is, indeed, worth many men. Shame upon it that the cares and anxieties which it behoves a man to bear should rest upon her shoulders! She has to look after the whole of this vast household, and, as if that were not enough, she must needs farm the estates of her sisters, the ladies Banfi and Teleki. How many lawsuits must she not carry on with this neighbour and with that! But they've met their match in her, I'll warrant. She appears in person before the judges and pleads so shrewdly, that our best advocates might take lessons from her. And then, too, when my Lord Banfi came capering hither with his killing ways, some little time ago, fancying that our gracious lady was one of your straw-widows, how she sent him away with a flea in his ear! The worthy gentleman did not know whether he stood on his head or his heels, and yet he is one of the chief men in the land! And afterwards, too, when, out of revenge, he saddled us with that freebooter of a captain and his lanzknechts, don't you recollect how our lady had them all flogged out of the village, and how the rascals took to their heels when they saw our gracious mistress herself march out against them, blunderbuss in hand?"

"Would that they had not scampered off quite so quickly," interrupted the girl, with a burst of enthusiasm. "I'd have laid the poker about their ears, I warrant you."

"Hark'e, Clara! when a woman has been forced to keep house alone for so long a time, and to defend herself and family by the might of her own arms, she comes at last to feel herself a man all over. That is why our mistress looks as stern as if she had never been a girl."

"But tell me, Aunt Magdalene," returned the girl, drawing her chair nearer, "shall we never see master again?"

"Alas! God only knows," replied the old dame, sighing. "How can I tell when the poor fellow will be released from his captivity? I always had a presentiment that it would come to this, and I said so, but no one heeded me. It happened in this wise. In the days when our Prince George[7] of blessed memory, not content with his own land, must needs set out to conquer Poland at the head of the Hungarian chivalry, our good master, Sir Michael, went with him. Oh, how I tried—and our lady too—to keep him back. They were a newly-wedded couple then, and the good gentleman himself had little heart for war—he always preferred to sit at home among his books, his water-mills, and his fruit trees—but honour called him and he went. I begged him to at least take my son Andy with him. God gave me that thought, for otherwise we should never have heard again of our gracious master, for when his Highness, our Sovereign Prince George, beheld the bestial hordes of Tartars marching out against him, he himself galloped off home, leaving his nobility captives in the hands of the heathen, who dragged them off in fetters to Tartary. My son Andy, who was of no use to them, for he was badly wounded in the thigh, and therefore could not work, they sent home; he brought the tidings that Sir Michael was sickening in sad confinement, and the Tartars, perceiving how high he stood in the esteem of his fellow-prisoners, took him for their prince, and set upon his head such a frightfully high ransom, that all his property turned into gold could not have paid it off. Nevertheless our noble lady rejoiced exceedingly when she heard that her husband was still alive, and ran hither and thither and left no stone unturned to raise the money. But neither her kind friends nor her dear relations would lend her anything—no, not on the best security, for no one willingly lends on land in time of war. So she sold her treasures, her bridal dower which her mother had given her; all the beautiful silver plate, jewelled bracelets, and embossed gold and pearl ornaments which her ancestors had handed down to her; her large satin-trimmed, fur-embroidered mantle and her filagreed mente[8]; her rings, agraffes, and hairpins; her carbuncle bracelets and orient pearls; her diamond ear-rings—in short, everything which could be turned into money. Yet even all that came to not one-half of what the Tartar demanded, so what does she do but farm the estates of her sisters, plough up the fallow-lands, and cut down the forests to make way for corn-fields. To find time for more work, she turned night into day. No sort of husbandry whereby money could be made escaped her attention. At one time she laid down clay-pits and dug out quarries, the products of which found customers in the neighbourhood. At another time she bred prize oxen and sold them to the Armenian herdsmen. She visited all the markets in person; carried her wine as far as Poland, her corn to Hermannstadt, her honey, wax, and preserved fruits to Kronstadt—nay, in order to obtain a fair price for her wools, she crossed the border and took them as far as Debreczin. And how frugally she fared all the time! It is true she never stinted her servants in anything, but she seemed to weigh every morsel that went into her own mouth. At harvest time she would have nothing cooked for herself at home for weeks together, so that she might remain in the fields all day. A piece of bread which would have been too little for a child was all she ate, and her drink was a bowl of spring water; yet, believe me, Clara, we never once saw her in a bad humour, and never did a single bitter tear fall upon the dry bread which her loyalty to her husband constrained her to live upon."

[7] George Rakoczy I., Prince of Transylvania, 1630-1648.

[8] Mente. A fur pelisse.

"And why was all this?"

"I'll tell you, my child. The money which she thus scraped together by toil and frugality, year by year, is regularly sent by Andy to Tartary, in part payment of Sir Michael's ransom. At such times our dear lady grudges herself every morsel she puts into her mouth."

The old nurse wiped the tears from her eyes.

"And what then was the amount of the ransom?"

"That's more than I can tell you, my daughter. Andy always brings back the parchment on which the Tartar marks down the amount received and the amount still due. Our noble lady keeps it herself. I, of course, never ask any questions about it."

The girl was silent and appeared to be reflecting; doubly quick the spindle flew round in her hands, and her heart beat faster too.

"My son Andy is there now," said the old dame, weary of the long silence. "I expect him back every hour now; from him we shall hear something certain."

At that moment the gate outside creaked on its hinges, a little gig rolled boisterously into the courtyard, and a joyful barking and yelping told that an old acquaintance had arrived.

"Our mistress has come," cried the two servants, rising from their seats, and at the same moment the door opened and Anna Bornemissa, Michael Apafi's wife, stepped in.

A stately woman of almost masculine stature; the outline of her slim but vigorous and muscular figure is plainly visible through her simple grey linen dress. She cannot be more than thirty-six, but her face is of those on which time leaves no trace until extreme old age. Her features are deeply tanned by the sun, but the velvet down of well-preserved youth and the natural ruddiness of perfect health lend a peculiar loveliness to that extraordinary countenance. Her look surprises, dominates, subdues; the charm which lies concealed there appears not so much in the features as in the expression—her face is the mirror of a noble soul. Not as if there was anything hard, rough, stiff, or masculine in the features themselves: on the contrary. Her brow is finely arched, delicately smooth, unobscured as yet by a single wrinkle, and yet so full of majesty; her eyelashes are most exquisitely pencilled; the shape of the eyes is enchanting, those large, not exactly wild-black, but rather deep, bright, nut-brown eyes, half hidden by their long eyelashes, and in those eyes there is so much fire, so much sparkle, and yet so much coldness. The delicate nose, the oval face, every feature is so femininely regular. Even the mouth when closed is so sweet, so tender, the other features seem to use violence towards it to prevent its smile from spreading further, and yet when it opens, how haughty, how commanding it becomes.

"What, still up?" cried she to her servants.

The voice is pleasantly sonorous, although affliction has somewhat deadened its lower notes.

"We thought it best to stay up, in case your ladyship might be kept waiting outside," replied the old woman, tripping round her mistress and taking the heavy mantle from her shoulders.

"Has not Andy yet returned?" asked Lady Apafi, in a low, melancholy voice.

"Not yet; but I expect him every moment."

Lady Apafi sighed deeply. How much of stifled grief, vanishing hope, and patient renunciation was concealed in that sigh! The recollection of the manifold sufferings of her wretched life rose up before that heroic woman's soul. She called to mind her brave struggle with fate, with her fellow-men, and with her own heart; her love, grafted on pain, had brought forth not gladness but ungratified longing. Another toilsome year of her life had passed away. With the self-sacrificing industry of a bee, she had hoarded up, morsel by morsel, her little store, and who could tell how many years would be requisite to complete it? And till then nothing but toil, patience, and unrequited love.

Lady Apafi, not without an effort, resumed her habitual coldness, wished her servants good-night, and was already on her way to her chamber, when Clara rushed forward and kissed her mistress's hand. The lady looked at her with astonishment. She felt that a burning tear had fallen on her hand, which the girl held fast and pressed to her lips.

"What ails you?" asked Dame Apafi, much surprised.

"Nothing," replied the girl, sobbing; "it is only that I feel so sorry for your ladyship. I have long had an idea in my head, but have never yet dared to express it. We have often talked about our master's captivity and his grievous ransom. We village girls have all of us got necklaces of gold and silver coins which are no good to us. So we have agreed among ourselves to club together all this money now lying idle and give it to your ladyship towards our master's ransom. It may not be much, but still is something."

Lady Apafi, her eyes glistening with involuntary tears, pressed hard the peasant girl's trembling hand.

"I thank thee, my girl," she said, deeply touched. "I prize thy offer more highly than if my sister Banfi had placed ten thousand gold chains at my disposal. But God will also be my helper. In Him is my trust."

At that moment the trampling of horses was heard in the courtyard and the dogs fell to barking.

"Who can that be? Robbers, perhaps!" stammered the old nurse, and neither of the two servants durst approach the door.

Then Dame Apafi took the light from the table, stepped to the door, opened it, and looked out into the courtyard.

"Who's there?" she cried, loudly and clearly.

"We!—I mean to say I," returned a hesitating voice, which all three immediately recognized as Andy's.

"Oh, 'tis you? Come hither quickly!" said Lady Apafi joyfully, pushing Andy into the room, who was plainly very much confused, for he kept on twirling about his hat in his hands, and looked sheepishly at the floor.

"Well, did you see him and speak to him? Is he well?" asked Lady Apafi impetuously.

"Yes, he is quite well," replied the man, glad to have found his voice again; "he respectfully kisses your ladyship's hand. He also bade me say that God is good!"

"But what do you keep looking sideways for? At whom are the dogs barking?"

"At the black horse perhaps; it is a long time since they saw him."

"And you gave the purse to the Mirza?"

Instead of answering this question, Andy began to fumble about in the pocket of his sheepskin jacket, and as this pocket was very high up, narrow and deep, his features expressed the most exquisite torture till he had fished up the parchment, and he trembled all over as he handed it to his mistress.

"Is there still much in arrear? What says the Mirza?" asked Lady Apafi, with a very shaky voice.

"There is not much more. One might even say there is very little," replied Andy, with downcast eyes, fumbling in his confusion with the rim of his hat.

"But how much, how much then?" they all cried together.

Andy got very red.

"Well—well, there is nothing at all!"

He said this in a broken voice, and with that he burst into a loud and long roar of laughter, and immediately after wept as if his heart would break.

The mind of Dame Apafi instantly grasped the whole truth.

"Speak, man!" cried she passionately, seizing the fellow by the shoulder; "you have brought my husband back with you?"

Andy waved his fist behind him and nodded his head; he laughed and wept at the same time; but, to save his life, he could not have uttered a word.

Dame Apafi, with a sob and a cry of boundless joy, rushed to the door which already stood ajar. Some one had been waiting there and listening all the time; it was Michael Apafi, her long expected, often bewailed consort.

"Michael! my beloved husband!" cried the woman, trembling with emotion; and half swooning, half beside herself, she fell upon her husband's neck, murmuring unintelligible words of love, joy, and tenderness.

Apafi pressed her to his breast. She embraced him convulsively; no other sound was to be heard but a deep sobbing.

"Thou art mine!" she stammered, after a long pause, when the tempest of her emotion had somewhat subsided and she was more herself.

"I am thine," cried Apafi; "and I swear that nothing in the world shall ever tear me from thee again!"

"O God, what bliss!" cried Anna, raising her streaming eyes to heaven. "What joy thou hast brought back to me!" she stammered once more, leaning on her husband and hiding her face in his bosom.

"And if the whole world were mine," continued Apafi, "even then I should not be rich enough to requite thy devotion. I take God to witness, that if I could call a kingdom my own I would give it thee, and think it but a beggarly recompense."

The joyful, loving pair, happy beyond all expression, were then left alone with their joy and happiness. Late into the night burned the taper in their window. How much, how endlessly much they had to say to one another!

CHAPTER III.
A PRINCE IN HIS OWN DESPITE.

A year had elapsed since Michael Apafi's return home. There was a great hubbub in the house at Ebesfalva. One team of horses had scarcely had time to rest, when off went another at full gallop along the high-road; the servants themselves were sent hither and thither; some great trouble had evidently visited the house, but for all that, not a glum or sorrowful face was to be seen.

To those who could question discreetly, it was presently whispered that the wife of Michael Apafi expected every moment to be delivered of a child.

Good Sir Michael never quitted the chamber of his suffering consort. The gossips said that the sight of her husband was a great consolation to the invalid lady, and that he never ceased whispering sweet, caressing words into her ear.

Suddenly a wild tumult filled the courtyard, and, to the great terror of the servants assembled there, four-and-twenty mounted Albanians, armed with swords and lances, and headed by a big-headed Turkish Aga, dashed up to the door.

"Is your master at home?" cried the Aga dictatorially to Andy, who stood rooted to the spot with fright. "For if he is," continued he, without waiting for an answer, "tell him to come here. I have something to say to him."—Andy still could not find his voice.—"If, however," proceeded the Turk emphatically, "if he won't come, I'll go and fetch him."

And with these words he sprang from his horse, and was crossing the threshold, when Andrew plucked up sufficient courage to stammer—"But, most gracious sir ..." The Turk turned savagely upon him.

"It were better, my son, if you did not chatter so much!" said he, and forthwith he plunged into the vestibule.

At that very moment Apafi, startled by the clatter of the sabres, came out of his wife's chamber. He was not a little alarmed when he found himself face to face with this unexpected guest.

"Are you Michael Apafi?" asked the Turk wrathfully.

"The same, at your service, gracious sir," returned Apafi meekly.

"Good! My master, his Highness, the famous Ali Pasha, commands you to instantly get into your carriage, and come to my lord's camp at Kis-Selyk without a single attendant."

"This is a pretty go," murmured Apafi to himself. "Pardon me, worthy Aga," added he aloud; "just now it is quite impossible for me to comply with your wish. My wife lies in the pangs of child-birth; the issues of life and death depend on the next five minutes. I cannot leave her now."

"Send for a doctor if your wife is ill; and recollect that to bring down the wrath of the illustrious Pasha on your head is not the proper way to cure her."

"Grant me but one day, and then I don't care if I lose my head."

"You won't lose your head if you obey instantly; but otherwise I'll not answer for the consequences. Come! don't be a fool."

Anna heard in her chamber the dialogue that was going on outside, and anxiously called her consort. Apafi quitted the Aga and hastened to his wife.

"What is it?" asked the sufferer, much disturbed. How pale she was at that moment!

"Nothing, nothing, my darling! Some one has sent for me, but I don't mean to go."

But Lady Apafi had perceived the points of the Turkish lances through the rifts of the window-curtains, and she cried despairingly—

"Michael, they want to carry you off!" Then she clasped her husband convulsively to her heart. "I won't let you go, Michael! I won't lose you again. You shall not be dragged off into captivity. Rather let them kill me."

"Calm yourself, dear child," said Apafi soothingly. "I really don't know what they want me for. I have certainly done nothing to offend these good people. I suppose it is an attempt to levy black-mail. I'll satisfy them."

"Alas! I have an evil foreboding. My heart fails me. Some calamity threatens you," stammered the sick woman; then, bursting into a violent fit of sobbing, she threw herself on her husband's bosom. "Michael, I shall never see you again."

Meanwhile, the Aga outside began to feel bored, so he fell to hammering at the door, and cried—

"Apafi! hi! Apafi! come out! I may not enter your wife's chamber, for that would be an abomination to a servant of Allah; but if you don't come out at once I'll burn your house down."

"I'd better go, perhaps," said Apafi, trying to soothe his wife with kisses. "My refusal would only make matters worse for us. They are sure to let me go. I shall be back in the twinkling of an eye."

"I shall never see you again," gasped Anna. She was near to swooning.

Apafi took advantage of this momentary fainting fit, plucked up his courage, left his wife, and joined the Aga with streaming eyes.

"Well, sir, let us be off," said the Turk. "But surely you won't go without your sword, just as if you were some poor peasant," continued he fiercely. "Go back, I say; gird on your sword, and tell your wife that she need fear nothing."

Apafi returned to his room, and as he took down his large silver-embossed sword (it was hanging up on the wall right over the bed) he said cheerily to his wife—

"Look, now! there can scarcely be anything unpleasant in store for me, or they would not have bidden me buckle on my sword. Trust in God!"

"I do, I do trust in Him," she replied, convulsively kissing her husband's hand and pressing it to her heaving bosom. Then she broke forth again into bitter lamentations. "Apafi, if I die, do not forget me."

"Alas!" cried Apafi; then bitterly cursing his fate, he tore himself out of his consort's arms, and wishing all Turks, born and to be born, at the bottom of the sea, rushed violently out of the room.

Then he threw himself into his carriage, and looked neither up nor down, but wrestled all the way with the one thought that if his wife were now to die, he would not be able to receive her parting words; and this thought conjured up before him a whole series of images each more lugubrious than the other.

He and his escort had scarcely left Ebesfalva a mile behind them when the Turks caught sight of a horseman dashing after them at full tilt, obviously bent on overtaking them, and they called Apafi's attention to the fact. At first he absolutely refused to listen to them; but when they told him that the horseman came from the direction of Ebesfalva, he made the carriage stop and awaited the messenger.

It was Andy who came galloping up, with waving handkerchief and loosely hanging reins.

"Well, Andrew! what has happened?" cried Apafi with a beating heart to his servant while he was still a long way off.

"Good news, sir!" cried Andy: "our most gracious lady has just now given birth to a son, and she herself, thank God! is quite out of danger."

"Blessed be the name of the Lord!" cried Apafi, with a lightened heart; and as he dismissed the messenger, the idea which was at the bottom of all his griefs vanished from his brain, and with it all his griefs also. He thought of his new-born son, and in the light of that thought he began to regard his Turkish escort with other eyes: they now seemed to him as good, honourable, civilized a set of people as it was possible to find on the face of the earth.

It was late at night when they reached Ali Pasha's camp. The sentinels slept like badgers; you might have carried off the whole camp bodily so far as they were concerned. Apafi had to wait in front of the Pasha's tent till the latter had huddled on his clothes. The curtains of the tent were then drawn aside, and he was invited to enter. Ali Pasha was sitting with folded arms on a carpet spread out in the back part of the tent; behind him stood two gorgeously-dressed Moors with drawn scimitars. The outlines of a couple of figures were distinctly visible through the tapestry wall which separated the back part of the tent from the audience chamber—no doubt the Pasha's wives, on the alert to pick up something of what was going on.

"Art thou that same Michael Apafi who was for some years the prisoner of the Tartar Mirza?" asked the Pasha, after the usual greetings.

"The same, most gracious Pasha, to whom also the Khan compassionately remitted the remainder of the ransom money."

"Think no more of that. The Mirza remitted the remainder of the ransom money because my master, the Sublime Sultan, commanded him so to do, and the illustrious Padishah will do yet more for thee."

"Wonderingly I listen, and gratefully; not knowing how I have deserved such grace," returned Apafi.

"The Sublime Sultan has heard how honestly, discreetly, and manfully thou hast borne thy doleful captivity, and how thou didst win the hearts of thy fellow-captives, insomuch that they all looked up to thee, though among slaves there is no distinction of rank. For which cause therefore, and also having regard to the fact that the present Prince of Transylvania, John Kemeny, would fain rebel against the Sublime Porte, the illustrious Padishah, I say, has for these reasons resolved to raise thee without delay to the throne of Transylvania and keep thee there."

"Me! You are pleased to jest with your servant, most gracious sir!" stuttered Apafi.

His eyes were blinded by excess of light.

"Nay, thou hast not the slightest cause to be amazed thereat. The Padishah has but to nod, and pashas and princes become slaves, beggars, or corpses. He nods again, and beggars and slaves rise up into their places. Thou art highly favoured, for thou hast found grace before him. Use it discreetly then, but beware of abusing it!"

"But, most gracious sir, does it occur to you how I'm to become a prince?"

"Leave that to me. I'll make thee one."

"But Transylvania has got another prince, John Kemeny."

"Leave that to me also. I'll dispose of him."

Apafi shrugged his shoulders. He felt that he had never been in such a mess in all his life.

"My wife was quite right in her presentiment that a great misfortune was about to befall me," thought he to himself.

The Pasha began again.

"Summon therefore a Diet at once, so that the installation may take place as speedily as possible."

"I summon a Diet! I should like to know who would appear to my summons. Why, sir, I am the least amongst the gentry of the land; people will laugh in my face, and say that I am mad."

"In that case they will soon see that it is they who are mad."

"But how am I to send out the writs? for, excepting the land of the Szeklers,[9] Kemeny[10] holds every place."

[9] Szeklers (Siculi). The Szeklers were originally a military colony placed, at the beginning of the twelfth century, in the waste lands of Transylvania, which they engaged to defend against the incursions of the pagan Pechenegs, on being exempted from every other obligation.

[10] John Kemeny, Prince of Transylvania, 1661-1662.

"Then summon the Szeklers. They, at any rate, will come."

"But I don't even know their chief-men, for I am not a born Szekler. The only persons I know amongst them are Stephen Kun, John Daczo, and Stephen Nalaczi."

"Then summon hither Stephen Kun, John Daczo, and Stephen Nalaczi, if you consider them fit and proper persons."

Apafi began to scratch his head.

"But supposing they do appear, where shall we hold our Diet? There is no place for us. At Klausenburg the governor, my brother-in-law, Denis Banfi, is my sworn enemy, while at Hermannstadt lies John Kemeny in person."

"We can assemble here in Kis-Selyk."

Harassed as he was, Apafi could not help laughing aloud.

"Why, here there is not a house large enough to hold thirty men," cried he energetically.

"What! is there not the church?" interrupted the Pasha. "If that house be sufficiently fine for the honour of God, I suppose it will do to honour men in!"

Apafi saw no further escape.

"Can you write?" asked the Pasha.

"Yes, I can do that," replied Apafi, sighing deeply.

"Very well, for I cannot. So sit down and issue the writs for a Diet."

A slave then brought in a writing-table, a scroll of parchment, and an inkhorn. Apafi sat down like a lamb about to be slaughtered, and began with a caligraphic flourish so large that the Turk sprang up in affright, and asked what it meant.

"It is a W," answered Apafi.

"You won't leave any room for the remaining letters."

"That is only the initial letter, the others will be much smaller."

"Read aloud then what you are writing."

Apafi wrote with a trembling hand and read: "Whereas—"

The Pasha furiously tore away the parchment and roared at him.

"Plague take all your whereases and inasmuch-ases! Why all this beating about the bush? Write the usual formula—'We, Michael Apafi, Prince of Transylvania, command you, wretched slaves, by these presents, to appear incontinently before us at Kis-Selyk, under pain of death.'"

Apafi was brought almost to his wits' ends before he could make the Pasha comprehend that it was not usual to correspond in this style with free Hungarian noblemen. At last the Pasha allowed him to write his letter in his own way, but took care that its purport should be emphatic and dictatorial. As soon as Apafi had written the letters, Ali Pasha put a Ciaus on horseback, and sent him off at full speed to all those to whom the writ was addressed.

"And now," said Apafi to himself, sighing deeply as he wiped his pen, "and now I should like to see the man who could tell me what will come of it all!"

"Till the Diet assembles," said the Pasha, "you will remain here as my guest."

"Cannot I go home then to my wife and child?" asked Apafi, with a beating heart.

"To give us the slip, eh? A likely tale. That is always the way with you Hungarian nobles. Those we won't have at any price are always dangling about our necks, and begging and praying for the princely diadem; and those we would place on the throne take to their heels as if we were going to impale them." And with that the Pasha assigned Apafi a tent and dismissed him, at the same time giving secret but strict orders to the guard of honour stationed at the door of the new Prince, not to lose sight of him for an instant.

"I'm nicely in for it now," sighed Apafi with the resignation of despair.

His solitary hope now was, that the deputies whom he had summoned would ignore his informal mandate by failing to appear.

A few days afterwards, as Apafi still lay on his camp bedstead in the early morning, Stephen Kun, John Daczo, and Stephen Nalaczi, with all the other noble Szeklers to whom the circular had been sent, suddenly walked into his tent.

"In Heaven's name!" cried Apafi, starting up, "why have you come hither?"

"Your Highness ordered us to come hither," replied Nalaczi.

"True; but you would have shown far greater wisdom if you had kept away. What are you going to do?"

"Solemnly install your Highness, and, if need be, defend you also in the good old Szekler fashion," replied Stephen Kun.

"You are too few for that, my brothers," objected Apafi.

"Pray be so good as to cast a glance outside the tent!" replied Nalaczi, drawing aside the curtain and pointing to a band of Szeklers armed with sabres and lances, who had remained outside the tent. "We have marched out cum gentibus, to prove to your Highness that if we have accepted you as our Prince, we have not done so simply by way of a jest."

Apafi shrugged his shoulders and began to draw on his boots; but he was so dazed all the while, that almost an hour elapsed before he was half dressed. He put on every article of clothing the wrong way, and had to take it off again. Thus, for example, he had slipped into his mantle before he even thought of his vest.

Several hundred gentlemen had met together in Selyk at his bidding, a thing he had never expected, still less desired.

When Ali Pasha came out of his tent, he went towards the deputies, took Apafi by the hand in the presence of them all, threw over his shoulders a broad, new green velvet mente,[11] put an ermine embroidered cap on his head, and explained to the assembled crowd that henceforth they were to regard him as their legitimate Prince; whereupon the Szeklers roared out deafening "Eljens," raised Apafi on their shoulders, and hoisted him on to a daïs covered with velvet which Ali Pasha had expressly provided for the occasion.

[11] Mente. See Note 2, p. 21.

"And now," said the Pasha, "go to church, administer the oaths to the Prince according to ancient custom, and yourselves take the oath of allegiance. I have ordered the bells to be rung myself, and you had better have a mass sung in the usual way."

"Your pardon, but I am a Calvinist," protested Apafi.

"So much the better. The ceremony will be over all the quicker, and will cost less trouble. There is the Rev. Francis Magyari, he will preach the sermon."

After that Apafi let them do whatever they liked with him, merely twirling his long moustaches hither and thither, and shrugging his shoulders whenever they asked him questions.

Nalaczi and the other Szeklers thought good to treat him in church with all the respect due to a sovereign prince, and the Rev. Francis Magyari improvised a powerful sermon, in which he prophesied, in a voice of thunder, that the God of Israel who had called David from the sheepfolds to a throne, and exalted him over all his adversaries, would now also graciously maintain the cause of His elect even though his enemies were as numerous as the grass of the field or the sand on the sea-shore.

This modest little house of prayer could never have thought that it would have been the scene of a Diet and a coronation; and as for Apafi, not even in his wildest dreams had it ever occurred to him that such things might befall him.

He had eyes and ears neither for the coronation nor for the sermon, but kept on thinking of his wife and child. What would become of them, poor creatures; where would they be able to hide their heads when John Kemeny had put him in prison, confiscated his estates, and driven them out of house and home? It next occurred to him that, somewhere in Szeklerland, he had a brother, Stephen Apafi, with whom he had always been on the most friendly terms, who would certainly take them under his roof if he saw them destitute. These thoughts made him so forgetful of everything around him, that when at the close of the sermon all present arose and intoned the Te Deum, he too got up, oblivious of the fact that all this ceremony was being held in his special honour.

Then some one behind him placed two hands on his shoulders, pressed him down into his seat again, and a well-known voice growled into his ear—

"Keep your seat."

Apafi looked in the direction of the voice, and fell back in his chair completely overcome. His brother Stephen was actually standing behind him.

"You here too?" said Apafi, deeply distressed.

"I was a little late," returned Stephen, "but quite early enough after all, and I'll venture to remain here till you tell me to go."

"So you have also resolved to plunge into destruction?"

"Brother," said Stephen, "we are in the hands of God; but something has been put into our own hands also which may have a say in the matter," and he touched the hilt of his sword. "Kemeny has lost the affection of the greater part of the country; why I need not now tell you. Your cause is righteous, nor do you lack the means of success."

"But if it should turn out otherwise, what would become of my wife? Have you not seen her?"

"I came straight from her—that is why I came so late."

"What! You have spoken to her? What did she say about my evil case? Was she not much troubled?"

"Not in the least. On the contrary, she was very glad of it, and said that Transylvania could not have got a better prince; that you deserved this honour far more than any of the magnates who practise nothing but tyranny and extortion, and that she much regretted her illness prevented her from assisting you with her sympathy and counsel."

"Well, I should have liked it better if the election had fallen upon her," said Apafi, half in jest and half in anger.

"Take heed to yourself," answered Stephen archly; "the lady is already so much used to ruling the roost, that we shall live to see her put the Prince's diadem on her own head, unless you plant it right firmly on your temples. Nay, brother, don't look so serious; I was but in jest!"

But does not the proverb say that there is many a true word spoken in jest?

CHAPTER IV.
A BANQUET WITH THE PRINCE OF TRANSYLVANIA.

Meanwhile, his Highness, Prince John Kemeny, was faring sumptuously at Hermannstadt. This gentleman's darling vice was gluttony—even if the whole machinery of state were to fall to pieces in consequence, he would not have risen from table, and amongst all his counsellors his cook always stood highest.

And now, too, we find him at dinner. He has converted the Town-hall to his own use, and it is thronged by his suite. In the courtyard we see spurred and iron-clad cuirassiers flirting with the Saxon serving-maids; German musketeers, professedly on guard, who have left their muskets standing against the doorposts, in order to cultivate friendly relations with the scullions removing the dishes. With brimming glasses raised on high, they jocosely warble Hungarian airs picked up on the spur of the moment, improvising at the same time an absurdly artless sort of dance, in which one leg performs aimless aërial gyrations. On the other hand, the heydukes of the Hungarian bodyguard, dressed in yellow dolmans with green facings, sit morosely in twos and threes against the wall, not even condescending to look at the bumpers of wine thrust, from time to time, into their hands; but gravely tossing it down at a single gulp into its proper place, returning the empty pocal to the friendly butler, who has as much as he can do to keep his feet; keeps on offering the noble fluid to Tom, Dick, and Harry; and finding it easier to go backwards than forwards, is constantly backing against the head cook as he passes to and fro, bearing now a sugared almond tart adorned with flowers on a silver salver, and representing the tower of Babel, now a large porcelain bowl exhaling the spicy fragrance of hot punch, or a peacock on a large wooden platter, roasted whole, with his gorgeous head-dress and splendid tail still upon him.

The head cook is scarcely able to force his way through the gaping mob of petitioners assembled here, who must wait till the Prince has dined, and are regaled in the meantime with wine, roast meats, and pastry, getting in short everything but what they came for—justice.

Within the dining-room itself the gentlemen and ladies are by this time in a merry mood. The meal has already lasted a pretty long time, and is likely to last a good while longer.

French gastronomic science seemed to have reserved all her masterpieces for Kemeny's banquet. Nature's three kingdoms have been laid under contribution to tickle the human palate. Every extravagant and extraordinary delicacy invented by Epicureanism, from the days of Lucullus to the days of Gallic gourmandism, is here in abundance. Here is to be seen every sort of foreign and domestic wine, in artistically-carved and gorgeously-coloured Venetian flasks, placed in huge silver refrigerators; game, large and small, of the rarest kind, on silver dishes; transparent, rose-coloured, quivering jellies with names unpronounceable by Hungarian lips; Indian fruits preserved in cane sugar; ragoûts of cocks' combs; enigmatical-looking snails, fit rather for the eye than for the palate; gigantic lobsters and the rarer kinds of marine fish fantastically disposed; meats which men who have already eaten to surfeit can only make believe that they enjoy by a supreme effort of the imagination; dishes which a true man would only eat by way of penance; immense pasties made entirely of pikes' livers; large baskets of rosy swans' eggs, which the guests may boil for amusement in little silver egg-boilers placed over spirit-lamps in front of them, and other wonderful dishes innumerable, the purpose of which is not immediately obvious to ordinary children of men, and everything in such profusion as would have more than sufficed for six times the number of guests present. Then too there were there all sorts of spiced drinks to suit every one's taste, from punch-royal to Polish brandy. Nothing was forgotten.

Behind every guest stands a little page, who whisks away his well-filled plate from him the instant he turns his head, and places before him a clean one instead. Behind the Prince's chair stands the son of Count Ladislaus Csaky, who is right proud that a son of his should have the privilege of filling and refilling the Prince's pocal.

And the Prince's pocal has to be filled pretty often. Transylvanian banquets generally ended with a wager on the part of the gentlemen to drink one another under the table. At such banquets John Kemeny has no equal. Now too he invites the bolder spirits to take up the usual challenge. The greater part of the guests, however, decline the invitation. Only three persons respond to the Prince's challenge. The first is Wenzinger, the leader of the German mercenaries, a big, raw-boned man, with a closely-shaven head, bright blue eyes, somewhat stooping neck, and scarcely visible grey eyebrows. The second is Paul Beldi, Captain-General of the Szeklers, a grave, handsome, amiable-looking man with a very high forehead. The wine he has taken gives a sparkle to his gentle eyes, and his taciturn lips are parted in a half-smile—drink produces no other effect upon him. He wears a simple yellow camelot dolman, with a scarlet, silver-embossed girdle round the waist; his white shirt-collar extends far over his dark-blue kerchief. His smoothly-combed hair is parted down the middle, brushed behind his ears, and falls in long locks over his shoulders. The man with delicate white hands who sits opposite to him, Denis Banfi, Lord-Lieutenant of Klausenburg, is the third competitor. He is a middle-aged, broad-shouldered, haughty-looking man, with an air of savage truculence on his aristocratic face. His thick black beard has never yet been touched by a razor. His dark, chestnut brown locks lie in spiral rolls upon his forehead, and flow down over both shoulders in rich crisp curls. His round face is red by nature, but wine has now made it redder than ever. His sparkling eyes glance defiantly around. When he addresses any one he strokes his double chin, screws his neck on one side, and speaks in a sharp, irritating tone, at the same time throwing back his haughty head provocatively, and assuming an expression of endless condescension. His dress consists of a purple dolman with large enamelled buttons, and over that a short, heavy, white silk tabard trimmed with swan's-down, the sleeves of which are slit up to the elbows and garnished with rubies. His golden knightly belt is thrown over his shoulder with lordly negligence.

At the head of the table sits John Kemeny himself, with the consorts of Beldi and Banfi one on each side of him. Kemeny, despite his frequent intercourse and close relations with the West, still prefers to adopt the oriental costume. He is characterized by short clipped hair, a long beard, a grave, dignified face, and a curt, monosyllabic style of speech. The ruling expression of his face is an unmistakable, fatalistic indifference to everything about him, an indifference which was ere long to overwhelm him in so terrible a catastrophe.

One of the ladies by his side, Banfi's wife, is a delicate, nervous, gentle being, scarcely twenty years old. Ever since her sixteenth year she has stood beneath the influence of her violent, imperious husband, and is now almost as timid as a child. She scarcely ever dares to raise her eyes, and then only to look at her lord, whom she loves idolatrously. Her neck and shoulders are covered by a heavy, watered silk dress, fastened by a row of diamond buttons. Round her neck twines a gold chain, between each of the large broad links of which sparkles an emerald. A silk coif set with pearls adorns her head, reaching half-way down over her forehead, and jealously hiding the blonde locks of the lovely lady.

On the other side, between her husband and the Prince, sits Beldi's wife, still a dazzling beauty. Her complexion ordinarily has the tint of the white rose, but is now all aglow with the fire of the banquet: her flushed cheeks seem literally to burn. Her coquettish black eyes roam hither and thither. A seductive magic lurks in her eyebrows, and when she lowers her long eyelashes over her burning eyes, how ravishing she is! Her black locks are held together, not by a coif, but by strings of pearls artistically intertwined and fastened behind to a little diamond diadem, from which a long gold filigree veil descends to the ground. Her dress consists of a tight-fitting, cherry-coloured kirtle of Hungarian velvet, wide open in front and fastened over her embroidered cambric smock by strings of pearls. Her snow-white shoulders peep half out of the short, puffed sleeves, which are fastened in the middle by huge opal clasps, leaving bare her exquisitely-shaped arms. She wears bracelets of large oriental pearls, and a pale pink rose is stuck nonchalantly in her bosom.

The guests sitting at the far end of the table are plainly scandalized by the coquettish ways of the siren, who, although she has a marriageable daughter, still presumes to appear publicly in an open kirtle; but the Prince, the impetuous Banfi, and even her own dove-like husband, who worships his wife, appear to be all the more delighted with her in consequence.

The drinking wager had already somewhat exhilarated the worthy gentlemen, so that they began to mingle their songs with the music which had been playing in the gallery ever since the banquet began, when the captain of the guard, Gabriel Haller, suddenly rushed into the room with a very serious face, and hastening to the Prince, whispered a couple of words in his ear. Kemeny looked first at him and then at the glass he held in his hand, emptied it with the utmost composure, and then burst into a loud peal of laughter.

"Pray tell your tidings to the company, that they may know what is going on," cried he to Haller, in a loud voice.

Haller hesitated.

"Come! Out with it. You could not, if you tried, invent anything half so entertaining. Stop playing up there, will you! This is something like a joke."

The company urged Haller to lose no time in passing the joke on.

"There is not much to tell," said Haller, shrugging his shoulders. "It is only that Ali Pasha has proclaimed Michael Apafi Prince of Transylvania."

"Ha! ha! ha!" resounded on all sides. The Prince, with comic affectation, turned first to one and then to the other.

"Who is the individual? Does any one know him? Has anybody ever heard of him?"

Lady Banfi turned pale and clung tightly to her husband's arm, who leaned his elbow on the table and replied with sublime indifference—

"The poor devil is, I believe, a very distant connection of mine. He has married some relation or other of my wife's. He was for a long time a slave among the Tartars, and the Turks (being wroth with us just now) have no doubt only released him on condition that he allows himself to be made Prince. He must be clean out of his senses."

At this all the gentlemen laughed still more loudly than before.

"Well, we'll go and inaugurate him," said Kemeny sarcastically, throwing back his head.

"That has already been done, your Highness," put in Haller.

"Where? By whom?" asked the good-humoured Prince, with arched eyebrows.

"At Kis-Selyk, by the Diet!"

Kemeny intimated by a wave of his hand and a contraction of his eyebrows that this explanation was not quite clear to him.

"Who then were present? Where were the Estates? All the men of any importance in the land are here with us."

"There were Stephen Apafi, Nalaczi, Kun, Daczo, and some two hundred Szeklers."

"Well, we'll go and count them as soon as we have disposed of our other affairs," said the Prince contemptuously. "Pray give Master Haller a chair!"

"But they are not awaiting us there. They are marching against us. By this time they must be at Segesvar."

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Kemeny. "I suppose, then, Master Michael Apafi thinks to drive us out of the country with his couple of hundred Szeklers."

But now Wenzinger rose from his chair, and remarked with soldierly precision—

"Does your Highness wish me to concentrate the army? We have eight thousand armed men, and, if it please your Highness, we will disperse this mob of nondescripts so effectually that not a couple of them shall remain together."

"Keep your seat!" commanded Kemeny, who treated the whole affair with the most sovereign contempt. "Sit down again and drink! Let them come a little nearer! Why should we inconvenience ourselves by going out against them? We can then take the whole lot together bag and baggage. I much regret, my lord Denis Banfi, that this fellow is a kinsman of yours; but, out of regard for you, I will take care that he is not broken on the wheel—I will simply have him stuffed!"

Kemeny's witticism was received with uproarious laughter.

"Give Master Haller a glass. And you up there! go on playing where you left off."

And once more the music resounded. The gipsy band now played a csárdás.[12] The gentlemen clinked glasses and sang in unison. The guards outside joined in the song. The glasses flew against the wall. Every one was ready to dash his glass into a thousand pieces except Gabriel Haller, who, being the last comer and therefore tolerably sober, was ashamed to destroy the expensive Venetian crystals so recklessly.

[12] Csárdás [pr. chárdásh]. The national dance of Hungary. It is danced in 3/4 time by single couples, who improvise the figures. It commences with a very slow and stately movement, gradually quickening into a furious gallop.

"Come! down with it! Let the splinters fly!" roared the Prince at him, and to please his Highness Haller dutifully but gingerly rapped his glass against the table till it broke off clean at the neck, quite decently and respectably, whereupon he bowed low to his Highness with obsequious humility.

Dame Banfi sighed at the thought of her kinswoman; but Banfi, to show how very little he cared about the matter, leaped from his chair, and with the wild music of the csárdás ringing in his ears, invited the lovely Lady Beldi to a dance.

The merry siren did not require twice bidding. Banfi passed his arm around her slender waist, pressed her tightly to his breast, and whirled away with her. The fiery beauty hung with elfin airiness on her partner's arm.

Then all the other gentlemen present, carried away by Banfi's example, also leaped from their seats and whirled away with their fair neighbours, till the whole company resolved itself into a maze of fantastically revolving figures, every one dancing, applauding, and huzzahing to his heart's content.

Banfi was an impetuous, hot-blooded man who loved pretty women in general and at all times. Now, moreover, he was heated with wine, and thus it came about that as his lovely partner was dangling on his arm and her glowing cheeks came very near to his, he suddenly so far forgot himself as to press the bewitching dame to his breast and imprint a burning kiss upon her lips.

Lady Beldi shrieked aloud, and instantly repulsed the self-forgetful Lothario. Banfi, much confused, cast a glance around him; but apparently every one was so taken up with his own amusement, that neither the shriek nor the kiss had been observed.

Nevertheless, Lady Beldi, very much offended, left off dancing, and when Banfi began stammering some sort of an apology, she sharply told him to be off and leave her.

Banfi will one day have to pay very dearly for that kiss!

Nobody had observed it, however, save him whom it most concerned—the husband. Beldi's eyes had seen it. Oh! you must not imagine that an uxorious husband is never jealous. Even though he makes as though he hears and sees nothing, he sees and hears and observes all the same. He had seen Banfi kiss his wife, although he feigned not to perceive his consort's confusion as, excited and indignant, she went in search of him. He took her by the hand and led her out of the room. When they got outside, he bade her go to her lodgings and dress for a journey.

"Whither are we going?" asked the agitated lady.

"Home to Bodola!"

Of all the guests, Denis Banfi was the only one who saw them quit the room.

CHAPTER V.
BODOLA.

In one of the innermost recesses of the county of Felsö-Feher, when you have left behind you the Boza Pass, or avoided it by taking one of the narrow footpaths which wind along the mountain side, you will come in sight of the Tatrang valley.

On every side of you are hills wrapped in lilac-coloured mists, and behind the hills the heaven-aspiring peak of Kapri, glistening with early-fallen snow. From the mist-shrouded valley below emerge four or five villages, with their white houses sending up bluish smoke-wreaths among the green orchards. The little Tatrang stream winds, silvery blue, in and out among the quiet villages, forming cascades in its downward progress, which in the dim distance look like fleecy mists. The clouds sink so deeply down into the valleys that their golden, veil-like shapes hide first this and then that object from the eyes of the observer on the hill-tops. There you can see Hosszufalva, with its far-stretching street. There, again, the tiny church of Zajzonfalva, whose pointed, tin-covered roof gleams far and wide in the rays of the sun. Tatrang lies on the banks of the stream, just where a large wooden bridge has been thrown across it. Far, very far off, black and misty, are to be seen the walls of Kronstadt and the blue outlines of the still unscathed citadel. In the valley just below you is the straggling village of Bodola. The houses lie low, but the church stands on rising ground, and opposite the village you notice a sort of small fortress with broad towers, black bastions, and projecting battlements. The western bastion is built on a steep rock, whence there is a fall of three hundred feet on to the roofs of the houses below.

It is only in the distance, however, that the castle looks so gloomy. On approaching nearer, you perceive that what had seemed, from afar, to be a dark green belt of bushes, is really a wreath of flower-gardens thrown round the ramparts. The large Gothic windows are adorned with handsome sculptures and stained glass. A well-kept, serpentine path winds up the steep rock, and there is a mossy stone seat at every bend. Where the rock is most precipitous a breastwork has been thrown up. The pointed turrets of the castle are all painted red, and adorned with fantastic weathercocks.

The path leading through the Boza Pass to Kronstadt is not more than an hour's journey from this little castle, and along this path, at the very time when Prince John Kemeny was still regaling himself at Hermannstadt, we see a long line of cavalry wending their way into the valley below—two thousand Turkish horsemen, or thereabouts, distinguishable from afar by the scarlet tips of their turbans and their snow-white kaftans. Among them are some hundreds of Wallachian irregulars in brown gabardines and long black csalmaks.[13]

[13] Csalmak [pr. chalmak]. A low, skin turban.

The way is so narrow here that the horsemen can only proceed along in couples, so that while the rearguard is still painfully making its way through the narrow defile between converging rocks, the vanguard has already reached Tatrang.

The Turkish general is a middling-sized, sunburnt man, with eyes as bold and bellicose as an eagle's. A large scar runs right across his forehead. His beard curls in little locks around his chin. His moustache is twisted fiercely upwards on both sides, making one suspect an excessively fiery temper in its possessor, a suspicion confirmed by his hard and curt mode of speech, the haughty carriage of his head, and the impatient movements of his body.

He halts his little army outside the village, to give the rearmost time to come up. Last of all roll a few wagons and a large pumpkin-shaped coach. This is all the heavy baggage which the Turks carry with them. The rearguard is led by a child whose round, cherub face contrasts strangely with his glittering scimitar and his grave, commanding look. He cannot be more than twelve. Inside the coach, the curtains of which are thrown back on both sides so as to freely admit the evening air, we perceive a young lady of about five-and-twenty years of age, dressed half in Turkish, half in Christian costume, for she wears the wide silken hose and the short blue open kaftan of the Turkish ladies, but has taken off her turban, and her face, contrary to Turkish custom, is without a veil. She gazes with the utmost composure out of the carriage window, bestowing her attention now upon the landscape and now upon the passing peasants.

The Turkish commander is marshalling his forces in the village below. They seem used to the strictest discipline. Every one looks steadily at his leader without moving a muscle. At the head of the left wing stands the little boy; a tall, muscular man leads the right. The Wallachs are drawn up in the rear.

"My brave fellows,"—the Pasha addresses his troops in a hard, sharp voice—"you will pitch your tents here! Every one will remain in his place hard by his saddled horse, without laying aside arms or armour. Ferhad Aga[14] with twelve men will go into the village and respectfully ask the magistrate to send hither forty hundredweights of bread, just as much flesh, and double as much hay and oats, at the average price of four asper[15] per pound, neither more nor less."

[14] Aga. An honorary title among the Turks, here equivalent to lieutenant.

[15] Asper. A small silver coin worth about fifteen to twenty kreutzers.

Then the Pasha turned towards the Wallachs—

"You, dogs! don't suppose that we have come hither to plunder! Stir not from this spot, for if I find out that so much as a goose has been stolen from the village, I'll hang up your leaders and decimate the rest of you!"

He then selected four horsemen.

"You will follow me," said he; "the rest remain here. This very night we resume our march. During my absence Feriz Beg commands."

The little boy bowed.

"If Feriz Beg receives orders from me to quit you, you will obey Ferhad Aga till I return."

With that the Pasha struck his spurs into his horse's sides, and galloped with his escort towards Bodola.

Then the boy whom the Pasha had called Feriz Beg rode forward with soldierly assurance, and in a deep, sonorous voice gave the order to dismount. His hard-mouthed Arab plunged, kicked, and reared, but the little commander, heedless of the capers of his steed, delivered his further orders with perfect self-possession.

Meanwhile the Pasha pursued his way towards Bodola Castle.

Paul Beldi had arrived there only the day before with his wife, having quitted Kemeny's Court without a word of explanation, and was standing in the porch at the moment when the Turkish horsemen trotted into the courtyard. In those days the relations of Transylvania with the Turks were so peculiar, that visits of this kind might be made at any time without any previous announcement.

The Pasha no sooner beheld Beldi, than he sprang from his horse, ran up the steps to him, and brusquely presented himself—"I am Kucsuk Pasha. Being in the way, I came to have a word with thee if thou canst listen."

"Command me," replied Beldi, pointing to the reception-room, and motioning to his guest to enter first.

It was a square-built room, the walls of which were painted with oriental landscapes, the spaces between the windows being filled by large cut-glass mirrors in steel frames. The marble floor was covered with large variegated carpets. Round about the walls hung ancestral pictures, with clusters here and there of ancient weapons of strange shape and construction. In the middle of the room stood a large green marble table with fantastically twisted legs. Huge arm-chairs with morocco coverings and ponderous carvings were dispersed about the room. Facing the entrance was a door leading to a balcony, commanding a panorama of the snow-capped mountains. The evening twilight cast red and lilac patches through the painted windows on the faces of those who are now entering.

"How can I serve you?" inquired Beldi of the Pasha.

"Thou art well aware," replied Kucsuk, "that great discord now prevails in this country on account of the throne."

"It does not concern me. I have made up my mind to remain neutral."

"I have not come hither to beg for thy advice or assistance in that matter; the sword will decide it. What brings me to thee is a purely family affair which concerns me deeply."

Beldi, much surprised, made his guest sit down beside him.

"Speak," said he.

"Thou mayest perhaps have heard, that once upon a time a daughter of the Kallay family fell in love with a young Turkish horseman, naturally without the consent of her kinsfolk?"

"Yes, I've heard of it. People say that the young Turk was equally victorious in love and in war."

"Possibly. His victories in war, however, have disqualified him from being the Knight of Love. Thou seest that my face is furrowed with scars; know that I am the man who wedded that woman!"

Beldi began to regard the Pasha with curiosity and astonishment.

"I have continued to love that woman devotedly," pursued the Pasha. "That may appear strange to thee in the mouth of a Turk, but so it is. I have had neither wife nor concubine beside her. She has borne me a son, of whom I am proud. My affairs just now are in such a critical condition that I must, with God's help, work wonders, or perish on the battle-field. Thou knowest that the religion of Mahommed highly commends such a death. I have therefore no anxiety on that score. It is the thought of my wife which disturbs me. If she should lose me and my son, she would be in great straits. She would be persecuted in Turkey because she remained a Christian; she would be persecuted in Transylvania because she married a Mussulman. There my kinsfolk, here her own, are her enemies. I come to thee therefore with a petition. I have heard tell of thee as an honourable man, and of thy wife as a worthy woman. Receive my consort into thy family circle. She will not be a burden to thee, for I leave her everything I possess. All she wants is thy protection. If thou dost promise me that, thou canst count upon my eternal friendship and gratitude, and mayst command my fortune, my sword, and my life in case I survive."

Beldi pressed the hand of the Pasha.

"Bring your wife hither. I and my family will welcome her as a kinswoman."

"I may bring her then?"

"We shall be delighted to see her," returned Beldi; and he commanded his retainers to escort the Pasha's suite back to Tatrang with torches, and fetch from thence his carriage.

Kucsuk sent word by them that Feriz Beg was to come too.

Meanwhile Beldi introduced Kucsuk to his wife, and he was not a little delighted to find that she recollected the Pasha's wife as one of her girlish friends, whom she looked forward to see again with sincere joy and some curiosity.

After the lapse of some hours the carriage rumbled noisily into the well-paved courtyard. Feriz Beg escorted it on horseback.

Lady Beldi hastened down the steps to meet the Pasha's wife as she stepped out of the coach, and received her with a cry of joy—"What! Catharine! Do you still know me?"

The lady immediately recognized her youthful playfellow, and the two friends rushed into each other's arms, kissed again and again, and said of course the sweetest things to each other—"Why, darling, you are more handsome than ever!"—"And you, dear! What a stately woman you have grown!" etc., etc., etc.

"Look, this is my son," said Catharine, pointing to Feriz Beg, who, after dismounting, had hastened with childlike tenderness to help his mother out of her coach.

"Oh, what a little darling!" cried Lady Beldi, quite enchanted, and covering the rosy-cheeked child with kisses.

If only she had known that this child was a child no longer, but a general!

"And I've got children too!" continued Lady Beldi, with maternal emulation. "You shall see them! Does your son speak Hungarian?"

"Hungarian!" cried Catharine, almost offended; "what! the child of an Hungarian mother, and not speak Hungarian! How can you ask such a question?"

"So much the better," said Lady Beldi, "the children will become friends all the more quickly. From henceforth you belong to the family. Our husbands have settled all that already, and we shall be so delighted!"

The amiable and sprightly housewife then embraced her friend once more, took Feriz Beg by the hand, and led them both into the family circle, chatting merrily all the time, and asking and answering a thousand questions.

A cheerful fire was sparkling in the chimney of the ladies' cabinet. Large flowered-silk curtains darkened the walls. On a little ivory table ticked a gorgeous clock, ablaze with rubies and chrysoprases. Sofas covered in cornflower-blue velvet offered you a luxurious repose. On a round table in the centre of the room, from which an embroidered Persian tapestry fell in rich folds to the ground, stood a heavy candelabrum of massive silver, representing a siren holding on high a taper in each of her outstretched hands.

In front of the fine white marble chimney-piece were Dame Beldi's children. The elder, Sophia, a tall, slight, bashful-looking beauty of some fourteen summers, was bustling about the fire. She still wore her hair as children do, thrown back in two long, large plaits which reached almost to her heels. This girl was afterwards Paul Wesselenyi's consort.

The second child, a little girl of about four, was kneeling at the feet of her elder sister, and throwing dried flowers into the fire. She went by the name of Aranka, which in Hungarian means "little goldy," for she carried her name on her locks, which flowed over her round little shoulders in light golden waves. Her vivacious features, sparkling eyes, and tiny hands are never still, and now too she is mischievously teasing and thwarting her elder sister, laughing aloud with artless glee whenever Sophia, naturally without succeeding in the least, tries to be very angry.

On hearing footsteps and voices at the door, both children spring up hastily. The elder one, perceiving strangers, tries to smooth the creases out of her dress, while Aranka rushes uproariously to her mother, embraces her knees, and looks up at her with her plump little smiling face.

"These are my children," said Lady Beldi with inward satisfaction.

Catharine embraced the elder girl, who shyly presented her forehead to be kissed.

"And here's your cousin, little Feriz. You must kiss him too!" said Lady Beldi, pushing together the bashful children, who scarcely dared to press the tips of their lips together. Sophia immediately afterwards blushed right up to the ears, and rushed out of the room. Nothing would induce her to show herself again that evening.

"Oh, you shamefaced mimosa!" cried Lady Beldi, laughing loudly. "Why, Aranka is braver than you. Eh, my little girl? You're not afraid to kiss Cousin Feriz, are you?"

The little thing looked up at the boy and drew back, clinging fast all the time to her mother's skirts, but never once removing her large, dark-blue eyes from Feriz, who knelt down, took the little girl in his arms, and gave her a hearty kiss on her round, rosy cheeks.

Having gone safely through this ordeal, Aranka was quite at home with her new acquaintance. She bade the Turkish cousin sit him down on a stool by the fire, and, laying her head on his lap, began asking him questions about everything he wore, from the hilt of his scimitar to the plume in his turban—absolutely nothing escaped her curiosity.

"Let the children play!" cried Lady Beldi merrily, as with high good-humour she led her friend out upon the balcony, from whence they could survey the whole Tatrang valley now floating in the bright moonlight.

Here the two women—while the men were engaged with serious matters, and the children were playing—here the two women entered into one of those long confidential chats which young ladies find so charming when they are by themselves, especially when they have as much to ask and answer as these two had.

Kucsuk Pasha's wife was a middling-sized, powerfully-built woman. Her well-rounded bosom and broad shoulders were shown off by her tight-fitting kaftan, which was fastened round the waist by a girdle of gold thread, and reached somewhat lower down than is usual with the dresses of Turkish ladies, just permitting a glance at her wide, flowing, red silk pantaloons and her dainty little yellow slippers. Her face, if a trifle too stern and hard, was yet most lovely; her full and florid complexion betokened a somewhat choleric temperament; her thick, coal-black eyebrows had almost grown together, and her gaze was burning in its intensity.

Lady Beldi made her sit down by her side, took her familiarly by the hand, and playfully asked—

"Your husband then has no other wife but you?"

Catharine laughed, and replied with just a shade of impatience—

"I suppose, now, you fancy that an Hungarian woman has only to wed a Turk to instantly become his slave? You have no idea how dearly my husband loves me."

"I am sure of it, Catharine. But recollect that my question related to what has long been customary among you."

"Among us! My dear, I am not a Turkish woman!"

"What then?"

"A Christian, just as you are. We were married by a Calvinist minister, the Rev. Martin Biro, now an exile in Constantinople, and for whom my husband, out of gratitude, has built a church where the Hungarians and Transylvanians who dwell there may attend divine service."

"Really! Then your husband does not persecute the Christians?"

"Certainly not. He believes that every religion is good, as leading to heaven, but that his own faith is the best, as opening the gate of the very highest heaven. Moreover, my husband has a very good heart, and is much more enlightened than most of his fellows."

"But why have you not tried to convert him to the Christian religion?"

"Why should I? Because our poets regularly conclude their love-romances in which a Turk falls in love with a Christian girl, by bringing him to baptism and dressing him in a mente instead of a kaftan? Here, however, you have one of those romances of real life, in which a woman follows her spouse and sacrifices everything for him."

"No doubt you are right, Catharine; but you must let me get used to the idea that a Christian, let alone an Hungarian, girl may wed a Turk."

"And listen, dear Lady Beldi: surely God would have imputed less merit to me, if I had converted my husband to our faith, instead of leaving him in the faith wherein he was born? As a Christian renegade he would have occupied but a humble place in our little church; while as one of the most influential of the Pashas, he has made the fate of all the Christians in Turkey so tolerable, that the Christian subjects of other states flock over to us as to a land of promise. Often, when he has received his share of the spoils of battle, he has handed me a long list with the names of those of my enslaved countrymen whom he has ransomed at a great price. He has expended immense treasures in this way. And believe me, love, the perusal of such a list gives me more pleasure than the sight of the most beautiful oriental pearls which my husband might easily have purchased with the amount, and it has raised him higher in my estimation than if he had learnt the whole Psalter by heart. And he is not the man to break the word he has once given, whether it be to God or to his fellow-man. If he were capable of abjuring his religion, I could believe no longer in his love, for then he would cease to be him whom I have always known; he would cease to be the man who, when once he has said a thing, always abides by it, never goes back from, and is to be moved neither by the terrors of death nor the tears of a woman."

Lady Beldi embraced her friend, and kissed her glowing cheeks.

"You are right, my good Catharine! 'Tis our prejudices that prevent us from rising higher than everyday thoughts. It is true. Love also has her faith, her religion. But how about your country? Have you never thought of that?"

Catharine rose with proud self-satisfaction from her seat, and pressed her friend's hand.

"Let this convince you that I indeed love my country. I am about to sacrifice for it the lives of my husband and my son, whom perhaps I now behold for the last time."

Lady Beldi's face plainly showed that she did not quite grasp the meaning of these words, and Catharine was about to explain them to her, when a servant announced that the gentlemen had long been awaiting them in the dining-room.

Lady Beldi thereupon gave her arm to her friend and led her into the dining-room. The children had already become such close friends that Aranka allowed Feriz Beg to carry her in to dinner, playing all the time with childish coquetry with the diamond clasp of his agraffe.

The lady of the house assigned to every one his place. Catharine took the upper end of the table. On her right sat the Pasha, on her left the hostess. The host took his place at the lower end of the table. Feriz and Aranka sat side by side. Opposite Feriz was an empty place, the shy Sophia's, whom nothing could induce to come to dinner.

Catharine seeing that a large wine-jug was placed in front of her husband, quickly seized it in order to exchange it for a cut-glass caraffe full of pure, sparkling spring water. Lady Beldi remarked the action, and glanced mischievously at her embarrassed friend.

"He never drinks wine," said Catharine apologetically. "It is not good for him. He is of a somewhat excitable nature."

Kucsuk smiled and lifted Catharine's hand to his lips.

"Why gloss over the truth? Why not say straight out that I do not drink wine because the Koran forbids it, because I am a Mussulman?"

Beldi shook his head at his wife and pointed at the children in order to give another turn to the conversation.

"It looks as if your son were already quite at home with us, Kucsuk. You shall see, when you come back, what a Magyar we have made of him."

Kucsuk and Feriz exchanged a proud and rapid glance, and then both of them looked at Beldi.

The child's features had suddenly and completely changed; at that moment he looked wondrously like his father. There was the same hard, stony glance, the same defiant bearing, the same haughty elevation of the brows.

"So thou dost imagine, Beldi," said Kucsuk severely, "that I only brought my son hither to leave him with thee?"

"But surely you do not mean to take that child with you to battle?"

"Child dost thou call him! He is already the commander of four hundred mounted Spahis; has already been in three engagements; has had two horses shot under him, and is to command the left wing of my forces in the impending battle."

The Beldis looked with amazement at the child, who, with all eyes fixed upon him, assumed his most manly air.

"But I hope that you will at least keep him by your side in the heat of the fight?" said Lady Beldi, much disturbed.

"Not at all. I lead the centre. He too will give a good account of himself. When I was his age I already wore the Nishan[16] order on my breast, and I hope that this time he will not return home without having at least deserved it."

[16] Nishan Order. A Turkish order of merit for valour, instituted by Selim III. It consisted of a gold medallion bearing the Sultan's effigy.

"But if it comes to a mêlée, and he is in danger?" continued Lady Beldi, with increasing apprehension.

"Then he will fight as a brave soldier should," returned Kucsuk, stroking his moustache, which immediately twisted upwards of its own accord.

"Ah, no; he is far too tender to sustain a conflict with grown men!" cried Dame Beldi compassionately.

"Feriz," cried Kucsuk to his son, "just take down that sabre from the wall, and show our friends that thou canst wield it like a man."

The boy sprang up, and, proudly confident in his own strength, chose from the weapons that hung on the wall not a sabre but a huge club—seized it by the extreme end of the handle, and swung it with outstretched arms in every direction with an ease and a dexterity which would have done honour to any man. His feat was rewarded by enthusiastic applause.

"Deuce take it!" cried the astonished Beldi; "that is what I call a good graft, a Magyar scion on a Turkish stock. You did not carry off his mother for nothing. Come, Kucsuk—give me that lad!"

"Be it so! But give me thy daughter."

"Which? Make your choice."

"She who sits next to him. When she has grown up they will make a good pair, and then we shall both have a son and a daughter."

Beldi laughed heartily, and both the women exchanged a smile. Kucsuk looked with an air of satisfaction at his son, who took his aigrette from his turban, tore off the diamond buckle which had pleased Aranka so much, and handed it to the little girl with lavish gallantry. The child timidly stretched out her tiny hand towards the costly gift, the material as well as the moral worth of which she was far from suspecting, but which nothing in the world would now have made her relinquish.

The parents suddenly became silent. Their faces still wore a smile, but there was a melancholy earnestness in their eyes.

CHAPTER VI.
THE BATTLE OF NAGY SZÖLLÖS.

Meanwhile Michael Apafi, comforted by Ali Pasha's assurance that help was nigh at hand, had thrown himself into Segesvar, and there awaited the turn of Fortune's wheel. John Kemeny came out against him with a vast host. He had with him an imposing array of German and Hungarian troops, but what his army really wanted was an enterprising general.

Michael Apafi had very little to oppose to such a host—a few hundred stubborn, undisciplinable Szekler spearmen, a handful of Saxon burghers, and a bodyguard of blue Janissaries, altogether only about a tenth part of Kemeny's army.

Acting therefore on the advice of his brother Stephen, the Prince resolved to remain strictly on the defensive at Segesvar till auxiliaries should reach him from his Turkish protector. This resolution pleased the Saxon burghers immensely, for they were well able to defend themselves behind the walls of their own city, but never felt quite at ease in the open field. Upon the Szeklers, however, Apafi's resolution produced just the contrary effect.

It was Nalaczi's mission to keep the Szeklers in a martial humour, and one evening he took them all into the tavern, and filled them with such ardour that at break of day they marched clamorously beneath the windows of the Prince, and swore by hook and by crook that they must have one of the city gates opened for them at once, so that they might fall upon Kemeny there and then and fight him to the death.

The Prince and his counsellors went down among them in great alarm, and tried in every way to make it clear to them that Kemeny's suite alone was more numerous than all the Szeklers put together; that at least one-half of his army was armed with muskets, whereas with them scarcely any one except the Saxon burghers knew even how to use fire-arms; and that if they rushed out at one door, the enemy would rush in at the other, and then there would be neither outside nor inside—and much more to the same effect.

But whoever fancies he can drive out of a Szekler's head what he has once got into it is mightily mistaken.

"Either you must let us march against the foe or home we go!" cried they. "We don't mean to lie here for the next ten years like the Trojans, for there's work to be done at home. Apportion, therefore, so many of the enemy to each one of us; let every man go out and slay his lot, and then in God's name dismiss us. We won't submit to be blockaded and rationed on dog and rat-flesh."

"My good fellows, if you don't like stopping here, go home by all means," was Apafi's ultimatum; "but to fight a battle in my circumstances were mere madness."

The Szeklers did not waste another word; but they seized their wallets, shouldered their lances, and marched out of Segesvar as if they never had had anything to do with it.

From that moment the Szeklers became Apafi's enemies to his dying day.

Next day Kemeny's host stood beneath the walls of the town where Apafi now barely had armed men sufficient to guard the gates.

The siege operations were entrusted to Wenzinger as having had most experience in warfare. This great general, true to the principles of the school in which he had been brought up, first of all carefully surveyed every inch of his ground; then he cautiously occupied every position which by any possibility might become important, and took care also that the besieging host should be covered at all points—in short, he so spun out his preparations by his systematic way of going to work, that by the time he had really begun to think about the siege, tidings reached him that the Turkish auxiliaries were advancing by forced marches. Thereupon (still faithful to his system) he re-concentrated his scattered forces, and prepared to march against the Turks, the Hungarian gentry being ready to a man to follow him. But John Kemeny was against a general advance, holding that if the Turkish contingent was strong enough to put his forces to flight, he would have Segesvar in his rear, and thus would be caught between two fires. He therefore preferred to await his opponent's attack, and retiring in consequence from the town, pitched his camp at Nagy Szöllös, whence he looked calmly on while Kucsuk Pasha's horsemen, amid the bray of clarions, made their entry into Segesvar.

Apafi had eaten and drunk nothing for three days from sheer anxiety at the straits into which he had fallen, through no fault of his own, when word was brought him of the arrival of the auxiliaries. It was late in the evening when Kucsuk Pasha, after a fatiguing march along unfrequented mountain paths, entered the town. Apafi rode out to meet him, and saluted the Turks as his guardian angels. But great indeed was his astonishment, after mustering the troops twice or thrice, to find that at the very highest estimate they were only a fifth part of the forces opposed to him.

"What does your Excellency mean to do with this little band?" he uneasily asked the Pasha.

"God alone knows, who reads the destiny of man in heaven above," returned Kucsuk with laconic fatalism; and that was all that the Prince could get out of him. That night the Turks pitched their tents in the market-place, immediately opposite the dwelling of the Prince.

Apafi, after so many sleepless nights, could at last enjoy repose. It did his heart good to hear beneath his windows the snorting of the war-horses and the sabre-clattering of the sentries, and he gradually dozed off in the midst of the comforting hubbub, reflecting, that with such an army he could at least defend himself for some time, and that meanwhile a great many things might happen. Long before daybreak, however, he was awakened by the hammering of planks, the usual signal to the Turkish cavalry to feed their horses. "They feed their horses very early in the morning," thought the Prince, and he turned over on to the other side and again fell asleep. While still half-dreaming he fancied he heard the songs of the dervishes, songs apt to make even the wakeful feel drowsy. Then a loud and sudden flourish of trumpets once more aroused his Highness from his slumbers. "Egad! What are they about in the middle of the night?" cried he peevishly; got up, looked out of the window, and saw that the Turks were all sitting motionless on their horses in the dark. Then came a second flourish, and the whole squadron started off, the clattering of the horses' hoofs on the paving-stones and the watch-words of the sentinels resounding far and wide through the silent night. "This Pasha is a very restless man," thought Apafi. "Even at night, and after so many fatigues, he grudges his men their proper repose." And with that he again turned in, and fell into a yet sweeter sleep, from which he only awoke on the following morning.

The sun stood high in the heavens when Apafi rang for his steward and factotum, John Cserey.

The first question he put to him was, "What is the Pasha about?"

"He quitted the town last night, and sent back a messenger, who has been waiting outside there ever since dawn to deliver his message."

"Let him come in at once," cried Apafi, and he began hastily to dress.

Stephen Apafi, Nalaczi, and Daczo entered the Prince's apartments at the same time as Kucsuk's messenger. They too had been waiting for the last two hours for the Prince to awake, and were very curious to hear the Pasha's message.

"Speak quickly!" cried Apafi to the Turk, who bowed to the ground, folded his arms across his breast, and said—

"Illustrious Prince! my master, Kucsuk Pasha, speaks these words to thee through the mouth of thy servant: Remain quietly in Segesvar and be of good cheer. Let the troops that are with thee mount guard upon the walls. Meantime my master, Kucsuk Pasha, is marching against John Kemeny, and will fight him wherever he meets him, yea! though he lose his host to a man, yet will he fight with him to the death."

The Prince was so confounded by these tidings that he had not a word to say for himself. Kucsuk's forces were scarcely a fifth part of Kemeny's, and, moreover, they were still exhausted by their forced marches. To expect a victory under such circumstances was to look for miracles.

"Let us make up our minds for the worst and trust in God," said Stephen Apafi; and, under the circumstances, this was perhaps the most sensible thing that could have been said.

So Michael Apafi let things take their own course. If any one had a mind to guard the walls he was free to do so. So the commanders left the soldiers to their own devices, and the soldiers did nothing at all. The fate of the realm lay in God's hands in the fullest sense of the word, for man had withdrawn his hand from it altogether. One thing, however, the Prince did. He sent old Cserey up to the top of the church tower that he might keep a good look-out, and come and tell his master the moment he saw troops approaching.

John Kemeny had established himself at Nagy Szöllös, which is a few hours' journey from Segesvar. He had fixed his head-quarters at the parsonage there, and to this day the little room is pointed out in which he slept for the last time, as well as the round hillock in the garden, where stood at that time a pretty little wooden summer-house in which the Prince began the dinner which he never finished.

The Hungarian gentlemen had a long debate with Wenzinger and the Prince about the plan of campaign. Some were for taking the town by storm, others preferred starving it out by a blockade.

Wenzinger shook his head.

"Allow me, gentlemen, to express my opinion also," said the experienced German. "I am an old soldier. I have knocked about in all manner of campaigns; I know the value of numbers in war, but also the value of position, and well understand how to weigh the one against the other. I have learnt by experience that one hundred men under favourable conditions are often more than a match for a thousand. I also know how enthusiasm or indifference can multiply or diminish numbers. I can also calculate the relative importance of the various kinds of arms; nor is the military value of patriotism an unknown quantity to me. Now we have ten thousand men, and there are not more than three thousand opposed to us. But we must not lose sight of the fact, that the greater part of our Hungarian forces consists of cavalry, and to storm walls with cavalry is clearly impossible. Scarcely less impossible is it to persuade the mounted Hungarians to fight on foot. I would further remark, that although the Hungarian is a veritable hero when he stands face to face with a foreign foe, nevertheless, whenever I have seen him called upon to fight against his own countrymen (and often enough have I had that opportunity) he becomes as slothful and indifferent as if he were only awaiting the first pretext for taking to his heels. Then, again, we possess a troop of Servians, whom I consider very good shots, and if we only had them safely behind the walls of that town we might buckle to it against a ten-fold superiority; but outside fortifications these people are scarcely worth anything: they are strong enough to defend, but not strong enough to storm a bastion. We ought therefore to demolish the walls as soon as possible: but then, again, we have no cannon, and would have to send as far as Temesvar for our field-artillery, and while they were on their way to us along the vile roads—and of course it is a further question whether the commandant there would send them at all at our bidding—Ali Pasha would have time to return with fresh troops, and we should lose all our labour. I consider, therefore, that we ought not to remain here any longer. We are incapable of conquering that fortress either by assault or blockade. We cannot, on the other hand, suppose that the enemy would be insane enough to be lured into the open field. The most prudent thing, therefore, that we can do under such circumstances, is to set out for Hungary without delay, collect reinforcements and artillery, and then endeavour to force the enemy to an engagement."

Kemeny, little accustomed to listen to such lengthy discourses, could scarcely wait till Wenzinger paused, and, as if the whole plan of campaign deserved not the slightest thought, he now interrupted him with frivolous impatience.

"Mr. General, leave all that till the afternoon. After dinner we shall see everything in quite another light."

"No, not after dinner," blustered the German. "No time is to be lost. We are in the midst of war, where every hour is precious; not at a Diet, where matters may be debated for years together."

At this sally the Hungarian gentlemen laughed heartily, seized Wenzinger by the arm, and dragged him off to the banquet, joking all the way. "There will be lots of time after dinner!" cried they.

"Well, well," said Wenzinger, half in jest and half in anger; "it is a fine thing, no doubt, to have soldiers who will do everything but obey your orders!"

Not another word did he speak at table, but he drank all the more.

In the midst of these table-joys, John Uzdi, the commander of the skirmishers, stepped into the Prince's pavilion with a terrified countenance, and scarce able to speak for excitement.

"Your Highness! I see great clouds of dust approaching from the direction of Segesvar!"

The Prince turned his head towards the messenger, and said with comic phlegm—

"If it gives you any satisfaction to stare at your clouds of dust, pray go on looking at them as long as you please!"

But Wenzinger sprang from his seat.

"I should like to have a look at them myself," cried he, hastily ordering his heavy charger to be saddled; "possibly the enemy has come out to entice us nearer."

The others did not trouble themselves about the matter, but continued to make merry.

In a few minutes, however, back came Wenzinger, unable to conceal the secret joy which a professional soldier always feels when his plan is about to succeed.

"Victory, gentlemen!" cried he. "The enemy is marching against us in force. If it is not merely a diversion, and he really means business, the day is ours."

Some of the gentlemen at once rose from their seats and began buckling on their swords. The Prince, however, remained sitting.

"Are they still a good way off?" he indolently inquired of Wenzinger.

"Scarcely half-an-hour's march!" exclaimed the latter with sparkling eyes.

"Then let them come a little nearer still, and in the meantime sit down by our side."

"I'll be damned if I do!" cried the general angrily. "As it is, I have scarcely time enough to marshal my forces."

"But why marshal them at all? Let them advance upon the enemy en masse, that he may be terrified out of his life at the bare sight of them."

"Yes, but I don't want to scare them away, I want rather to surround them. I shall confront them with one-half the host, the rest I shall distribute as follows: one division shall creep through the maize-fields and cut off the enemy's retreat to the town; another shall attack him in flank from above the mill-dam; a third shall remain behind in reserve. Your Highness will join the reserve with your Court."

"What!" cried Kemeny, deeply offended, "I in the reserve! The proper place for an Hungarian Prince is always the fore-front of the battle!"

"That was all very well formerly; but in a general engagement, such precious personages require constant looking after, lest any accident befall them, and are only in the commander's way, and seriously interfere with his tactics. If, however, your Highness expressly desires it, I will surrender my bâton to you at once, and take my place in the ranks. Here there is only room for one generalissimo!"

"Keep your place and take what measures you please, but pray let me choose my own position. That need not interfere with you in the least."

And Kemeny, with a few other gentlemen, remained at table.

Wenzinger had scarcely made the necessary preparations when word was brought to the Prince that the army was in battle array. Then Kemeny stood up with imperturbable sangfroid and buckled on his sword, but refused to wear armour.

"Why should I?" cried he. "Do you suppose that the heart beats more courageously behind a coat of mail?"

So they brought him his most stately charger, whose restive head two stalwart grooms could only hold with difficulty. The coal-black, fiery-eyed steed plunged and reared; its nostrils snorted steam; white frothy flakes fell from its mouth all over its breast; its long waving tail reached almost to the ground.

Kemeny swung himself into the saddle, drew his sword, and galloped to the front. Every one was amazed at his skilful horsemanship; he seemed to have been grafted on to his stallion, so perfectly did all his movements correspond with its gambols. On reaching the front, the stately charger fell into a mincing pace, sharply striking the ground behind it with its prancing hoofs, and nodding its head as if saluting the host, which broke with one accord into a loud shout of "Eljen!" At the same instant the Prince's horse stumbled and plunged violently forward on both knees at once. The silver bit in its mouth snapped in two, and it was only his extraordinary skill and dexterity which saved the Prince from flying headlong.

His suite came hastening to his side.

"That is a bad omen, your Highness!" stammered Alexius Bethlen. "Your Highness should mount another horse."

"'Tis not a bad omen," replied Kemeny, "for my horse has not thrown me."

"Nevertheless, your Highness, it would be well to change your mount. That horse is frightened, and will do nothing but rear."

"I mean to keep my seat, if only to show that omens have neither meaning nor terror for me," said Kemeny defiantly; and he ordered the broken bit to be replaced by another. At the same instant Kucsuk Pasha's trumpets sounded a charge.

The Turkish cavalry formed a half-moon with the horns turned outwards. Kucsuk himself rode in the centre.

The Pasha on this occasion wore an unusually splendid costume. His kaftan was of rich-flowered silk wrought with gold; beneath the kaftan peeped forth a dolman of cloth of gold; a costly oriental shawl encircled his loins; his scimitar, buckled on behind, sparkled with gems; a ger-falcon's plume, fastened by a diamond agraffe, waved from his turban. His charger, a fiery barb with slender head, long, twisted mane, and black flying tail, threw back its head proudly and shook its richly-fringed saddle-cloth. A sort of gold netting surrounded its whole body, from the fringes of which depended numbers of large, jingling, golden half-moons.

As soon as Kucsuk Pasha perceived Kemeny's troops, he dismounted, threw himself with his face to the ground, thrice kissed the earth, thrice raised himself on his knees, uplifted his face devoutly to heaven, and called upon the name of Allah. Then he remounted his horse; sent for his son; tore one of the falcon feathers out of his turban, and sticking it in the youthful hero's, said—"Go now to the left wing of the host, and fight as becomes a man of valour! For 'tis better that thou shouldst fall by the hand of the enemy, and lie dead before me, than that thou shouldst fly, and this my sword" (here he smote the scimitar by his side with his fist) "should slay thee!"

Feriz Beg reverentially bowed his head, kissed the hem of his father's kaftan, and proudly galloped to the post assigned to him, feeling that every eye was fixed upon the falcon's feather which his father had fastened to his turban.

The Pasha now rode along the ranks and addressed these words to his cavalry—

"My brave fellows! the enemy is before you! I say not whether they be many or few—you can see for yourselves. They are indeed many times more numerous than we; but trust in Allah, and fight valiantly! It is more honourable to die here sword in hand than to fly like cowards. We are in the midst of Transylvania. He who flies will fall by the sword of the pursuer ere he reaches the frontier, and he who escapes the pursuer will fall by the bowstring of the Padishah. We have no other choice but victory or death!"

Then he turned to the Wallachs. Them he addressed with harsh and wrathful words.

"You dogs, you! I know right well that you are ready to bolt at the first shot; but know that I have ordered the troops behind you to instantly cut every one of you down who so much as looks backward." Then the Pasha, placing himself at the head of his host, waved his naked sword for the trumpets to blow, and glancing once more along the lines, saw the Moorish troops who stood behind him, with melon-shaped, copper-plated helmets, making ready to fire their long muskets.

"What are you doing?" growled the Pasha. "Away with your muskets! The enemy has more of them than we. We shall only need our swords. Let every one charge boldly upon the foe, ducking his head down over his saddle-bow the moment I give the signal, and then gallop forward without hesitation!"

The host did as it was commanded. The Moors slung their funnel-shaped muskets over their shoulders, drew their broad scimitars, and trotted forward in the footsteps of the Pasha.

Kemeny's troops, like a wall of steel confronted them, the musketeers in the first line, the lanzknechts behind. In the centre stood Wenzinger, on the right wing John Kemeny. The flanking troops were creeping stealthily on behind the mill-dam and among the maize-fields in order to take the foe in the rear.

When the Turkish army had come within gunshot distance of Kemeny's forces, Kucsuk Pasha suddenly turned round and glanced fiercely back, right and left, upon his soldiers, who immediately ducked their heads over their horses' necks, tightly grasped their swords, used their spurs freely, and dashed like a whirlwind upon their opponents.

"Allah! Allah! il-Allah!" thrice sounded from the lips of the charging Turks, and simultaneously John Kemeny's musketeers gave the attacking horsemen a point-blank enfilade, which for a moment enveloped their ranks in smoke. But in those days musketry fire did little harm; it was far more noisy than dangerous. So now too only a couple of Turks or so glided out of their saddles, dragging their horses down with them; the rest galloped forward with a howl of fury.

Wenzinger, perceiving that his arquebusiers had no time to load again, immediately ordered his lanzknechts to advance. Now if these troops could only have kept back the Turkish cavalry till the arquebusiers had managed to reload, or till the flanking squadrons had come up and fallen upon the enemy, Kemeny would no doubt have won the battle. But the ranks of the lanzknechts collapsed at the very first onset, and after (to do them justice) a really desperate resistance, were mostly cut to pieces, whereupon the helpless musketeers took to their heels en masse, and threw their whole army into great confusion.

Wenzinger now tried to restore order by commanding the whole line to fall back, and had his command been properly obeyed, the engagement might perhaps have had a different issue. But the cavalry, which the Prince led in person, obeying his proud counter-orders to remain where they were, were left fighting single-handed against the divisions opposed to them, when the rest of the army had already changed its position.

The Pasha immediately left off pursuing the panic-stricken musketeers and fell with all his might upon Kemeny, who, attacked simultaneously in front and in flank, altogether lost his head; and as there was neither time nor space for an orderly retreat, wildly cut his way through the first opening which presented itself, not perceiving in his confusion that he was riding down his own retreating infantry, for the cavalry, galloping frantically into the newly-formed ranks, trod their own people under-foot, frustrated the last hope of forming a reserve, and threw the whole army into hopeless disorder. The infantry threw down their arms and fled in all directions before their own and the enemy's cavalry, which followed, helter-skelter, on each other's heels, trampling to death all who came in their way. Neither the skill of the general nor the self-sacrifice of a handful of heroes was able to restore the battle. The wild flight of one part of the army had demoralized the other. The battle was irretrievably lost.

Amidst the general rout the Prince also found himself a fugitive. As he had stood in the fore-front of the battle during the fight, he naturally found himself now among the hindmost in the flight, and could scarcely escape from his pursuers for the press in front. The Turks were everywhere on the heels of the fugitives, and mercilessly cut down all whom they could reach. A Turkish youth was following the Prince like his shadow, and as the boy's steed had very much less to carry, speedily came up with him. The falcon feather in his turban enables us to recognize Feriz Beg, Kucsuk Pasha's son.

The face of the youthful hero glowed with excitement, but the face of the Prince was dark with rage and shame. He frequently looked behind him and gnashed his teeth. "To fly perforce before a child! Shame, oh, shame!" Again and again he tried to stop, but his frenzied steed tore him along with it.

Meanwhile the youngster had come near enough to reach him with his scimitar. At first the Prince disdained to defend himself against his puny foe; but the latter, becoming more and more audacious in his attacks, he at last drew his sword and parried his blows.

"Avaunt, you little bastard!" cried Kemeny, foaming with rage, "for if I do turn round, I'll deal you a blow that will knock all your baby teeth down your throat."

But now a bound of his horse brought Feriz alongside of the Prince, and regarding Kemeny with flashing eyes, he aimed a blow at his neck with his supple Damascus blade; while Kemeny, with a lowering countenance, seized his sword with both hands, and dealt a tremendous backward blow with all his might which was meant to cut his presumptuous young assailant in two. It was as though a young eagle had brought a flying panther to bay, and forced him to a life-and-death struggle. At the moment when both swords sped hissing through the air, Kemeny's horse again stumbled and fell forward with a broken foot, causing Kemeny's blow to fall wide, and strike not Feriz but Feriz' horse's head, which it clove in twain, while Feriz' blow flashed down upon the Prince's forehead.

The Prince as he sank from his horse looked darkly up into the face of his youthful opponent. The blood flowed in streams from his frowning forehead. Once more he gave his horse the spur, but the maimed beast only reared on its hind legs, fell over with its sinking rider, and both were instantly trampled under-foot by the enemy's cavalry.

In the wild rout no one noticed the spot where the Prince had fallen. It was only after many days that his torn and tattered mantle and his broken sword were offered for sale in the market-place of Segesvar by Turkish hucksters, purchased by Michael Apafi, now sole Prince of Transylvania, and subsequently preserved in his museum at Fogaros. Apafi also ordered search to be made on the battle-field for the corpse of the fallen Prince in order to give it decent and honourable burial, but no one could recognize his body among the naked and mutilated slain.

The battle won, Kucsuk by a flourish of trumpets recalled his squadrons from pursuing the beaten foe. The Turkish horsemen came galloping back at once, quite contrary to the usual practice of Turkish armies, which are generally as much demoralized after a victory as the vanquished themselves. Kucsuk had inured them to the strictest discipline.

Back they came, black with smoke and red with blood, but the bloodiest of all was Feriz Beg. His mantle was riddled with bullets, and the horse he rode was the third that he had mounted since the action began, two had already been killed under him.

Kucsuk, without a word, embraced his son, kissed him on the forehead, fastened his own Nishan Order on his breast, and exchanged swords with him, then the highest conceivable distinction.

Ferhad Aga, the leader of the right wing, was brought dead, on a litter of lances, before the general. His body bore wounds of every shape and size; he was literally covered with gunshot wounds, sabre-cuts, and lance-thrusts.

Kucsuk sprang from his horse, bent weeping over the corpse, covered it with kisses, and swore by Allah that he would not have given this man's life for the whole of Transylvania.

Nor would he enter the town till Ferhad had been buried. The dervishes immediately surrounded the dead man, washed him, wrapped him in fragrant linen, and the Pasha himself sought out for him a sunny spot in the midst of a little grove. There they buried him with his face turned towards the east, and with a pennant fluttering on a lance's head over his grassy grave. And for three days sentinels watched over him, to prevent the accursed Jins from mutilating the corpse of the dead hero.

CHAPTER VII.
THE PRINCESS.

After the fatal day of Nagy Szöllös, the faithful followers of John Kemeny fled to Hungary, and transferred their allegiance to Simon Kemeny, the son of the fallen Prince. But a sinking cause has few friends, and while the younger Kemeny's party rapidly diminished, Apafi's as rapidly increased. His victory had assured his position, and won for him all the great men of the land—the governors of the towns, the magnates, the commandants of the fortresses—in short, it was a race who should do him homage first, all the Estates of the Realm recognized him as Prince.

Only a few fortresses, where Kemeny had placed German garrisons, still held out, Klausenburg among the number.

Kucsuk Pasha, whose army meanwhile had been reinforced, brought Apafi beneath the walls of that city, and pitched his tent at Hidelve over against the old town, then a mere heap of straw huts, and there the new Prince held his first reception.

The morning had scarcely dawned when Apafi's tent was besieged by a host of visitors, petitioners, and liegemen. The Prince, enchanted at the delightful novelty of a position which enabled him to gratify everybody's desires, could not find it in his heart to say no to anybody. Nalaczi and Daczo were there before he had finished putting on his boots, and introduced a whole mob of persons anxious to pay their respects, who were waiting with smiling faces at the tent door. Apafi made haste with his toilet in order that none should be kept waiting. He was anxious to oblige every one.

Amongst the first who elbowed their way in was Count Ladislaus Csaky. He came to offer his son as a page to the Prince, the self-same son who had filled and refilled John Kemeny's glass a few weeks before. Apafi could scarcely find words to express his gratitude for such an offer.

Next came Master Gabriel Haller, who seemed as if he would really never leave off bowing and scraping, and addressed an eloquent oration to Apafi, every tenth word of which was a title of honour. Apafi could scarcely conceal his childish joy at being called your Highness, and invited Master Gabriel Haller to dinner straight off.

A daïs was then placed in the back part of the tent, which the modest Prince absolutely refused to mount, till his brother Stephen used gentle violence, and even then he insisted on rising to receive every suitor, and accompanied him to the door at the end of each audience.

Petitioners, homagers, and visitors of every description kept coming and going one by one.

By Apafi's side stood Nalaczi, Daczo, Stephen Apafi, and John Cserey, whom his Highness urged repeatedly to be seated.

After receiving the oaths of allegiance, on which occasion the commandants of the fortresses placed the keys of their strongholds in the Prince's hands, it was the turn of the petitioners to be introduced.

First came Master Martin Pok, the jailer of Fogaros, with the humble petition that he might be appointed the governor of that fortress, inasmuch as the former governor had fled to Simon Kemeny.

Apafi promised to bear him in mind.

Next came Master John Szasy, the chief magistrate of Hermannstadt, complaining, with tears in his eyes, that his fellow-citizens were persecuting him, and throwing himself on the Prince's protection.

Apafi at once took him under his wing.

Then followed Master Moses Zagoni, who begged the Prince to let him off a certain balance in his accounts which had been outstanding from Kemeny's time.

Him too Apafi sent away comforted.

Last of all came a thick-set, sturdy Szekler, in a short sheep-skin jacket, who called himself the representative of Olahfalva; did homage to Apafi in the name of his district, and preferred two very peculiar petitions, to wit: that from henceforth Olahfalva should be declared to be only two miles from Klausenburg (the real distance between the two places is, as we all know, more than twenty); and secondly, that it should be legally enacted that he who had no horse should go on foot.

The Prince laughingly complied with both of these extraordinarily ludicrous requests, which put him into such a good humour that an itinerant scholar, Clement by name, a crooked-nosed, long-legged individual, wrapped from head to foot in a fox-skin mantle, made bold to approach Apafi, and present him on his knees with a huge parchment roll which he had been holding in his hand for some time, and which the Prince, not without extraneous help, now took and unfolded. Inside it he read the whole genealogical record of the Apafis, painted on a green-leaved family-tree, whereby his family was brought into connection with the illustrious Bethlen and Bathory families; traced back to King Samuel Aba, from him again to Huba, one of the seven original leaders of the Magyars, and thence ascending still further, first to Attila's youngest son Csaka, and from him in the female line to the daughter of the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, but in the male line to Nimrod, the first recorded earthly king.

This fulsome piece of flattery seemed to somewhat annoy Apafi; but as he could not quite make up his mind to kick the impertinent poet out of the tent, he resolved to be quit of him with a handful of ducats, and placed the genealogical tree behind him by way of a prop.

Nevertheless the Prince's good-humour was not in the least disturbed. He seemed to feel it his bounden duty to treat every one who approached him with peculiar graciousness and condescension, and after listening patiently to the last of his many petitioners, he turned to Messrs. Nalaczi and Daczo, who stood by his side, and said—

"Is there absolutely nothing I can do for you? How shall I requite the fidelity with which you have stood by me from the very first?"

Nalaczi and Daczo had long been racking their brains as to what they should ask of the Prince. Their chief anxiety was lest they should ask too little.

"I leave the reward of my poor services to the benevolence of your Highness," said Nalaczi: but he thought within himself that the Szeklers needed another Captain-General in the place of Beldi.

"The little I have been fortunate enough to do for your Highness is, in my opinion, not even worth mentioning," declared Daczo; but it did occur to him at the same time that the post of Governor of Klausenburg, vacant by the flight of Banfi, was just the very thing for him.

Apafi looked at them benignly, and no doubt would have created both these worthy but not particularly capable gentlemen privy-counsellors at the very least, when, unfortunately for them, a hubbub outside here interrupted the conversation, and the body-guards, drawing aside the curtains of the tent, admitted Kucsuk Pasha.

The Prince sprang from his seat at once, and would have gone to meet him, had not Stephen Apafi pulled him by the mantle and whispered in his ear—

"Keep up your dignity in the presence of the Turk. He is only a subaltern Pasha, while you are the sovereign Prince of Transylvania."

Despite this admonition Apafi did not feel quite at his ease till Kucsuk had beckoned to him to be seated, and although the Turk remained standing in the presence of the Prince, there was this difference between them, that whereas Apafi's face expressed nothing but affability and condescension, Kucsuk's was all haughtiness and dignity.

"How can I show my gratitude for the labours and perils you have undergone on my behalf?" asked Apafi with genuine enthusiasm.

"Not to me but to my imperial master are thy thanks due," replied Kucsuk dryly. "I did but do his will when I set thee on the throne of Transylvania. With God's help I have scattered thy enemies, only a fortress here and there still holds out. I shall have done my whole duty when I have captured them; the rest lies with thee. To-morrow I shall besiege Klausenburg, and, cost what it may, I shall not rest till the town is taken. When that has fallen the others will follow of their own accord."

"Should I not also call out the provincial banderia[17]?" inquired Apafi.

[17] Banderia. The mounted gentry of the county.

"I need them not," replied Kucsuk; "let them remain at home and look after their own affairs. My own troops will do everything."

Apafi was about to thank the Pasha for his magnanimity, when suddenly he became aware that every one was looking towards one of the side-entrances of the tent, through which some one had just entered without being announced.

The Prince also looked round in the same direction, and what he then saw before him made him forget instantly Transylvania, Kucsuk Pasha, Klausenburg, and everything else, for before him stood his beautiful and majestic consort, Anna Bornemissa.

It was indeed a queenly apparition.

That commanding countenance, which seemed to exact homage, how affably yet how proudly it could glance around! In her dress there was no trace of pomp; but was there any need of gems where such speaking eyes flashed and sparkled? Did that royal form require velvet or ermine to lend it majesty?

It was the first time that Apafi had seen her since his departure. She had risen from her child-bed twice as lovely as before. Renewed happiness and comfort had invested her features with a sort of transparent brightness. Her eyes, dimmed no longer by tears of sorrow, flashed with a purer radiance than before. Her lips, which had long known nought but joy, smiled still more sweetly. Her figure had gained in fullness and roundness without losing in symmetry, and the confident, self-conscious dignity visible in all her features and all her movements well became her majestic form.

Apafi, forgetting all dignity and decorum when he saw his consort, sprang from his seat, rushed towards her, seized her hand, drew the enchanting lady to his breast, just as he used to do when he was a simple squire, and kissed her mouth and cheeks so heartily that the assembled Estates of the Realm had auricular demonstration of the fact.

Anna nestled closely to her husband's breast, and her lips tenderly returned his salutations; but her large, earnest eyes seemed to be scrutinizing over her husband's shoulder the faces of all who were present, and her gaze rested for an instant on each one of them.

These connubial caresses seemed likely to have no end so far as Apafi was concerned—his wife was worth more to him than all Transylvania with the appurtenances thereof—till Anna disengaged herself from his arms with a smile, and said merrily—

"You lavish the outpourings of your heart on me alone, but there is some one else here who claims his share too;" and with that she beckoned to Dame Sarah, who had followed her mistress into the tent with a beaming countenance, and now unwrapped before Apafi's eyes a pretty sleeping babe, whom the good nurse had been dangling about in a piece of silken tapestry.

Beside himself for joy, Apafi took the child in his arms and kissed its little round cherub face again and again. The child awaking, allowed itself to be kissed and hugged without uttering a cry, and snatched with its plump little be-ribboned arms at papa's beard, which naturally gave papa indescribable delight.

The gentlemen standing around considered it their bounden duty to congratulate the Prince on his parental felicity, who, drunk with joy, exhibited his son to them and said—

"Look how serious he is. He doesn't even cry. What a perfect little man it is!"

Meanwhile Anna beckoned to Stephen Apafi, and whispered to him—

"I am sure the gentlemen will not take it ill if the Prince's family concerns and joys withdraw him for a few moments from public affairs."

"Your Highness has taken the words out of my mouth," replied Stephen. "I was just about to say the same thing to the gentlemen myself;" and turning towards the courtiers, he begged them to leave the Prince for a few moments in the bosom of his family, and meanwhile withdraw into the antechamber.

The gentlemen considered the request only natural, and at once retired, obsequiously giving precedence as they went to Kucsuk Pasha.

No sooner did Anna find herself alone with her consort, than she took the child from his arms, gave it back to Sarah, and sent them both away. Apafi now approached her with fresh demonstrations of tenderness, but she took him by the hand, gazed earnestly into his eyes, and said—

"It is to the Prince of Transylvania that I have come!"

Apafi was somewhat chilled by her steady look; but she, perceiving it, nestled closely up to him again, and said kindly—

"I was beginning to suspect that the Prince might have more need of me than the husband." Then she added with a smile full of irresistible grace—"I hope you will not misconstrue my good intentions."

Apafi embraced his wife, and made her sit down by his side. The chair of state was large enough to accommodate them both. It is true that the pretty wife had to sit half upon her husband's knee, but that certainly did not inconvenience either of them.

"You are right," said Apafi; "it is well that you are here. When I don't see you I always feel that I lack something. At any rate you deserve to be nearest to my heart, and I'll venture to set your judgment against the judgment of any of the gentlemen surrounding me."

"Who are all these gentlemen?" asked Anna.

"You must know them all by name. The lanky man is Ladislaus Csaky, who offers me his son as a page."

"He loses no time about it! A very little while ago the lad was John Kemeny's page."

Apafi began to look glum.

"The man with the large moustaches is Gabriel Haller."

Anna smote her hands together in amazement.

"What! he here too?"

"What have you to find fault with in him?"

"I'll tell you. He has always been the spy of your enemies. He brought Kemeny the first tidings of your installation, and of Kucsuk Pasha's arrival at Segesvar."

Apafi's features grew still darker.

"And I have invited the gentleman to dinner!" he murmured between his teeth.

"And why are Messrs. Nalaczi and Daczo so familiar with you? Do they want anything?"

"They are my faithful followers, who have stood by my side from the very first."

"But pray don't on that account make them the highest personages in the land. Simple, ignorant men in responsible positions are far more dangerous to a state than open but enlightened foes. Reward them by all means, but only in proportion to their abilities."

"I'll do so," replied the harassed Prince; and during the remainder of the interview he tried hard to uphold his conjugal supremacy, but Anna would not let the subject drop.

"And Master John Szasy, what does he do here? for I saw him too."

"The poor fellow is persecuted," returned Apafi, who began to find the joke a little tiresome.

"Evil rumours are abroad about that man. People say of him—and they say it pretty loudly—that he has young Saxon girls abducted for him, and after sacrificing them to his brutal lusts, removes them out of the way by poison. The parents of the girls have indicted this man, and he fancies he will escape exposure by fawning upon you."

Apafi sprang wrathfully from his seat.

"If that be so, I will show Master Szasy the door; he shall find no shelter beneath my mantle."

"And what brought that honest, tattered Szekler hither?" asked Anna, who had evidently made up her mind to know everything. "I like not his crafty face at all. The Szekler is always most dangerous when he puts on the garb of simplicity."

The Prince was suddenly seized with a paroxysm of mirth, he could scarcely speak for laughing.

"That was the representative of Olahfalva," said he.

At the mention of this place even Anna could not forbear from smiling.

"The good folks of Olahfalva," continued Apafi, still laughing, "who carry people to church in sheets and beat watches to death!"

"I fear me the poor people are very much maligned. They are called simple, but methinks their ways are altogether crooked and crafty."

"But is it not true then that they carry ladders horizontally through the woods?"

"Yes; but why? You shall hear. Their Captain-General had forbidden them to waste the woods, but at the same time sent them out to pull down crows' nests; so to get at the nests they carried the ladders horizontally through the woods to have an excuse for hewing down every tree that stood in their way."

"Well explained! But at least you will not deny that in hilly districts they never plough to the end of their fields for fear that if they go right to the margin the earth will tilt over with them."

"They do that because the margin is of a rocky consistency which no ploughshare will penetrate."

"Then what do you say of their custom of choosing to represent them at the Diet those amongst them upon whom their obsolete, short skin-jackets sit the best? I'll swear I saw the self-same jacket now worn by the Olahfalva deputy at the Diet of Klausenburg twelve years ago, only then it was on some one else's shoulders."

"The good folks think," returned the Princess, "that a deputy to the Diet need say little or nothing, but that the coat in which he has to sit for hours ought to be as comfortable as possible."

"You seem to know the reason of everything. But, come now! explain, if you can, the signification of the promises which this Szekler has got out of me. He petitioned for two things: first, that the distance between Olahfalva and Klausenburg should henceforth be declared to be only two miles."

"Oh! sancta simplicitas!" cried Anna. "They have a charter which permits them to offer their timber for sale at any place within two miles of their district; they are consequently anxious to have the Klausenburg market thrown open to them."

"I really believe you are right," returned Apafi, in a tone of conviction. "I now begin to suspect their second petition, although it seems to me to have no special connection with their community. They desire it to be legally enacted that he who has no horse shall henceforth be obliged to go on foot."

"I have it!" cried Anna, after a moment's reflection. "Olahfalva has recently been made a post station, and the couriers passing through the place have therefore the right to demand fresh horses there. Now the good people begin to find this new obligation onerous, and therefore want a law passed to compel the couriers to make their pilgrimages through Olahfalva on foot."

Apafi stamped angrily on the ground.

"The impudent rascal! To presume to jest with me in such a way! Well, you shall see how I'll make them grin on the other side of their faces. But is it not about time to re-admit the gentlemen?"

"One word more, Apafi," said Anna gently, placing her velvety arms on her husband's shoulder. "I observed Kucsuk Pasha among your liegemen; I presume he came to take his leave?"

Apafi threw back his head much perplexed.

"Not at all! Don't you know that we are here to capture Klausenburg? It is Kucsuk's business to take it."

"Michael!" cried the Princess, in a tone of tearful supplication. "Do you mean to say that you will suffer a Turkish garrison in Klausenburg? Do you forget that the Osmanlis are always loth to relinquish any Hungarian stronghold that they once get possession of? Do you not recollect that Klausenburg is the capital of your realm, and those who dwell within its walls are your own people, your own compatriots, your own co-religionists? And you would expose them to the horrors of an assault? The Turks may be your allies, but after all they are heathens and aliens, whom you should not allow to play havoc with your people. Did not your heart sink within you when you saw the walls of Klausenburg? Could you behold those towers, those houses, without reflecting that there are the homes of your fellow-countrymen and the churches of your God, into which the besiegers would hurl their firebrands? Could you look at those ramparts without perceiving crowds of mothers holding their babes in their arms, and declaring to you that your own people—an innocent, loyal, honest people—dwell therein? And you would hold your triumphal entry into the capital of your country over the mutilated bodies of these women and children?"

Apafi rose from his seat. His forehead was bathed with sweat. Involuntary remorse was legible on his troubled countenance.

"No, Anna; I don't wish it. How can you think me so heartless? What! I, who could never endure the tears of a single woman, should remain deaf to the lamentations of a whole nation? But what am I to do? I meant to have called out the banderia to invest the town, and so compel the garrison to surrender; but how shall I set about it with Kucsuk Pasha in the way? He is determined to storm the town, I know not how to prevent him."

"Be easy on that score. The commanders of the Turkish troops in Transylvania have received firmans[18] ordering them to instantly rejoin the army of the Grand Vizier at Érsekújvár. Kucsuk too has doubtless received such a firman."

[18] Firman. A decree issued by the Sultan and proclaimed by the Grand Vizier.

"I was not aware of it. That is why he wants to press on the assault, I suppose?"

"A similar mandate is already on its way to you from the Divan,[19] and by pretending that this mandate has already reached you, it will be easy to induce the Pasha in a friendly way to raise the siege of Klausenburg."

[19] Divan. The Sultan's council.

"I will try, Anna; I will try!" cried Apafi, walking up and down the tent. "I owe it to my people, and I would rather turn my back upon these walls than force my way through them with fire and sword."

"But you must not turn your back upon them," replied the discreet lady; "there are ways and means of getting possession of the fortress without having recourse to fire and sword."

Apafi stood still and looked inquiringly at his wife. She drew him closer to her and whispered in his ear—

"Before coming to Klausenburg, I secretly instructed the well-disposed within the town to try and bring the garrison over to our side. This morning our spies have brought us word that the infantry is ready, at the first sound of the trumpet from without, to open the gates and go over to us with bag and baggage. The cavalry by itself will be unable to offer any resistance."

"My dear!" cried Apafi in astonishment, "you are really a born princess."

Anna took her husband softly by the arm, led him to the daïs, and made him sit down.

"The sceptre is no plaything, Apafi," said she earnestly. "Never forget that posterity will sit in judgment on princes. A ruler's every act and word may mean the ruin or the salvation of thousands. Think of that in all you do and say. And now, God be with you. Be firm!"

Anna, with an exalted look, kissed the Prince on the forehead. At that very moment her eye fell on the parchment roll of the itinerant scholar.

"What plan of campaign is this?" cried she, taking up the parchment.

Apafi would have snatched it from her, but it was too late; Anna had already unrolled it, and after casting a rapid glance over the lickspittling pedigree, looked with an expression of overwhelming reproach at the discomfited Prince, who stood before her with downcast eyes.

"Did you get any one to compose it?" she softly asked.

"Certainly not," replied Apafi energetically; "a shameless poet brought it to me."

"Then throw it into the fire," replied his wife, much relieved.

"That is just what I was going to do. I can then get rid of him with a few ducats."

"A few strokes with a whip would be much more appropriate," exclaimed Anna wrathfully; but soon her features grew mild again, and steadfastly regarding her husband she said to him kindly—"Be strong! Be a prince! Protect the loyal! Forgive the repentant! Despise flatterers!"

With that she curtseyed low, kissed her husband's hand, and had vanished from the tent before he could return the salute.

Apafi immediately called Cserey and commanded him to re-admit the gentlemen, who were still waiting in the ante-chamber.

On the countenances of the courtiers could be read, as plainly as if it were written there, the persuasion that they might now ask for and expect from the Prince anything they liked, on the presumption that the blissful antecedent domestic scene had left him in a state of mental flabbiness which could say no to nobody. Stephen Apafi was alone sufficiently sober-minded to perceive the change which had come over his brother's face in the meantime. Apafi's features now wore an expression of dignity, firmness, and energy worthy of a prince.

"My loyal friends," he cried, in a hard, firm voice, without waiting for any one to address him. "As concerning the petitions preferred to us, we would dismiss you with fit and proper answers. We accept your homage with all due appreciation, and trust you will ever persevere in your loyalty. You, Ladislaus Csaky, we permit to return home. We will no longer deprive you of your family joys. As for your son, we will have him educated abroad at our own cost, till he be suitable for our service."

Count Ladislaus Csaky, with a very wry face indeed, expressed his gratitude for the Prince's gracious permission to return home, although he would willingly have remained at Court all his life with the whole of his family.

Gabriel Haller the Prince passed over altogether, as if he absolutely did not see him, but he turned pointedly towards Nalaczi and Daczo, who made desperate efforts to appear meek and humble.

"Having regard to the zeal and affection which our faithful Stephen Nalaczi has always testified for our person, we appoint him herewith first gentleman-in-waiting at our Court. And you, John Daczo, we appoint commander of Csikszerda."

Both gentlemen made the grimace usual in suitors who have expected much and got little. Nalaczi smiled, but within he was all wormwood and gall. Daczo tried to look contented, but he coloured up to the ears. They were scarcely able to thank the Prince for his goodness.

Meanwhile Master Pok, in order not to be left altogether out of sight, had elbowed his way to the front, completely covering honest Cserey, who modestly made way for him.

Apafi beckoned to him, however.

"Why do you keep so much in the background?" said he.

Master Pok, under the impression that the hint was meant for him, drew still nearer.

"'Tis Master Cserey whom we address," continued the Prince, "or do you think that we are unable to distinguish our faithful from our feigning followers? Your fidelity and prudence, Master Cserey, are well known to us, wherefore we appoint you forthwith governor of our fortress of Fogaros."

In his consternation Master Pok looked up at the ceiling as if he expected it to fall on his head.

"Master Martin Pok, on the other hand," pursued the Prince, "we confirm in his former post. He will continue to be jailer at the same fortress."

Master Martin Pok sobbed aloud. Cserey was about to raise objections, but the Prince beckoned him to be silent.

Next came Master John Szasy's turn.

"You are accused of grievous crimes, from which we have neither the will nor the power to absolve you. You will therefore be conveyed to Hermannstadt with a strong escort, there to clear yourself as best you can."

John Szasy, with a stupefied air, looked first to the right and then to the left. He could not understand it at all.

"You, Master Moses Zagoni, we command to present your accounts for examination to our officers of the Exchequer thereunto appointed."

To hide his own confusion, Zagoni thought he could not do better than whisper consolation to Szasy.

The deputy of Olahfalva had now to take his turn. It was indeed high time that something amusing should happen, for while the Prince had thus been distributing rewards and punishments, the smile had gradually vanished from every face; nothing short of the discomfiture of the quaint and crafty boor could now restore the general hilarity.

"What I promised you," said the Prince, scarcely able to repress his inward merriment, "is yours. If it give you any satisfaction, you may henceforth regard Olahfalva as only two miles distant from Klausenburg instead of twenty; let him also who has no horse go on foot as you desire. But we grant this with the express reservation that you are not to take any timber to the market of Klausenburg, and that you always give the couriers the necessary relays of horses."

The Szekler grinned, shook his head, and then looked very hard at the Prince, as if to find out how Apafi could possibly have got to the bottom of his artifice.

The wondering, puzzled face of the Olahfalvian was too much for Apafi's gravity, and he burst into a loud guffaw, in which everybody present joined him. The Szekler, whose face had hitherto worn a bewildered smile, suddenly became quite serious, threw back his head defiantly, cast a furious look around, half stripped off his short jacket, and exclaimed—

"Harkye, gentlemen! If the Prince chooses to make merry with me, I suffer it; but I'll trouble you all not to laugh so at my expense."

The Prince beckoned to them to be silent, and diverted their attention by calling forward the itinerant scholar Clement, who shambled up on his long, lean legs, as if he were every moment about to fall on his knees.

"We have commanded our treasurer," said the Prince, "to pay to you out of our privy purse three marias[20] for the work which you have handed to us."

[20] Maria. An old Hungarian coin worth about thirty-five kreutzers.

"Your Highness was pleased to observe—" stammered the confounded poet.

"You heard very well. I said three marias. That is about the value of the writing materials which you have wasted upon this pedigree. Another time employ your leisure more profitably."

The Prince then signified that the audience was at an end.

The gentlemen quitted the tent with many a deep obeisance. Kucsuk Pasha alone remained behind.

During the whole of this scene the Pasha had been shaking his head, as if he had not expected all this from Apafi. He could not help remarking too that Apafi now needed no one to remind him how to preserve his princely dignity in the presence of others. Apafi wore an affable air; but it was the affability of princely condescension.

"We have learnt with regret," he began, turning towards the Pasha, "that we must shortly lose you, whose valour we so much admire, whose friendship we so much esteem."

The Pasha looked up with astonishment.

"What means your Highness?"

"In consequence of a firman commanding the Transylvanian generals to assemble in the camp of the Grand Vizier. We shall, alas! only see you in our circle for a very short time."

Kucsuk angrily bit his lips.

"How could he have learnt that already?" he muttered.

"We would willingly retain you, for your person is most dear to us; but we know that the commands of the Padishah require instant submission. Moreover, lest your devotion to us should draw down upon you the displeasure of the Sublime Porte, we have taken such measures as will bring the fortress of Klausenburg to capitulate without having resort to an assault, thus releasing you from the troublesome obligation of keeping your army here any longer. As to the confirmation of our princely dignity, we will take care to settle all that with the Grand Vizier, presumably at Érsekújvár, whither we also are summoned."

During this speech, Kucsuk had regarded the Prince fixedly and with folded arms. Even when Apafi had finished speaking, he remained standing in the same position without uttering a word.

Apafi calmly continued—

"In order however to express our personal gratitude, however feebly, for your services, we would have you accept from us this little gift more as a token of our respect than as a reward." And with that the Prince took from his neck a gold chain set with large brilliants, and hung it round the Pasha's neck.

Kucsuk still remained immovable. He searchingly scrutinized the Prince, and wrinkled his brows. Then, all at once, he began to smile, and shaking his head said slyly—

"It is well, Apafi, it is all excellently well. But I see that thou art wont to commit thy understanding to the custody of thy wife. Salem aleikum! Peace be with thee!"

And off went the Pasha, shaking his head all the way.

But Apafi, with a lightened heart, hastened back to his wife.

Master Gabriel Haller waited a very long time at the door of the tent, till one of the bodyguards came out to inform him that the Prince would dine that day in his family circle.

Then he too shook his head and departed.

A couple of days later, with drums beating and banners waving, Prince Michael Apafi made his triumphal entry into Klausenburg.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE PERI.

Once more we are in Hungary, among the Homolka Mountains, in one of those parts of the land which no one has ever thought of colonizing. For fifty miles round there is not a village to be seen; not a single passable road traverses the whole mountain range. The very footpaths break abruptly off amongst the rocky labyrinths, terminating either in a leaf-covered waterfall, or at the forsaken hut of a charcoal-burner, the carbonized, sooty environment of which suffers nothing green to grow.

The very skirts of this wilderness are uninhabited. One can wander for hours among the oaks and beeches, towering up one above the other, without hearing any other sound but one's own footsteps; not a blade of grass, not a flower, not a shrub can thrive anywhere here. Beneath the uncleared trees rustle the fallen yellow leaves, peeping up from the midst of which we perceive the speckled caps of oddly-shaped fungi clinging in clusters to the mossy tree stems.

Only where the stream dashes down from the mountains, forcing its way through the valley, does the greensward appear. There, among the luxuriant grasses, lie the fearless stags; wild bees build their basket-shaped nests in the hollow trees on the margin of the stream, and sweep buzzing round the Alpine flowers which dance on the surface of the water.

That stream is the Rima.

In the dim, dismal distance still higher mountains appear, from which the stream plunges down in a snow-white torrent. The morning mists exaggerate the magic remoteness of the scene, and when at last you have reached the extremest point of that remoteness, it is only to see before you a still more awful expanse, still more desolate mountain ranges, forming as it were an immense and uninterrupted ladder up to heaven.

The Rima burrows in every direction among these primeval mountains. She alone is bold enough to force her way through this wild rocky labyrinth. Sometimes she plunges down from the granite terraces with a far-resounding din, dissolving into a white, cloudy spray, in which the sunbeams paint an eternal rainbow, which spans the velvet-green margins of the abyss like a fairy bridge. A moss-clad rock projects from the midst of the waterfall, dividing it into two, and from the moss-clad rock wild roses look over into the dizzying, tumbling rapids below. Far away down, the vagrant stream is hemmed in between basalt rocks; the twofold echo changes its monotonous, muffled roar into melancholy music; its transparent, crystal waters appear black from the colour of their stony bed, wherein rosy trout and sprightly water-snakes, like silver ribbons, disport themselves; then, escaping from its brief constraint, it dashes onwards from crag to crag, angrily scourging a huge mass of rock which once, in flood-time, it swept into its bed from a distance of many miles, and which, after the next thaw or rainfall, it will hurl a thousand fathoms deeper into the rock-environed valley.

Higher and higher we mount. The oaks and beeches fall behind us; the pines and firs begin. The horizon opens out ever wider and wider. The transparent mists which have hitherto veiled the heights are left behind in the depths. The little green patches of valley are scarcely visible through the opal atmosphere, and the hilly woodlands have dwindled into dark specks; only their outlines, gold and lilac in the rays of the rising sun, are still distinguishable.

And before us the mountains still rise higher and higher. One feels tempted to scale these fresh giants also, in order to find out whether there is really any end to them. Now too even the Rima has forsaken us. Deep down below, we perceive a round, dark-blue lakelet, enclosed on all sides by steep rocks, on the mirror-like surface of which white swans are bathing beneath the shadows of the pines dependent over the water's edge. In the midst of this lakelet, the source of the Rima tosses and tumbles, casting its bubbling crystal fathoms high, and keeping the lakelet in perpetual ebullition, as if some spirit were trying to raise up the whole lake with his head.

And yet another mountain range starts up before our eyes, covered with thick fir-woods, though nothing else will grow on the steep ridge, which is covered along its whole length by masses of rock piled one on the top of the other. Nowhere does a single green speck meet the eye.

Having scaled these heights also, we naturally fancy that at last we have reached the highest point, when suddenly, high above the dark fir forests, a white giant emerges, and before the eyes of the wearied mountaineer rise the lofty distant peaks of the Silver Alps, representing the unattainable with their towering, snowy pyramids.

Here we pause.

All along the mountain ridge, standing out the more distinctly for the great distance, meanders a footpath, disappearing among the pine forests at one point and re-emerging at another, thereby showing that some one must dwell here in the wilderness, a circumstance the more startling as, up to this point, the region has seemed altogether uninhabited, while beyond it shimmer the still more inhospitable snowy mountains.

From the top of this peak one sees hundreds and hundreds of mountains and valleys exactly resembling one another. The eye grows weary of regarding them, and so long as the sun's rays strike obliquely over the region, suffusing it with a golden mist, one can barely distinguish the separate parts of the oppressively sublime panorama.

Gradually, however, our attention is attracted towards a deep, rocky gorge, surrounded by greyish-blue mountains, which seem likely at any moment to topple over. In the midst of this gorge an enormous and completely isolated rocky pillar stands upright, looking for all the world as if it had just fallen from the skies. A careless glance might easily pass over this rocky mass without seeing anything remarkable about it; but a more attentive observer would discover a narrow wooden bridge planted on fir-wood piles, and apparently connecting the rocky block with the surrounding mountain summits. And gradually we perceive that it was not Nature's hand which made this rocky scaffolding so high. Those monochromatic rocks, piled one atop the other, forming a wall all round, and seeming to prolong the mountain range, are the work of human hands. It is a massive rocky bastion, almost as high as the hill which forms its base, and as the walls are everywhere carried right out to the verge of the steep, naked mountain side, they look as if they have grown out of it, and as if the creeping plants which cling to the rocky walls are only there to bind them more closely together.

In the year 1664, the eye which looked down from this point upon the bare bastions could have perceived within them a dwelling fresh from fairy-land. Corsar Beg, the terror of the district, dwelt in this stronghold, and at his command, hedges of roses bloomed on the bastions, groves of orange and pomegranate trees sprang up around the courtyard, and everywhere could be seen those gorgeous structures which oriental magnificence builds for transient pleasure. Spacious rotundas with sky-blue, enamelled cupolas, sparkling in the sun; variegated turrets rising from the bastions; balconies adorned with arabesques and covered with porcelain vases; slim, snow-white minarets encircled by fragrant creepers; trellised kiosks with their gilded columns; everything constructed of the most delicate materials, as if it were meant to be a toy castle; nothing but gilded wood and painted glass, enamelled tiles and variegated tapestry. Bright banners and pennants flutter down from the copper roofs, and golden half-moons sparkle on every gable-ridge. All the kiosks, rotundas, and minarets are bright with banners and half-moons. 'Tis a fairy palace ready to take flight.

But the bastions which encircle this frail fairy palace are impregnable. On every side nothing but inaccessible rocks, where, if once he reach them, the pursued can defend himself against odds a hundredfold. The Comparadschis stand, day and night, with burning matches behind the cannons which Corsar Beg has had cast for himself within the fortress, for there is no road for ordnance in the whole region. Two of the cannons are pointed at the bridge, to blow it into the air in case of an assault.

From this stronghold Corsar Beg sallies forth, pillaging the land and massacring the defenceless people; and if he lights upon any pursuing host, he instantly turns tail with his Spahis and Bedouins; and whilst he flies to his stronghold along mountain paths, on mules laden with booty, his Timariots, who cover his retreat, throw barricades up on the narrow roads, and stone to death all who venture to follow them into the dark gorges. Sometimes, however, he permits the pursuers to come right up to the fortress walls, and while they are popping away at the rocky bastions with the little half-pound mortars which they have dragged up thither after incalculable exertions, and think that now they will starve him out at last, he plays a practical joke upon them by somehow or other (perhaps through subterranean ways), making a sortie from his stronghold, and robbing and burning behind the backs of the besiegers. Every attempt to capture, surprise, or blockade him has been in vain. The inhabitants of the surrounding villages have begun to migrate into more distant regions for fear of their terrible neighbour.

After the battle of St. Gothard, in which the Turkish general lost the fight and twelve thousand men against the Imperial and Hungarian forces, a twenty years' armistice was concluded between the Porte, the Emperor, and the Prince of Transylvania, which left the Turks in possession of all the fortresses which they had built or captured in Hungary. The lords of these fortresses now continued the war on their own account, and pillaged and destroyed whenever and wherever they had a chance. The Sultan was too far off to interfere in each individual case. All he could do was to authorize the complainants to capture the peace-breakers if they could, and deal with them as they chose.

In the twilight hour of a sultry summer evening, when the heat, compressed among the rocks during the day, made the atmosphere so heavy and stifling that sound only travelled with difficulty, we see two shapes hastening towards the same point from different directions. One is a man in Hungarian costume, with a low forehead and sharp, squinting eyes, whose oblique gaze seems expressly made to disconcert whomsoever he looks upon. The other is an old Turkish woman, with a warty chin covered with sprouting bristles. The sleeves of her long striped kaftan hang slovenly down, and her dirty turban gives you the impression that she has slept in it for weeks together.

The trysting-place which the two shapes are cautiously making for is a cavern covered with bushes. Both shapes glide, at the same time, into the cavern, from the dark depths of which they can see the fortress without being seen themselves. The old woman, with a hideous smile, whispers something in the man's ear.

"Are you quite sure?" inquired the squinter, with a searching look.

"So certain that I make bold to claim one-half of the promised reward in advance."

"That I can quite understand," replied the man with an insulting smile; "but I will make bold not to pay it. I prefer sticking to my principle of paying as I go along, sentence by sentence."

"Ask then!" murmured the hag greedily.

"When does the Beg return? I lay five ducats on that question."

"The answer to it costs ten. That is my lowest price."

"There's your money then! Now speak!"

The woman counted the gold pieces, put them in her bosom, and replied—

"The Beg comes home this evening."

"Where is the subterranean way by which he arrives?"

"The answer to that costs one hundred ducats."

"There you are! Don't count them, but answer me!"

The woman took the money, pointed to the yawning chasm behind them, and said—

"We are on the very spot."

The man looked around him with some surprise, then, jingling the purse from which he had been doling out the ducats in the old woman's ear, he said—

"All in this purse is yours if our plan succeeds, but if you betray us, this dagger will surely reach you. I'd hunt you down even if you took refuge in hell itself!"

The hag grinned.

"No threats, please! I know something which will not only make you hand over that purse of gold to me instantly, but will also fill you with such insane joy that you'll be ready to cover me with kisses. I have about me a letter which, if once your master reads, he would cover me with gold from head to foot."

"Who wrote it?"

"That is a very dear question. If you paid for the answer down, I'm afraid you would not have enough money left to carry you home."

"I want to know who wrote that letter. I'm not going to buy a pig in a poke."

"Then farewell! If you want to know anything more, you must pay for it." And she prepared to go.

"Stop! Give me that letter, or I'll kill you."

"No, you won't! One shriek from me and you are lost."

"Where's the letter?"

"You surely don't think me fool enough to tell you! I don't carry it on my person, so you need not look for it!"

The man angrily threw the purse towards her, whereupon she tripped to the entrance of the cavern, fetched from thence her crutch and unscrewed its handle, and drew forth from the hollow of the stick a crumpled silken roll, which the man unravelled and began to read, and as he read his face began to tremble for joy, disbelief, and surprise.

"If all this really happens, what you have now received is a mere earnest of what you will receive hereafter."

"Didn't I tell you so?" returned the beldame complacently. "Didn't I say that you'd gladly pay me in advance at least one-half of the sum stipulated?"

"Now, take heed that nothing is observed!"

"Pst! Go round by the stream, the usual path is to-day infested by marauding parties."

With these words the two shapes glided hastily out of the cavern, and vanished in different directions among the thickets of the wood.

And now begone, thou inhospitable outer world! thou oppressive mountain panorama! thou desolate horizon!

Appear, ye fairy realms! ye earthly counterfeits of the paradise of dreams! Permit us one glance into the sanctuary of mysterious joys, of stifled kisses, of glowing sighs, where Love and Love's satellites alone do dwell and live!

We see before us a gorgeous circular saloon. Its spacious walls are made of mirrors, the perpetual reflection of which lends a peculiar lustre to every object, nowhere suffering a shadow to fall. The sky-blue cupola of the domed ceiling is supported by slender, dark-red porphyry columns, half concealed by clusters of exotic flowers, which, heaped profusely together in rose-coloured porcelain vases, scatter the gold-dust of their velvet blossoms on the floor. The floor itself is covered with silk carpets—only here and there does the mosaic pavement shimmer forth. In the midst of the room, in a basin of rose-coloured marble, bubbles a crystal-clear fountain, from the centre of which springs a jet glistening with all the hues of the rainbow, and falling back in showers of liquid pearls. The water of this fountain is introduced into the fortress through a secret passage by hidden pipes. All along the walls extend rows of velvet divans with cylindrical, flowered cashmere cushions; and on every side of us are fairies, laughing young girls dancing on the carpets, romping on the divans, and splashing one another with the water of the fountain. One odalisk swings a cymbal above her head, and dances with audacious leaps and bounds among the rest, who, winding their hands together, weave a magic circle around her. Three Nubian eunuchs accompany the dancers, singing love-lorn lays to the music of their simple pipes.

The veils of these fairy forms flutter left and right, revealing faces whose youthful charms no eye of man has ever gazed upon. The patter of their tiny feet is scarcely audible on the soft carpets. They seem to fly. Their light muslin robes ill conceal their youthful forms, and their tresses, escaping from their turbans, writhe down their snow-white shoulders like tame serpents.

A black slave is playing with the little gold fish that dart about in the basin of the fountain, and laughs aloud whenever any of the nimble little animals wriggle out of her hands. Her white, embroidered robe is held together by a golden girdle, and as she sits there on the rosy marble, the hemispheres of her ebony-black bosom and her plump round arms glisten in the sunbeams. The glow of youth shines through her dark features, and her coral lips, radiant with mirth and joy, allow us a glimpse at rows of the purest pearly teeth, as, with childish glee, she laughs at her own simple sport.

At the end of this oval saloon, raised a few feet above the floor, stands a purple ottoman. The rosy-coloured damask curtains, which form a baldachin over it, are tied to the branches of enormous jasmine trees by heavy golden tassels. Oriental butterflies, with ultramarine wings, flutter round about the silvery jasmine blossoms; and at the head of the ottoman, on a perch in a golden cage, two little inseparable paroquets, with emerald wings and carmine heads, nestle close together and kiss each other perpetually.

Stretched out to her full length upon the ottoman lies Corsar Beg's favourite odalisk[21] Azrael. Beneath her snow-white elbows, left bare by the loose-falling, laced sleeves of her ample kaftan, lies a living panther, like a bright speckled cushion, licking his glossy skin, and playing like a young kitten with his mistress's jasper-black locks which descend upon his head.

[21] Odalisk, from Turkish Odalyk = chamber-maid. Applied particularly to the chief concubines of the Sultan.

The young lady has well chosen her companion. She too is as slender and as supple as he; her limbs are just as flexible as his; her slight figure has the same undulating motion, and in her languid eyes burns just the same savage, half-quenched fire which we see in the eyes of the half-tamed beast of prey. She lies supine on the ottoman. The amber mouthpiece of her fragrant narghily droops from her listless hand. Close by, on a little ivory table, spiced sherbet exhales from a golden bowl. There too, on Japanese dishes, lie heaps of luscious fruit—golden, warty melons; pine-apples; the red fruit of the palm; fragrant clusters of grapes—and, dripping down upon a little silver platter, snow-white comb-honey, gathered by the bees in the days of the acacia's bloom.

Azrael bestows not a glance on the luscious fruits. When, from time to time, she raises her languid eyes, half hidden by their long silken lashes, one is almost thunderstruck: such burning glances are only to be found beneath southern skies, whose summer is as glowing, as languishing, as parching as the eyes of this girl. An eternal desire burns in those eyes, unspeakable, unappeasable, which enjoyment feeds without satisfying. If you gave her a world she would instantly demand another. Even when every sense is sated with bliss and rapture, her heart remains empty, and yearns after the unattainable. Those who love her, she hates; those who hate her, she loves. Die for her, and she will mock you; kill her, and she will adore you.

Her oval face is as pale as though the burning rays of her eyes had burnt up all its roses; but when she closes her eyes, and her bosom heaves convulsively beneath the fire of her secret thoughts, the bright crimson blood suffuses her cheeks once more.

And how her lips tremble! She is in a brown study. She speaks to no one. Dancing and singing, the girls of the harem circle round her. A little negro boy kneels before her with a silver mirror. Half-naked female slaves shower down rose-leaves upon her, and fan her with peacock's feathers. Azrael sees them and hears them not. She looks into the mirror, and speaks to herself, as if she would read her own thoughts from her own features; her lips tremble, smile, and pout defiance; her eye entices, languishes, weeps, or flashes rejection; at one moment she transports you into the seventh heaven of delight, at the next she dashes you to the earth. And now some cruel thought, some demoniacal idea has got hold of her. She retracts her upper lip, exposing her tightly-clenched teeth; her contracted eyebrows draw a trembling furrow across her snow-white forehead; the pupils of her eye disappear, leaving only the upturned whites visible; the beauty lines round the corners of her mouth grow crooked, and give the expression of a Fury to the beautiful countenance; her curling tresses, like writhing snakes, twist down on both sides of her. Her tremulous fingers, involuntarily and spasmodically, clutch at the smooth neck of the panther, and the tortured beast roars aloud for pain.

The favourite shrinks back from her own countenance. She thrusts aside the little negro, mirror and all; wraps her starry veil around her; turns upon her side with her tiny scarlet-slippered feet beneath her; presses her supple body against the panther's neck, and leaning upon her elbows, glances around with such a savage, menacing look, that every one on whom it falls, not even excepting the wild beast, shrinks back with fear.

But she cannot keep still a moment. A tormenting weariness compels her every moment to shift her position. Now she reclines on her divan, and raising her arms aloft, throws back her head and neck; all her limbs writhe like the folds of a serpent; in her eyes sparkle the tears of smothered desires.

None dare ask her, "What ailest thee?" Azrael is so capricious. Perhaps the questioner might please her, and she would command her to straightway leap down before her eyes from the highest pinnacle of the Corsar's castle into the abyss below. It is therefore neither wise nor safe to try to please Azrael.

But lo! a gold-trellised door opens, and Azrael's tearful eyes sparkle with joy when she perceives who it is that enters. It is the old woman with the warty chin, whom we have already met at the cavern's mouth. A ghastly, hideous duenna! Turkish women age prematurely. Ten years ago Babaye was Corsar Beg's favourite mistress, now she is Azrael's favourite slave.

The hag sits down at Azrael's feet. She alone has the privilege of sitting down before Azrael.

"Are we weary then?" said the beldame to the beautiful odalisk, with a confidential leer, displaying a row of jagged fangs black from sugar-sucking and betel-chewing. "We find no joy in anything, eh? What! have not the Bayaderes[22] danced amidst a circle of burning tapers? Or has that also lost its charm? Are the Persian silks already shabby and threadbare? Is there no longer any flavour in the honeycomb or any perfume in the pine-apple? Have the pearls of Ceylon lost their lustre? Do the songs of the Italian eunuchs vex and weary? And has the mirror nothing beautiful to show? Wherefore is the Sun of suns so moody and so impatient? Why should a cloud obscure the heaven of Damanhour? Shall I delight her of the alabaster forehead with a tale? Shall I tell the story of the captive lion which Medzsnun, the immortal poet, has written?"

[22] Bayaderes. Indian singing and dancing girls. A Portuguese word.

Azrael cast down her languid eyelids by way of assent.

"Once upon a time they captured a lion in the palm forests of Bilidulgherid. A rich and powerful Dey bought the beast for a thousand gold pieces. The Dey was a mighty man. At his command they built for the lion a cage of gold so large that palm-trees could stand upright therein. The ceiling of the cage was inlaid with lapis-lazuli. They brought to it, from the distant mountains, a spring of living water, and the floor was decked with purple carpets. But the lion was sad and silent. All day it lay there sullen and morose. Only when the sun had set would it arise with an angry roar, shake the door of its cage, and terrify the silence of the night. The Dey asked the lion, 'What dost thou lack, my beautiful beast? Thy house is of gold. Thou dost eat with me out of the same dish, and thy drink is the crystal spring! What more dost thou desire? Wouldst thou bathe in ambergris? Or dost thou desire for supper the hearts of my favourite odalisks?' The lion roared and made answer, 'My cage, though it be of gold, is still a cage; these palm-trees are not the groves of Nubia, and this basin is not the springs of the desert of Berzendar. I want neither thy perfumes nor thy spices, nor the throbbing hearts of thy slaves. Give me back the free air of the desert, there will I speedily find again my good-humour!'"

Babaye was silent. The odalisk, with a tremulous sigh, bowed down her head upon her aching bosom, and beckoned to the duenna to tell her yet another tale.

"Wouldst thou hear the story of the fairy and the mortal maiden? Once upon a time the fairy of the rainbow perceived a lovely maiden, enticed her away with sweet words, and took her over the bridge of the seven colours into the third heaven. There, everything was more beautiful than it is on earth—the flower a languid diamond; the sigh of the zephyr a melodious song; the pillars of the palaces nought but crystal and gems. There every sense experienced a threefold greater bliss than here below. The fairy treated the maiden like the apple of her eye—fairies know the secret of loving tenderly—and yet the girl was sad. She grew weary in heaven, and whenever the fairy went away to suck up water for the sky from the ocean, she saw how the girl bent over the rainbow-bridge, and looked longingly down upon the cloudy earth. 'What lackest thou?' she asked the maiden. 'Wherefore dost thou look down so upon the earth? Speak! What dost thou want? Command me, and I'll fetch it for thee!'—'Stars are falling down from heaven,' replied the girl, 'and they fall upon the earth. Give me of them, and I will make a pearly coronet for my hair!' And the fairy went and brought the stars. Again the maiden looked down sadly upon the earth. Again the fairy asked her, 'What dost thou lack? Is there aught on earth that thy soul desirest?' The maiden answered, 'There below dance slim damsels, and look up smilingly at me! Wherefore are they happier than I? Would that I had their heads to play at ball with!' And the fairy brought the heads of the damsels for the maiden to play at ball with."

Azrael looked at the hag with contracted eyebrows, half raised herself upon her elbows, and sought in her golden girdle for the malachite handle of her little dagger.

"Once more the maiden looked down upon the earth," resumed Babaye, smiling. "'Is aught else to be found there that is worth a wish?' asked the fairy in despair. 'Below there, youthful heroes are walking to and fro,' returned the maiden, 'and they are all so sweet and so lovely. Thou art a fairy, 'tis true, but thou art alone in heaven. Thou canst not give me fresh love. Let me go back again to earth.'"

Azrael sprang from the ottoman with glowing cheeks, and seized the beldame by the shoulder. Her bosom heaved tumultuously; a threatening scarlet flamed upon her burning face. All the muscles of her snow-white arms seemed to quiver.

Babaye looked up at her with a grin.

"Come into thy bathing-chamber," said she to the agitated odalisk. "The agate basin exhales the perfumes of spikenard and ambergris. Whilst thou art there alone, I will entertain thee. I know still more beautiful tales which shall rejoice thy heart."

Azrael, all tremulous, drew her veil around her neck, and with nervous irritability beckoned to the girls to be gone. They escaped through the side-door in terrified haste; nor were they fearful without good cause, for as soon as Azrael had withdrawn, the deserted panther, freed from the thrall of his mistress, stretched himself to his full length, lolled out his red tongue as far as it would go, protruded his sharp claws, lowered his head with a menacing growl, sprang at a single bound into the middle of the room, careered twice or thrice round the walls, savagely howling and snuffing at every door behind which he scented the vanished slaves, scratched at the threshold with bloodthirsty rage, and whined peevishly because he could not get at them. Then he crouched down by the water-basin, rested his fore-paws thereon, lapped up the crystal-clear stream with his long red tongue, then, rolling himself into a ball on the soft carpet, seized his long speckled tail between his hind legs and played with it like a cat. Then he stood up again, looked around with cunning, malignant eyes, and perceiving a large white cockatoo in a bronze cage, wriggled towards it on his belly, and watched it for a long time with lowered head and restless tail. Suddenly, with one bound, he sprang upon it, and seized the bar of the cage with his claws. The terrified cockatoo, loudly screeching, struck at his assailant with his crooked bill; and the panther, who could neither overthrow the cage nor destroy it, for it was nailed fast to the ground, leaped over it again and again, roaring furiously, and then cowered down before it, lashing the ground on both sides of him with his tail, and gaping from time to time at the terrified bird with his wide bloodthirsty jaws, whilst the cockatoo screeched, whistled, fluttered about the cage, and hacked away at his inaccessible perch.

Along the hollow, labyrinthine way which meanders into the Corsar's castle, the trampling of a troop of horsemen is faintly audible. The clash of arms resounds from the depths of the wood long before we can discern who are approaching. Now they have climbed to the mountain summit where the road runs along the rocky ridge. It is Corsar Beg himself with his robber band. The booty-laden mules lead the way. The treasures of pillaged churches gleam forth from the leathern sacks piled one on the top of the other. In the centre rides the Beg himself, with his motley body-guard recruited from every kind of Turkish cavalry—silk-clad Spahis with long lances, bare-armed Baskirs with bows and arrows, Bedouins in snow-white mantles with long, brass-tipped muskets. The Beg is a man in the prime of life. His brown, almost black countenance makes his slight beard and moustaches nearly invisible. His lips and eyes are large and swollen. His projecting cheek-bones and broad chin give him a truculent, ferocious air, with which his massive shoulders and enormous muscular development well agree. His clothing is tastelessly overladen with gems. A string of pearls goes round his turban. Large gold rings hang glistening down from his ears. His dolman is embroidered with a flower-pattern of precious stones, and everything about his horse, from its hoofs to its snaffle, is of pure gold. His round shield is made of burnished silver, and the head of his morning-star consists of a single cornelian.

His troop follows him in silence. Many of the horsemen carry behind them half-swooning Christian girls on whom they do not bestow a glance. The garments of all these freebooters are stained with blood; some of them have not even taken the trouble to wipe away the blood-stains from their faces.

The mules, whipped by the fellahs, trot noiselessly towards the fortress; the host ambles after them along the narrow path. The Timariot infantry straggle behind, and quarrel among themselves about the booty which they carry on their shoulders. No one pursues them.

The large oval room is empty. The women of the harem have withdrawn into their own apartments. Azrael is alone.

On quitting her perfumed bath, she has a hammock slung over the fountain, reclines therein, rocks herself luxuriously to and fro, and lets her glowing, snow-white limbs be splashed by the water-jet. She folds her arms across her bosom, and, with a self-complacent smile, watches the diamond jet break against her lithe body as the swaying hammock cuts across it with its charming burden.

The red curtains are let down to keep out the rays of sunset, but a rose-coloured light pervades the room, suffusing every object with a soft and magic hue. The odalisk appears like a rosy water-nymph swinging on a bright lotus-leaf over a fountain of liquid rubies.

The atmosphere of the room is impregnated with a bewitching, love-inspiring perfume. Not a sound is to be heard save the pattering of the water-drops as they fall back into the basin.

All at once the familiar winding of a horn is heard outside. The prancing and neighing of horses in the courtyard scares away the silence. Above the din rises the word of command of a well-known voice. Azrael smiles, and rocks herself still more swiftly in her hammock. A fatal enticement lurks in her eyes as she looks towards the golden-trellised door, and throws back her head.

A minute later, and we hear hasty steps approaching. Impelled by love, Corsar Beg is hastening towards his earthly paradise. The turning of a key is audible in the golden door. Azrael laughs aloud, and rocks herself still more swiftly in her bright-winged hammock.

The shadows of night have descended. Every living thing sleeps soundly. Love alone is wakeful.

"Oh, I fear me! I fear me!" whispers Azrael, clinging still more closely to the breast of the wild Moorish horseman.

"Why dost thou tremble? I am here," and he embraces her slim waist.

"Hamaliel hath brought me evil dreams," returns the odalisk. "I dreamt that the Giaours stormed thy castle in the night-time and murdered thee. I would have hurled myself down from the battlements, but I could not because I was a captive. A Christian held me in his arms! Mashallah! it was frightful!"

"Fear not!" said the Corsar. "The Koran says that only birds can fly, and none can get into this castle without wings. But even if we were surprised thou hast no cause to fear falling into the hands of the Infidel, or being defiled by the touch of the Giaour, for under the ottoman on which we now lie a lunt is laid which goes right down into the powder-chamber. If all were lost, thou hast but to touch that lunt with this night-lamp, and the whole castle with us and our foes would fly into the air."

"Oh, what a consoling thought!" sighs Azrael, softly pressing her lips to the Corsar's cheeks, and seeming to slumber once more.

The night-lamp flickers feebly on its tripod, multiplying its own shadow. The watchers snore before the doors.

Suddenly Azrael springs screaming from her couch, dragging the Beg along with her.

"La illah, il allah! Dost thou not hear the noise of the Jins?" she cries, trembling in every limb.

The Beg stares around him in terror. A tempest is raging outside. The weathercocks creak and rattle. The wind tears the tiles from the summits of the minarets, and hurls them on to the cupolas of the kiosk. The lightning flashes, and the thunder teaches the rocks to tremble.

"Dost thou hear how they howl, those invisible beings, and rattle at the barred and bolted windows with a mighty hand?"

"By the shadow of Allah! I hear them right well," murmurs the trembling freebooter, with wildly staring eyes.

"Mercy! mercy! Avaunt, ye evil spirits!" cries Azrael, sinking down upon the floor with dishevelled tresses, and stretching wide her naked arms. "Ye shall be whipped with sunbeams and the darkness shall swallow you! Go hence to the Giaours and torture them! May ye break your wings on the horns of our half-moons, as ye whirl past them in your hosts!—Ha, how their eyes flash! Shadow of Allah, conceal us, lest they look upon us with their fiery eyes!"

The big, strong man, all trembling, lies on his face beside Azrael, and hides himself beneath her mantle and her long flowing tresses. His superstitious terror has stolen every feeling of manliness from his breast; he quakes like a child.

"Dost hear! dost hear how they murmur! Repeat rapidly and aloud the prayer of Naama, and stop thy ears that thou mayst not hear what they say!"

At that moment a terrible gust broke one of the panes of glass, and the free invading air began to move the heavy curtains to and fro, and make the lamp flicker.

"Ha! Dost thou see him?" cried Azrael. "Pst! Look not thither! Open not thine eyes! Hide thy face! Duck down by me! Cover thee with my mantle! It is Asasiel, the Angel of Death! Dost thou not feel his cold sigh upon thy cheek? Pst! Be covered! Perchance he will not see thee!"

Corsar Beg clung convulsively to Azrael's garment, and covered his face with his hands.

"What wouldst thou?" cried Azrael, as if addressing an invisible spirit. "Black shadow, with blue sparkling eyes of fire, for whom dost thou come? There is none here but I. Corsar Beg has not come home! Come later! Come an hour hence! Avaunt, avaunt, black being! May Allah crush thy head in the dust! Come an hour hence, and be for ever accursed!"

Corsar dared not open his eyes. Azrael bent half over him, to shield him from the eyes of the Angel of Death.

"Avaunt! avaunt!"

At that moment the lightning struck one of the bastions, and shook the mountain to its very base. The crackling roar of the thunder, like an infernal trumpet-blast, went clanging up to heaven.

"Ah!" cried Azrael, and she sank down upon the Corsar, encircled his body with her arms, and so remained till the rumbling of the thunder had died away, and a gentle shower began to patter down upon the copper roof. Then the tempest gradually passed away, sighing and moaning around the windows, and finally dying away among the distant forests.

Azrael softly raised her head and looked around.

"He is gone," she whispered, in a scarcely audible tone. "He said he would return in an hour. Corsar, thou hast yet another hour to live."

"An hour!" repeated Corsar faintly. "Alas! Azrael, where canst thou conceal me?"

"It cannot be. Asasiel is inexorable. Another hour, and he will take thee away."

"Bargain with him. If he must have the dead, I will behead a hundred of my slaves. Promise him blood, treasure, prayers, and burning villages. All, all he shall have, only let him give me back my life!"

"Too late. In my dreams I saw thy sword break in twain. Thy days are numbered. Nay, thou hast but one chance left, but one way of thwarting the Angel of Blood: if only one among the dead will change names with thee, so that Asasiel may carry him off instead of thee."

"Oh yes! oh yes!" stammered the strong man, beside himself for fear. "Oh, seek me out some such dead man who will change names with me. Thou dost know the incantations. Go! call up one from the grave! Promise him anything, everything, whoever he may be—a fellah, a rajah, it matters not. I'll give him my name and take his. Go!"

"Nay, but thou must go also. Gird on thy kaftan quickly. Leave thy weapons here. Spirits fear not sharp steel. We will descend into the churchyard beneath the fortress walls; kindle ambergris and borax on a tripod; hurl the magic wand into the nearest grave, and so compel the dwellers therein to appear before thee. When the spirit appears he will stand motionless, but thou must advance towards him, and cry thrice in a loud voice—'Die for me!' whereupon the spirit will vanish, and Asasiel will cease from troubling thee."

"But thou too wilt be close at hand?" stammered the Corsar, grasping tightly the arm of the odalisk, as if he feared that Death would instantly seize him if he let her go.

"Yes, I will be by thy side. But hasten. An hour is but a brief respite."

Corsar quickly threw his upper garment around him, and recited in broken sentences the beginning of a prayer, the end of which he could not recollect.

"Wake none of the watch," said Azrael cautiously. "The power of the spell might be broken if we met any living soul who should say a prayer contrary to ours. We will saddle the horses ourselves and descend by secret paths. Speak not a word by the way, nor cast a glance behind thee."

The Beg was ready. He was just putting on his fur-lined kaftan, for his limbs felt frozen, when the odalisk called to the panther, which was reposing on the carpet.

"Oglan,[23] thou shalt go with us and keep watch, and if we fall in with a wild beast, thou shalt defend us."

[23] Oglan, the Turkish for boy.

As if he understood the words of his mistress, the panther rose up on his hind legs and placed his fore-paws on her arm, while the trembling man clung to her on the other side.

The Turkish cemetery beneath the walls of the fortress is planted with cypress trees. The turbaned graves, with their coffin-like slabs, peer forth, ghastly white, from among the dark weeping-willows. The sound of the approaching footsteps startles away a grey wolf from among the tombs, the sole inhabitant of that desolation. Since the last shower the clouds have dispersed, and here and there the dark-blue sky looks through with its diamond stars. Raindrops trickle down from the leaves of the trees.

From time to time the rumbling of the storm is still heard faintly in the distance. Sheet-lightning flickers above the mountain crests, painting everything white for an instant. The lightning, like the night, can only give one colour to this region—the one paints it white, the other black.

The nightly shapes reach the churchyard by the secret path and dismount among the graves. Azrael places the reins of both horses in Oglan's jaws, and the shrewd beast remains sitting there on his haunches, holding both the snorting horses as firmly as if they were fastened to a stake.

The Moorish horseman and the odalisk ascend a high funereal mound, the tombstone of which is barely visible through the dependent branches of a weeping willow.

"Something more than a slave must rest beneath that stone," whispered Azrael to the quaking horseman; and placing her magic tripod on the tomb, she ignited with a phosphorous pellet the powdered ambergris and borax, which flickered up and cast a whitish glare all around the grave.

There was a slight rustle in the distance. The Corsar's horse neighed uneasily.

"What was that?" asked the Corsar.

"The Jins," replied Azrael; "look not behind thee."

With that she raised her magic staff, and pronounced in unintelligible words the exorcism over the grave.

"Thou restless spirit, appear at my bidding. Wherever thou art, beneath the dark tree of Hell, or in the garden of the Houris; whether thou dost pine in chains of fire or dost recline on beds of roses, obey my voice, fly through the air, dissipate the darkness, and appear before me in the mortal shape thou didst wear on earth. Appear!"

With these words she struck with her staff upon the stone slab, and immediately a lofty shape in a white winding-sheet rose up from behind the tomb.

"Now advance three steps forward and speak to it," cried Azrael to the confounded Moor.

With tottering footsteps Corsar Beg approached the shape, and cried with a hoarse, trembling voice—

"My name is Corsar Beg. Who then art thou, accursed spirit?"

"I am Balassa," replied the shape with a sonorous voice; and casting aside the white winding-sheet, a powerfully-built, fair-complexioned man appeared with a drawn sword in his hand. "Corsar Beg, you are my prisoner," cried he to the Turk, who stood there in his bewilderment as if turned to stone.

The next moment the Beg put his hand to his side, and not finding his sword there, rushed back with a howl of fury to his horse, threw himself like lightning into the saddle, and struck his sharp spurs into the flanks of his steed. But Oglan held the reins firmly between his teeth, and when the horse tried to start off, the panther planted his front paws firmly into the ground, and forced it back again.

"To hell with thee, accursed monster!" roared the Beg, foaming with rage, and striking at the panther with his fist; but the beast tugged the halter first to the right and then to left, and stopped the horse in its flight; terrified it with his leaps and bounds, and forced it to go round and round.

"Speak to this monster, Azrael!" cried the Beg. He turned round to look for his favourite, and he beheld her nestling lovingly in Balassa's bosom, with her snow-white arms encircling the young Hungarian's neck. At the same instant the woods all around teemed with life; the ambushed Hungarian soldiers rushed forth and tore the Beg from his horse, who, even when forced to the ground, tried to defend himself with stones.

"Be accursed!" gasped the vanquished freebooter.

The attacking squadrons marched before his very eyes through the secret passage into the fortress, and an hour later he could see, by the light of his burning palace, his favourite Azrael mounting up behind Balassa, and disdaining to bestow so much as a glance at the discomfited Beg.

CHAPTER IX.
THE PRINCE AND HIS MINISTER.

Several years have elapsed since Apafi became a Prince. We have reached that period when the unexpected death of Nicolas Zrinyi dissolved the faction of the malcontent Hungarians, compelling most of them to emigrate into Transylvania, which land, owing to the ceaseless antagonism of the German Emperor and the Turkish Sultan, was allowed to enjoy an independent government. It paid indeed a tribute to the Sublime Porte; but it adopted what measures it chose in its own Diet, and if the Tartars occasionally reduced a few villages to ashes, that was only another proof that they no longer regarded the land as their own property. All the strongholds were in the hands of the Prince. He could keep as many soldiers as his purse would pay for, wage war with whomsoever he could cope, and hoodwink the Turks whenever it pleased him so to do. The Turk had nothing to find fault with, either in the constitution of the land, its peculiar privileges, its patriarchal aristocracy, its Latin language, and its Hungarian dolman; or, again, in its manifold religions and its three distinct[24] and self-governing nationalities. All these things did not trouble him in the least. At most he pitied the poor gentlemen who made such a muddle of affairs of state; but he never made the slightest attempt to initiate them into his own much simpler political system.

[24] Viz. the Saxons, the Szeklers, and the Magyars. The Wallachs simply cultivated the soil.

Meanwhile, great changes had taken place at Ebesfalva. The dwelling of the Prince no longer consisted of a simple manor-house. On a neighbouring hill he had had a castle built with lofty, square towers, from the corners of which rose still loftier turrets. The entrance was guarded by two proudly rampant stone lions. On the façade, in bold relief, was carved the inscription: Fata viam inveniunt. A vestibule, connecting one wing of the castle with the other, and surrounded by a richly-gilded and ornamented trellis-work, runs along the front of the castle on huge, classically-carved stone pillars. The windows are all in the Perpendicular style, with old-fashioned ornaments, and you reach the inner courtyard by a subterranean corridor.

In this courtyard, instead of ploughs and wagons, our eye falls upon arquebusses and culverins. Instead of peasants, we see body-guards, in yellow dolmans and scarlet hose, swaggering before the doors. To reach the Prince's cabinet, one must traverse long corridors and re-echoing saloons, in which pages, footmen, and gentlemen of the bedchamber announce the newcomer from door to door, and when one has finally reached the reception-chamber, it is only to see, after all, not the Prince, but the Prince's chief councillor, Master Michael Teleki, the same bald-headed man whom we first met at Csakatorny, at that memorable hunt where Nicolas Zrinyi met his death. At that time the worthy gentleman was only one of Prince George Rakoczy's disgraced ex-captains; but since then a kind Providence has taken him by the hand, and he is now Captain-General of Kövar, and the Prince's omnipotent prime minister. His mother was the Princess's sister, and his aunt, whom he always calls sister (women seldom take offence at such mistakes), introduced him to her consort. Once near the Prince, Teleki needed no one's good word. His comprehensive intellect, vast knowledge, and statesmanlike dexterity made him indispensable to the Prince, who loved to bury himself among his books and his antiquities, and felt aggrieved when anything tore him away from his family circle or his favourite studies.

To-day, too, his reception-room is crammed to suffocation by gentlemen who seek an audience of his Highness. They are the fugitive Hungarians, of whom the Prince seems to stand in peculiar horror. These restless, bellicose, dark-browed people are an abomination to the easy-going, contemplative Prince. So he shuts himself up in his study, and the only person admitted to his presence is the learned and reverend John Passai, Professor at Nagy-Enyed, beloved by the Prince on account of his profound scholarship.

Apafi's private room is more like the study of a scholar than the cabinet of a ruler. All around stands filled with books in gilded bindings hide the walls, and in every corner lie heaps of plans and charts. In the very circumscribed intervening spaces stand consoles with clocks upon them, which the Prince always winds up himself; and the chairs and sofas are so overladen with books for immediate use, that whenever the Prince has a confidential visitor, he hardly knows where to bestow him. Nay, sometimes the stone floor itself is so bestrewn with outspread maps, dusty MSS., and open folios, that Teleki, when he enters, has to walk as circumspectly as one who picks his way circuitously through mud and mire.

The two gentlemen are at the present moment standing before the table, which is covered with all sorts of ancient coins. Apafi wears a short grey coat with loose sleeves, which is fastened round his loins by a silken cord. His headgear consists of a round skin cap. Passai is buttoned up in a dark-green, fur-lined mente, which reaches from his chin to his heels. His thick white hair is shoved back and held together by a large circular comb. His face, despite the wrinkles which cover it, is fresh and ruddy, and his teeth are as perfect as those of a youth.

Apafi is attentively regarding a gold piece, which he poises between his fingers and holds against the light. Passai stands hat in hand before the Prince like a log, with his wrinkled countenance fixed intently on his Highness.

Apafi petulantly turns and twists the coin in all directions.

"These are not Roman letters," he angrily murmurs; "neither are they Greek nor Cyrillic, and least of all Hunnish symbols. Where was it found?" he asked, turning to Passai.

"In Vasarhely, as the Wallachs were removing the ruins of the old temple."

"Deuce take them! They might have been better employed."

"It was a very ancient ruin, what they call a Roman temple."

"But it cannot have been a Roman temple, for this is not a Roman coin."

"That's my opinion too; but the Wallachs have a way of regarding all the ruins in Transylvania as Roman monuments."

"But why did they take it to pieces?"

"The villagers wanted to make lime of the statues."

"The impious wretches!" cried Apafi indignantly, "to turn such precious masterpieces of art into lime. And you have not striven to save at least a part of it from destruction?"

"I bought the lid of a sarcophagus adorned with sculptures, and a sphinx in a perfect state of preservation; but the Wallach who was charged with their removal was too lazy to have them lifted up as they stood, so he broke up the statues into five or six pieces, so that he might have less trouble in loading his cart."

"That man deserves to be impaled. I will issue a decree that no one shall henceforth lay a hand upon such antiquities."

"I am afraid your Highness will arrive too late, for when the people found that I was paying for these stones, the belief spread among them that I was seeking for diamonds and carbuncles therein, so they smashed the whole mass into such tiny morsels that they could now be offered for sale as sand."

"Have you spoken to that nobleman of Deva about the mosaic?"

"He won't part with it at any price. He said that none of his ancestors had ever carried their property to market. If only he would remove it from the place where he found it, it would be something. But he won't even do that, and now the cow-house stands over it, and the oxen make their beds on the prostrate figures of Venus and Cupid."

"I should very much like to confiscate that man's property, and so come into possession of that priceless curiosity," cried Apafi, with a scholar's zeal, and again he busied himself with the investigation of the enigmatical letters.

At that moment Teleki entered the room with a busy, important look, and drawing from his silken pocket a MS. roll, placed it open in Apafi's hand. The Prince made as though he were reading the document attentively, and wrinkled his brows. Suddenly he looked up and exclaimed joyfully—

"They are Dacian letters!"

"What!" cried Teleki, opening his eyes wide in his astonishment. He was at a loss to explain how the Prince could have found Dacian letters in the Latin MS. which he had just put into his hands.

"Yes; there can be no doubt about it," continued the Prince. "I recollect reading somewhere—in Dion Cassius, I think—that the Romans, after the fall of Decebalus,[25] had commemorative medallions struck off with Dacian inscriptions, and the figure of a decapitated man on the reverse. Don't you see the emblem?"

[25] Decebalus. King of Dacia during the reigns of Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan.

"But your Highness," interrupted Teleki impatiently, "the memorial which I have handed to you——"

And now for the first time Apafi perceived that a parchment was in his hand awaiting perusal. He returned it sulkily to Teleki.

"I have already told you that I can speak to no one to-day. In a month the session of the Diet will begin, and then the Hungarian gentlemen can ventilate their affairs to their hearts' content."

"I cry your Highness' pardon!" replied Teleki caustically; "this document is not from the Hungarian lords, but from his Excellency the Tartar Khan."

"And what does he want?" cried Apafi, throwing a glance upon the parchment, but when he perceived how long it was he laid it aside. "I will be brief with him. Who brought the letter?"

"An emir."

Apafi immediately threw his attila over his shoulders, girded on his sword, and stepped into the reception-room.

"Good-day! good-day!" he cried hastily to those assembled there. He wished to cut short their long ceremonious greetings, and looked about among them with inquiring eyes.

"Where is the emir?"

The Tartar envoy at once stepped forward. He was a truculent, swarthy fellow, with small sparkling eyes. A heron's plume as long as the shaft of a lance waved from his large turban. He wore a red, richly-fringed jacket, and the gold inlaid hilt of his scimitar peeped forth from his broad girdle. Defiantly he placed himself in front of the Prince and stuck out his chest.

"Salem alek! What do you want?" asked Apafi curtly.

The emir measured the Prince from head to foot twice or thrice with his piercing eyes, threw back his head, and said—

"My master, the gracious Kuban Khan, bids me say to thee, O Prince of the Giaours, that thou art a perjured, false, and faithless man. Thou didst swear by thy honour that we should be good neighbours, and how hast thou kept thy word? It chanced last year that we traversed the Saxon[26] land, and visited those towns whose names no true believer can pronounce, to collect the usual yearly tribute. They were ever good payers, but some among them chancing to lag behind with their contributions were, by the order of the most gracious Khan, instantly reduced to ashes that they might learn to behave better another time. And perchance thou dost fancy that they amended their evil ways? Not at all. For when we visited them again this year, we found the charred and naked walls as we had left them the year before: the unbelieving dogs had traitorously fled away. Wherefore my gracious master, the mighty Kuban Khan, bids me ask thee what manner of prince thou art that dost suffer these unbelieving dogs to so forsake their towns and make fools of us. When we came at other times, the hay was housed, the corn thrashed, the cattle stalled—and this time we find nought but weeds, and therein hares and other unclean beasts which ye unbelievers delight to eat, and none of the towns built up again, so that we could take no vengeance. Look to it, then, if thou wouldst not draw down upon thy head the wrath of the mighty Khan, look to it that thou commandest this runaway people to return to its towns that we may reckon with them; and in the meantime bid the remaining Saxon towns, which have faithlessly environed their houses with impregnable walls, that they open their gates to us, otherwise we will visit thee in Klausenburg itself with fire and sword, and will not leave thee one stone upon another."

[26] Saxons. Geza II. (1141-1161) planted in Transylvania a German colony to clear the forests and till the lands. These so-called Saxons have survived to the present day, and reside chiefly at Hermannstadt.

Apafi, during the course of this speech, had frequently laid his hand on his sword, but he evidently thought better of it, for it was with the utmost tranquillity that he thus replied—

"Go back! Greet thy master, and say that we will give him satisfaction."

With that he turned his back upon the envoy, and would have returned to his cabinet had not Teleki barred the way.

"That is not enough, your Highness. Once for all we must make it impossible for any dog-headed Tartar to speak such brave words before the throne of the Prince of Transylvania."

"Speak to him then yourself!"

Teleki thereupon, with an earnest, dignified mien, stepped up to the emir, stared him out of countenance, and said with a firm voice—

"Thy master is doubtless the ruler of Tartary, but is not my master the Prince of Transylvania? And is not the sublime Sultan the protector of us both? Know then that the sublime Sultan did not make thy master Khan of Tartary that he might dwell in Transylvania, nor has he set my master on the throne of Transylvania to endure the insolence of thy master! Go back then to thine own land, and come not hither again to wonder why a town which is burnt down one year is not built up again the next. We will take good care that all such places are rebuilt, but we will also see that the bastions are high enough to keep thee out, and shouldst thou desire to visit us at Klausenburg next year, we will also take care that thou shalt not have thy journey for nothing, and will provide guns in abundance to salute thee at a respectful distance."

All this Teleki said to the emir with a perfectly serious countenance.

The emir snorted with fury. His eyes grew bloodshot. His hand played with the hilt of his scimitar, and he stammered with pallid lips—

"If any of my master's servants spoke thus in his presence, he would immediately have his head struck off."

But Apafi tapped Teleki on the shoulder, and murmured as he stroked his beard—

"It is well, Master Michael Teleki! You have spoken like a man."

The emir turned furiously upon his heel, and, shaking the dust from his feet, left the room.

This scene put Apafi in a good humour, especially with Teleki. The minister could read this change of mood in his master's face, and hastened to make use of it. Taking one of the many suitors by the hand, he presented him to Apafi with these words—

"My future son-in-law, your Highness."

Apafi would probably have escaped from a presentation made in any other way; but made in this form he could not possibly avoid it. He was compelled to cast a glance upon the young man.

The person so presented was a tall, handsome stripling with blooming red cheeks and no trace, as yet, of a beard. In his femininely beautiful features, it was pride alone which revealed the man.

The youth pleased Apafi.

"What is your son-in-law's name?" he asked Teleki.

With a peculiar smile Teleki said—

"Emerich, Stephen Tököly's son."

On hearing this name, Apafi suddenly became very grave, and said to the young man—