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.

[Footnote 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?"

[Footnote 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."

[Footnote 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--

"Your father was a good friend to me"--and yet he did not extend his hand to the son.

"I know it," replied the youth, "and for that reason I have come to your Highness."

"But your late father--God rest him!--was an unruly spirit. It is well that you have not followed in his footsteps. He was never happy unless he was fighting. The thunder of artillery was a vital necessity to him, and the last hours of his life were spent at a siege. Well for you that you do not imitate him! You seem to me a very steady, quiet sort of young man."

"Oh! such praise as that I'm sure I don't deserve," replied Tököly proudly; "I also was at the siege you speak of, and defended the fortress till my father died."

Apafi did not like to be interrupted in this way, but, meaning to show his sympathy, he added, after a pause--

"And how then did you manage to escape, my son?"

Emerich blushed deeply and would not answer; but Teleki, by way of correcting his young kinsman's intemperate zeal, answered apologetically--

"The fact is, he was then very young, so they disguised him in woman's clothes, and he was thus able to elude the vigilance of the besiegers."

Apafi immediately recovered his good-humour. He playfully stroked the youth's blood-red cheeks, and signified to Teleki that he might now introduce the other gentlemen also.

They were all fugitives from Hungary, and the Prince did his best to appear gracious towards them; but, in the meantime, one of the court ushers entered and announced with a loud voice--

"His Excellency Monsieur l'Abbé Reverend, the French Envoy, desires an audience."

This announcement again filled Apafi with embarrassment. He drew Teleki aside and whispered in his ear--

"I will not, I cannot receive him. Go out and speak to him yourself, and explain how matters stand." And with that he hastily quitted the reception-room, delighted at having this time shifted the difficulty on to Teleki's shoulders; but he remained listening at the door to find out whether there would be any violent explosion behind his back.

And an explosion there certainly was, though not of a particularly terrifying character.

The Prince heard Teleki burst into a jovial peal of laughter, whereupon all the gentlemen present with one accord followed his example, just as if they were taking part in some intensely amusing diversion.

"It must indeed be a very peculiar phenomenon which extorts such extravagant merriment from these sour-faced gentry," thought Apafi, and he half opened the door--he could not quite open it, because learned Master Passai, ordinarily a miracle of gravity, had so given himself up to mirth that he was forced to lean back against the Prince's cabinet.

"Let me come in, Master Passai!" cried the inquisitive Prince, and succeeding shortly afterwards in opening the door, the cause of the general mirth was immediately obvious to him.

The Abbé Reverend stood in the centre of the room in full Hungarian costume. A more comical figure was scarcely conceivable.

The worthy gentleman, who rejoiced in the possession of a really redoubtable corporation, standing there, clean shaven and benignly smiling, presented an amiably ludicrous figure, of which only an Hungarian, or one who knows what a severe criterion of the human figure the tight-fitting Magyar costume really is, can form any idea. Add to this that the worthy Frenchman, in his stiff hose and spurred jack-boots, moved about as gingerly as if he feared every moment to fall on his nose. He had also forgotten to buckle on his girdle, which lent a peculiar quaintness to his general get-up, and his long bag-wig, in which he looked like a lion, was surmounted by a tiny round cap from which waved a gigantic heron plume.

Apafi did not see why he too should not smile when the others laughed.

Monsieur Reverend, with that facility peculiar to Frenchmen of coupling gaiety with solemnity, tripped at once up to the Prince and said--

"Your Highness's persistent refusal to receive me made me assume that perchance I did not present myself becomingly attired, and my present good-fortune demonstrates the correctness of my assumption, for the moment I present myself in Magyar costume I am lucky enough to behold you."

"Parbleu, Monsieur!" returned Apafi, repressing his merriment with difficulty, "I am always glad to see you on condition that politics are banished from our discourse. But you have not fastened on your scarf, and without the scarf a person in the Magyar dress looks for all the world like a Frenchman who has forgotten to put on his breeches."

With these words the Prince produced a scarf adorned with gems, and tied it with his own hands round the respectable waist of Monsieur Reverend.

"And what's this? Who taught you to stuff your pocket-handkerchief into your trousers pocket? Only heydukes do that. What the deuce! A nobleman always keeps his pocket-handkerchief in his kalpag. So! Hem! What a beautiful pocket-handkerchief you've got!"

"Splendid, is it not?"

"Indeed it is! A garland pattern in silk thread, with gold and silver embroideries at the corners. Only Paris can produce the like of this."

"And yet it was manufactured in Transylvania."

"You don't say so?"

"Yes; and what is more, in this very place, in Ebesfalva."

Apafi looked at Monsieur Reverend with amazement.

"And I not to know the artistic hands which work such beautiful things!"

"But your Highness does know them. The name of the fair artist will be found embroidered in gorgeous Gothic letters on the hem of the handkerchief."

Apafi carefully examined all the corners of the handkerchief one after the other. Each had a different device embroidered on it--here a wreath of oak-leaves, there a trophy, in the third a Turkish scimitar, an Hungarian sabre, and a French sword bound together by a ribbon. At last he came to the fourth corner, where, beneath a princely coronet, was embroidered the word _Apafiné_.[27]

[Footnote 27: _Apafiné_ = Lady Apafi. The "né" is a feminine suffix.]

The Prince read the name aloud. All who stood around looked at Apafi's face with fearful suspense, as if they expected an explosion of wrath. To every one's surprise, however, the Prince only smiled, stuck the pocket-handkerchief into Monsieur Reverend's kalpag, cocked it rakishly on the ambassador's head, and said to him with peculiar _bonhomie_--

"So you have succeeded in seducing my wife, eh?"

Reverend laughed awkwardly at what was a rather ambiguous jest so far as he was concerned.

"Me, however, you shall not seduce," added Apafi, smiling.

Reverend bowed deeply; then, throwing back his head, he observed archly--

"That will be brought about also, I hope, though by mightier than I."

At that moment the door opened and a servant announced--"Her Highness, Dame Anna of Bornemissa, his Highness's consort, desires an audience of the Prince."

Apafi looked at Teleki.

"This is all your doing."

Teleki calmly replied--"It is, your Highness."

"You have besieged us in form?"

"I do not deny it, your Highness."

"It was you who brought the ambassador to the Princess?"

"Such is indeed the case, your Highness."

"And it was you who then advised him to present himself in this masquerade in order to lure me hither more easily?"

"I did it all, your Highness."

"Then you have done a very foolish thing, Master Michael Teleki."

"That remains to be seen, your Highness," replied the minister proudly, conscious of his own intellectual superiority.

Meanwhile Dame Apafi had entered the room; her princely robes well became her princely aspect. All the gentlemen present hastened forward to do her homage. But Apafi also advanced quickly towards her, put his arm through hers, and with marked tenderness endeavoured to lead her into his cabinet.

"No; let us remain here," cried the Princess; "there will be plenty of time later on to look at your Dutch clocks. Far more serious matters claim our attention first. These gentlemen from Hungary desire an audience."

Apafi exploded at once.

"I know beforehand what they want, and I have declared once for all that I will hear no more of the matter."

"But you will surely listen to me. I too am an Hungarian woman, and in the name of my fatherland I implore the Prince of Transylvania for help. None shall say that I rule the Prince in secret. Look now, I advance openly before his throne, and I beg of him protection for Hungary, whose sons are called strangers in Transylvania, though I, her daughter, am the Princess."

From Apafi's looks it was clear that he would much rather have listened to the Hungarian gentlemen than to his own consort. But he was caught in a trap. She stood before him as a petitioner. There was no escape.

Teleki bade the pages in waiting at the door admit no one else. Apafi, with a gesture of impatience, sat down in an arm-chair, and resigned himself to listen to his consort; but Anna had scarcely commenced to speak, when the rattling of a coach was heard in the courtyard, and shortly afterwards heavy footsteps resounded in the corridors, and a stern, dictatorial voice, with which every one appeared to be familiar, asked if the Prince was in. The pages said No, and tried to stop the intruder, but exclaiming, "Out of my way, you brats!" he burst open the door and forced his way into the room. It was none other than Denis Banfi.

He had just descended from his carriage. His cheeks were much redder than usual, and his eyes sparkled. He went straight towards the Prince and cried, without the slightest preamble--

"Do not listen to these gentlemen, your Highness! Do not listen to a single word."

The Prince smiled and greeted Banfi.

"God preserve you, my cousin," said he.

"Pardon me, your Highness, if in my great haste I neglected to salute you; but when I heard that the Hungarian gentlemen were here in audience, I was quite beside myself with rage. What do you want?" continued he, turning towards the Hungarians; "not satisfied, I suppose, with ruining your own country with your unruliness, you must needs come hither to disturb us likewise?"

"You speak of us," remarked Teleki, with quiet sarcasm, "as if we belonged to some outlandish Tartar stock, and as if we had been cast hither from heaven only knows what sort of savage, distant land."

"On the contrary, I know you only too well, ye Hungarian lords. I speak of you as men whose turbulence has, time out of mind, been ruinous to Transylvania. The people of Hungary are idiots one and all."

"I beg you not to lose sight of the fact that I too am one of them," said the Princess.

"I know it; and it is with anything but satisfaction that I see the will of your Highness predominant here."

Dame Apafi, with an expression of wounded dignity, turned towards her brother-in-law.

"Whatever you may say, I will not cease to be your good kinswoman and well-wisher," and with these words she quitted the room.

"You might at least have addressed the Prince more becomingly," remarked Teleki, sharply.

"Have I then spoken one word to the Prince?" asked Banfi, shrugging his shoulders. "How can I even reach his Highness when you are always standing in the way? I am and always will be the enemy of those who have no right whatever to stand on the steps of the throne, and you are one of them, Master Michael Teleki. Oh, don't imagine that the reasons which make you so enthusiastic in the Hungarian cause are hidden from me. You are not content with being the first in Transylvania after the Prince; you would fain become Palatine of Hungary[28] as well. Ha! ha! how you all befool one another. The French promise aid to the Hungarians; the Hungarians promise Teleki the dignity of Palatine; Teleki promises Apafi a kingly crown, and ye lie, the whole lot of you; ye deceive and are deceived."

[Footnote 28: _Palatine_ (Hungarian: "_Nador_"). The Palatine was the highest dignitary in Hungary after the King. The dignity was instituted soon after the year 1000, but since 1848 has been found incompatible with modern parliamentary government.]

"Sir," replied Teleki, bitterly, "is that the way to speak to guests, to exiled, unhappy fellow-countrymen?"

"Don't teach me how to be generous," retorted Banfi, proudly. "At my house the poor and the persecuted have ever found an asylum, and if these fugitive gentlemen wish us to share house and home with them, I'm ready to do so. Here's my hand upon it. But just as I should be out of my senses to burn my own house down, so now too I protest against the conflagration of my country; and if you do not cease from troubling a peaceful land, I'll leave no stone unturned till I have driven you all out."

"We ought not to be surprised at this tone, my friends," said Teleki, with bitter scorn, turning towards the Hungarians. "His Excellency here has been so very recently amnestied by the Prince, that he imagines he is still at war with us."

Apafi, who had been sitting on burning coals, now interposed.

"Cease this bickering. We dismiss you all. You see that sundry of our councillors are against the matter, and without their consent I can do nothing."

"Then," cried Teleki, with solemn emphasis, "we appeal to the Diet."

"I too will be there," said Banfi.

The Prince, very much offended, withdrew to his cabinet. The Hungarian nobles, much excited, went out by the other door. Teleki remained behind. Banfi, adjusting his marten-skin cap, haughtily measured his opponent from head to foot, and exclaimed ironically as he went out--"I leave my reputation behind me!" Teleki returned his gaze with the most nonchalant sangfroid.

When every one had disappeared, Teleki whispered some words to a page, who went out and returned in a few moments with a florid, curly-headed young man. Methinks we have seen this youth somewhere or other before, though only for an instant which we cannot call to mind. A beggar's sack hangs down over his ragged clothing, his hand holds a knobby stick.

"So you permit me at last to approach the Prince?" said he, in a somewhat dictatorial tone.

"Sit down here by the door," replied the minister; "the Prince goes to dinner shortly, and will pass by this way. You can then speak to him."

The young man with the beggar's sack sat for a long time at the Prince's door, till Apafi came out of his room on his way to dinner. The beggar with the knapsack planted himself right in his Highness's way.

"Who are you?" asked the Prince, much surprised.

"I am that renowned warrior, Emerich Balassa, who once was one of the chief men of Hungary, and now stands before your Highness with the beggar's staff."

"You were involved, I understand, in that conspiracy against us?" said Apafi, disagreeably flurried.

"That I was not, your Highness. If you would deign to listen to my tale, then----"

"Speak!"

"There was once in Hungary a famous Turkish freebooter, named Corsar Beg, who for a long time ravaged the mountain regions. The banded might of six counties was insufficient to besiege him in his fortress. This man I captured by subtlety. By promises and flatteries I won over his favourite slave, who enticed him out of his stronghold by night and alone. I, duly advertised thereof, fell upon him with horsemen ambushed in the woods, and took captive both him and his slave, who is the most beautiful and the most abandoned of her sex in the whole world."

"I have heard of you, Master Balassa. It was a daring deed."

"Listen further, your Highness. No sooner had the news of my capture spread abroad, than the Palatine of Hungary, very emphatically, insisted upon my handing over the prisoners to him. The Turks had already offered me a ransom of sixteen thousand ducats for the pair, but I would not part with the girl at any price. I therefore sent word to the Palatine that if he wanted a Beg of his own he must catch one, for I had not captured mine on his account."

Apafi laughed heartily. "That was one for him!"

"Thereupon the Palatine waxed wroth, and by the Emperor's command sent out troops against me to rob me of my captives. Now just at this very time, your Highness's brother-in-law, Denis Banfi, had taken refuge in my castle, and to him I entrusted the slave, of whom I was madly enamoured. He was to fly with her to my castle of Ecsed, and as I saw that the Palatine was bent upon securing Corsar Beg for himself in order to cut off his head at Buda as a warning to all malefactors, I gave the Turk poison, which he, to escape the scaffold, thankfully accepted. When, therefore, the troops of the Palatine arrived at my house, all that they found there was the cold corpse, which the Turks afterwards purchased from me for a thousand ducats."

"The Palatine was naturally very angry, I suppose?" remarked Apafi.

"'Twas I who had cause to be angry, for all through him I lost fifteen thousand ducats, and yet he succeeded in obtaining an order for my apprehension from the Emperor. I scented the danger in time, and got together my valuables in order to fly into Transylvania, and remain there till the affair had blown over. First of all, then, I hastened to my castle at Ecsed, whither, as I have said, I had sent Banfi on beforehand with the Turkish slave. While still on the way, I learnt that Banfi had been restored by your Highness's amnesty to his former position. I rejoiced greatly thereat, supposing that I now had in him a powerful protector. Nevertheless, on reaching Ecsed, I found no sign or trace of the girl. My castellan there informed me that Banfi had carried her off with him, and left a letter behind for me, which contained the following words--'Learn from this, my friend, that there are three things you should never entrust to another--your horse, your watch, and your mistress!'"

"What!" cried Apafi; "is this really true?"

"Pray let your Highness look at his own writing," and he drew the letter in question out of his leather knapsack. "He is said to have concealed the girl somewhere in his forests at Banfi-Hunyad."

Apafi turned scarlet with rage.

"'Tis monstrous!" cried he. "This fellow possesses a virtuous and lovely wife of his own--my consort's own sister--and yet he can so far forget his duty as a husband! I'll not put up with it!"

"Pardon me, your Highness; I have nothing more to do with Banfi now. My complaint is against one Kapi, who had the usufruct of my Transylvanian property. Not wishing, then, to have anything more to do with Banfi, I took up my quarters with Kapi at Aranyosi Castle. Your Highness, the pomp which that man displays exceeds anything that I have ever seen, and I have seen many princely and palatinal courts in my day. His wife never uses her feet at all. Even if she wants to get to the door, she is carried thither in a gilded sedan-chair, and she never wears a dress more than once!"

"But what have I to do with the frippery of Dame Kapi?"

"I'm coming to that. Her love of display costs money, and has compelled her husband to resort to fraudulent practices. And besides, such extravagance concerns your Highness also, as tending to emphasize the contrast already apparent between the frugal simplicity of your Highness's court and the dazzling pomp of these petty kings--a contrast which has already made a pretty deep impression upon our foreign visitors. Thus, quite recently, the Bavarian minister, who had come from a banquet at Ebesfalva to Aranyosi, remarked in a flattering tone to Dame Kapi, in my hearing, that she was the real Princess of Transylvania."

"He said that, did he?" cried the Prince, becoming much interested. "Go on with your narrative. So he said that Kapi's wife was the real Princess, eh?"

"Yet strip from off her her costly pearls and diamonds, and you will see that in regard to beauty and majesty she is not fit to lace the shoes of her Highness the Princess Apafi."

"Go on! go on!"

"Well, one fine day this same Kapi came to me, and told me that your Highness had been commanded by the Palatine to arrest and deliver me over to him."

"I receive a command! I know absolutely nothing about it."

"Unfortunately I believed his words, and imagining myself caught between two fires, I made over my Transylvanian property to Kapi to save it from confiscation, he at the same time delivering to me an undertaking to re-transfer the estates as soon as possible. Meanwhile I resolved to fly to Poland, and stay there till the storm blew over. Kapi gave me two guides, who were to conduct me through the mountain-passes to the frontier; but at the same time he secretly informed the frontier sentinels that I was a spy sent by the Emperor to explore Transylvania, and was now desirous of returning unobserved. So the rogues waylaid me, robbed me of all my money and papers, and dragged me to Fehervar, where my innocence came to light, but my money and papers were of course hopelessly lost. And now this Kapi actually maintains that I sold him all my property, and I've nothing in the world but this leather knapsack round my neck, with which I must now beg my way about."

"Be of good cheer. I will give you the most exemplary satisfaction," returned the enraged Prince.

"It is a matter which also concerns your Highness's own dignity," replied Balassa. "These great lords behave in as high-handed a fashion as if they had absolutely no superior."

"Be easy. I will very soon show them who is the real Prince of Transylvania."

Apafi, full of indignation, then left the audience-chamber.

A storm was gathering over the heads of two great men who stood in Teleki's way.