CHAPTER III.

AN HUNGARIAN MAGNATE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

There was a great commotion at Bonczhida Castle. The lord of the manor, Denis Banfi, was expected home from Ebesfalva. The castle gates (on the midmost panel of which blazed a huge family coat-of-arms between the claws of two golden lions rampant) were overshadowed by green branches and bravely-coloured banners; in the street, the school-children, in gala costume, were drawn up in a long line headed by their teachers; further back, with bright Sunday faces, stood the vassals; and, marshalled in front of the hillock which marked the bounds, the mounted gentry of the County of Klausenburg, some eight hundred horsemen or so, all of them stalwart, sturdy forms, armed with morning stars and good broad-swords, had come out to meet their leader, the Marshal of the Nobility.

On the bastions are to be seen Banfi's own soldiers, consisting of about six hundred mail-clad heroes, with long Turkish muskets and Scythian helmets. On the walls facing the Szamos six mortars are placed. A few yards further off a coal fire is burning, at which the cannoneers are heating the ends of their long iron staves so as to use them as linstocks.

At every gate, at every buttressed window, stand a couple of pages in crimson dolmans and tightly-fitting, cornflower-blue hose, richly garnished with silver-embroidered lace.

At the window of the highest donjon sits the castellan, ready to proclaim the arrival of his liege lord by the blast of a horn. Over his head the wind is wrestling with a gigantic purple banner, the huge dependent gold tassels of which it can only raise with difficulty.

Out of all the windows, inquisitive domestics and expectant knights and dames peep forth, or rather, out of all the windows but three, which are altogether bare of festal groups, for there nothing is to be seen but fragrant jasmines and quivering mimosas in snow-white porcelain vases, behind which one can dimly distinguish a pale and delicate form leaning dreamily on the embroidered window-cushions. This is Denis Banfi's wife.

It might have been ten o'clock in the morning when the castellan, perceiving clouds of dust on the highway, announced the approach of his Excellency with a blast of his horn, whereupon the roar of the mortars scared every one into his proper place; the priests and teachers reviewed their pupils, the officers marshalled their troops, and the trumpeters on the ramparts played the latest marches.

Shortly afterwards the Lord-Lieutenant arrived, escorted by the banderia of half-a-dozen counties. Before and behind him trotted squadrons of horsemen, whose arms and caparisons gleamed with all the colours of the rainbow. There were to be seen horses of every race and every hue--Arabian stallions, Transylvanian full-bloods, little Wallachian ponies, slim English racers, and light-footed Barbary steeds. There were horses with flesh-coloured manes, jewelled bits, variegated reins, and embroidered schabracks. There were all the weapons with which the art of war was then familiar--the slender Damascus blade, the toothed morning-star, the curved _csakany_,[37] the serpentine crease, and those long, gorgeously-fashioned fire-arms which could seldom be discharged more than once; here and there, too, was visible a specimen of those three-edged, six feet long Turkish scimitars, which were just then coming into vogue.

[Footnote 37: _Csakany._ An ancient weapon, half hook, half battle-axe, of Tartar origin.]

Each squadron brought its banner, on which the arms of the respective counties were gaily embroidered, and sturdy standard-bearers bore them aloft on their saddle-bows. In front of the martial bands rode their captain, George Veer, a muscular man of about forty, with a grey-speckled beard, stiffly waxed moustaches, and sun-burnt face. A stately heron's plume, fastened by an opal agraffe, waved from his marten-embroidered kalpag; his gorgeous bearskin was held together in front by a gold chain as broad as a man's hand, set with gems. Chrysolites as large as filberts gleamed, instead of eyes, in the bear's head looking over his shoulder; his body was encased in a coat of silver mail, sewn with gold stars, through which his dark-blue dolman was visible. His crooked scimitar with its golden hilt well became the hand which held it, and from his saddle-bows peeped forth the menacing muzzles of a pair of pistols, the mechanism of which was about as simple as the mechanism of a modern steam-engine.

The Lord-Lieutenant himself sat in an open carriage, drawn by five black horses, with rose-coloured, gilded harness; both panels of the carriage door bore the Banfi crest, gorgeously painted on a gold ground; behind stood two hussars with silver-embroidered mantles and white heron plumes.

With haughty dignity Denis Banfi sits back on the velvet cushions of his coach; all the pomp and splendour which surrounds him suits him well. His glossy locks leave bare his high forehead, which, together with his fine, frank eyes, bespeaks infinite good-nature, while the bold curve of the bushy eyebrows and the peculiar cut of the thin lips indicate a violent temper. The whole face seems to be constantly under the influence of these hostile emotions. At one moment it is mild, smiling, rosy; at another savage, grim, and suffused by a dark purple flush. The traces of noble enthusiasm and of unbridled fury are impressed upon his face side by side just as they are in his heart.

The martial squadrons present arms; the school-children chant hymns; the vassals wave their hats; the music resounds from the battlements; the clergymen deliver addresses; and all the guests flutter their kerchiefs and their kalpags at him from the windows, and Banfi receives all these demonstrations of respect with his usual majestic dignity and condescension, with the air of a man who feels that all this sort of thing belongs to him of right. Meanwhile his eyes glance up at those three windows concealed behind the fragrant jasmines and the quivering mimosas, and his face grows graver and sadder when he perceives no one behind them.

From the window of another room there looks down a very tall old man in a long clerical surtout with small buttons. Since losing his teeth his chin has moved closer to his nose, which makes his nose look a long way from his eyes. He seems to be taking no part whatever in the general rejoicings. By his side leans a lady in mourning, wearing a black velvet _haube_; rage and contempt are unmistakably visible in her countenance. Near these two stands Master Stephen Nalaczi with folded arms, surveying the whole procession with a droll, sarcastic smile.

"Just look, your Reverence," says the lady in widow's weeds to the grey-headed clergyman. "Did ever prince lord it with the pomp and splendour of this simple Baron? I have been at coronations, installations, inaugurations, triumphal ovations, but never, never have I seen anything like the homage paid to this private man. If they rendered it to a prince it might pass, but who, forsooth, is this Denis Banfi? Why, a simple nobleman--just such a one as we are, except that he is full of arrogance and pretence. All this princely splendour does not belong to him _de jure_. Oh! well do I know the meaning of the word _jus_; for I have all my life been before the courts against greater lords than he."

"How my reverend colleagues press forward to kiss his hand," murmured Martin Kuncz (for that was the clergyman's name). "Ei! ei! Look now, at my learned colleague Gabriel Csekalusi, how radiantly he hastens forward to assist his Excellency out of his carriage!--and he is right, for Denis Banfi is the visible providence of the Calvinists. But for poor, vagabond Unitarian ministers like me, the place behind the door is good enough."

"But just look! just look! how the worthy _armalists_[38] raise him on high and carry him on their shoulders to the door. 'Tis well they do not set him on a litter like a sovereign prince--as if, forsooth, feeding them at his table made him their lord and master!"

[Footnote 38: _Armalists._ Noblemen who could show _literae armales_ in support of their nobility.]

"Nay, but, Madame Saint Pauli, pray let the good people do him homage if they like," interrupted Nalaczi with a sneer. "Wait a bit. The greeting I have in reserve for him will add salt to the soup! It will bring my lord to his senses, I warrant you!"

Meanwhile Banfi is mounting the steps, and the crowd, pouring after him, forces its way in at the same time, and carries the Baron on its shoulders right up to the daïs at the end of the room. The clergymen squeeze their way through the surging mob into their proper places, not without being mercilessly mauled on the way; while George Veer, with respect-inspiring elbows, carves a road for himself through the mob up to the very seat of the Lord-Lieutenant. The room is already crammed full with as many of the gentry as it will hold, the remainder block the corridors. The vassals remain, perforce, in the courtyard, and hear nothing of what is going on but the hubbub which reaches them through the windows, and seems to delight them amazingly.

"My noble friends," said Banfi, when there was at last something like silence, and his eye had taken in every one present, "it was not without good cause that I invited you to come to my house _armed_. You know right well from the past history of our poor fatherland, how much our nation has suffered because our Princes, either discontented with what they already had, or unable to guard it, have perpetually called in foreign troops. The historians have only recorded what has redounded to the glory of our Princes--victories, battles, conquests; but they have forgotten to mention that in the year 1617, in consequence of the horrors of war, not a single child was born in the whole of Transylvania, for famine and flight killed them all in their mothers' wombs. But we know it, for we have suffered with and for the people. Now, thank heaven! we are masters in our own homes. By the Peace of Saint Gothard, the Turkish Sultan and the German Emperor have covenanted not to march their troops through Transylvania, and by thus holding each other in check, have vouchsafed us a little breathing-space, inasmuch as we are no longer bound to take up arms for either of them, but can set about healing our country's ancient wounds. A golden age is dawning upon us. The whole world is fighting and bleeding, we alone possess peace; in our land alone is the Magyar independent and his own master. True, ours is not a very large realm, but at any rate 'tis our own. We may be a very little people, but we recognize no greater anywhere. Now there are persons who would destroy this golden age. There are persons who do not care what an imprudently begun war may cost the country, provided their ambition, provided their greed is gratified thereby; and if he whom they attack chances to win, _they_ do not perish with their country, but simply turn their coats, go over to the victors, and share the spoil with them."

"That is a slander!" cried some one from the background. Banfi at once recognized Nalaczi's voice.

The murmuring crowd turned towards the corner whence the interruption had proceeded.

"Let him alone, my friends," cried Banfi; "some satellite of Master Michael Teleki's, I suppose. Let him, too, have the benefit of freedom of speech! I, however, who am well acquainted with the upright sentiments of the Estates of the Realm, can tell you positively, that this thoughtless step can never be taken in a constitutional way, and if they attempt by secret intrigues or sudden violence to bring about what cannot be done by fair means, then too they will find me at my post. I wish to defend the realm _and_ the Prince, but if it must be so, I will defend the realm against the Prince himself. Now listen to what the caballers have devised, so as to ensnare us once more in those meshes from which we have hardly withdrawn our heads. Despite the peace, Turks at one time, Tartars at another, cross our frontier, blackmail the people, burn the towns, in short, force their friendship upon us in every imaginable way. Eight days ago they ravaged Segesvar, and before that they made incursions into the Csika district. That, however, is not _my_ business. It concerns the Governors of the Saxon land and the Captains of the Szeklers. It is true that the mouth of his Excellency, Ali Pasha, has long been watering for my domains, only he has not quite made up his mind how to pick a quarrel with me. A few days ago, however, his roving bands captured the Prince's Patrol-officer, and proclaimed through his mouth to the whole district a fresh tax of a farthing per head. The poor peasantry rejoiced at getting off so cheaply, and hastened to pay the tax without first asking me whether it was lawfully levied. The artful Turk gained a double end thereby: in the first place, he got the people to recognize the tax, and in the second place, he found out exactly how many taxable persons resided in the district, and immediately afterwards levied upon them the fearful blackmail of two Hungarian florins per head!"

The multitude howled with rage.

"I immediately forbade all further payments. This tax does not indeed fall upon our shoulders, for we are nobles; but it is just because we are the peasants' masters that we are bound to save them from being fleeced, and defend them at all hazards. The only answer I sent to his Turkish Excellency was a pig's tail, and if he comes to levy the tax in person, I swear by the living God, I'll give him a buffet he won't forget as long as he lives."

"We will cut him to pieces!" roared the mob, striking their scabbards, and waving their morning-stars in the air.

"And now, my faithful friends, return to your tents. My seneschals will provide for your entertainment. If we must fight, I'll tell you when."

The excited nobility then withdrew with rattling weapons and boisterous approbation; only a few petitioners remained behind.

The Klausenburg professors invited their patron to the public examinations. Banfi promised to come, and distribute rewards to the best scholars.

As they retired Banfi beckoned to the remaining suppliants to approach one by one. The first he turned to was Master Martin Kuncz, the Bishop of the Klausenburg Unitarians.

"How can I serve your Reverence?"

"I have a complaint to make, gracious sir," returned Kuncz, with a bow and a scrape. "The Klausenburg town-council has forcibly removed the market booths belonging to the Unitarian Church. I beg you to help us to regain possession."

"I am very sorry I cannot help your Reverence," returned Banfi, whistling through his teeth and buttoning up his coat. "That is a constitutional affair, and concerns the Prince. The land indeed is mine, but the cause belongs to his Highness's Courts."

"The Prince gave me exactly the same answer, only reversed--'The cause indeed belongs to my Courts, but the land is Banfi's, go to him.'"

Banfi laughed good-humouredly, but Kuncz did not seem to regard the matter as particularly entertaining.

"Then, although my right is as clear as noon-day, I can turn nowhither?"

Banfi shrugged his shoulders and stroked his beard.

"Because your Reverence has right on your side, it by no means follows that you will get justice."

"Then his case is exactly the same as mine," interrupted some one, and Banfi, looking round, beheld Dame Saint Pauli making towards him.

The magnate pretended he did not see the widow, and nonchalantly adjusted the gold and diamond chain of his mente; but the widow thrust herself right under his nose, and thus began--

"Vainly do you condescend to ignore me, my lord. I am here though uninvited."

Banfi looked at her without saying a word, half amused and half annoyed.

"Or perhaps your lordship has forgotten my name?" continued the lady sharply, smiting her breast and exclaiming--"I am the noble, high-born----"

"And worshipful," added Banfi, laughing.

"Dowager Lady George Saint Pauli," continued the lady imperturbably, "every scion of whose family is as noble and illustrious as the Prince himself. I too have never forgotten what name I bear, but have proudly confessed it before princes and generals--yea, even before greater men than your Excellency."

"Well, well, your ladyship. All that I know by heart, for I have heard it from your own lips twenty times before. Come, tell me quickly what you want."

"Quickly, forsooth! Perchance your Excellency imagines that it is possible to tell in a few words why the suit between us has lasted four years already, and why the suit between the town of Klausenburg and my family has been pending for three-and-sixty years?"

"To cut matters short, I will tell you the whole story myself," interrupted Banfi; "your ladyship can make your comment afterwards. Your ladyship possesses a ruinous den in the midst of the Klausenburg market-place----"

"I beg your pardon--a manor-house just as good as your lordship's own castle."

"This shanty has for a long time disfigured the market-place. In vain has the town-council negotiated with and sued your family in order to have the house pulled down."

"And we have not surrendered it. Quite right. A genuine nobleman never sells property which he has purchased with his blood. It belongs to me, and within my four walls neither Prince nor Diet has the right to command. No, nor you either, my Lord-General."

"My good lady, I never asked you to give me this venerable ruin for nothing. I offered you ten thousand florins for it. For that sum I could have bought up the whole gipsy quarter, though there is no such dilapidated house there as yours."

"Keep your money, sir. I'll not give up my house. My seven-and-seventieth ancestor bought it two centuries ago, and therefore I'll not barter it away. In it I was born; in it died my father and my mother. If it offends your Excellency's eye to look down upon my beggarly house from your splendid mansion, pray look the other way; but at least do not grudge me the poor pleasure of spending the remainder of my days in the room where my poor husband breathed his last sigh; and let me tell you, sir, that I wouldn't take a palace in exchange for it."

The widow's sobs at the recollection of her deceased husband here enabled Banfi to put a word in, and he replied with passionate vehemence--

"What I have said shall be done. The masons are already on their way to pull down the house. The ten thousand florins you can have on application to the town-council."

"I don't want them. Throw them to your dogs," cried the woman furiously. "Am I a peasant that you turn me thus out of my property? Whoever dares to step across my threshold shall be driven out with a broomstick like a cur. I have appealed to the Prince and to the Estates, and there you have the sealed mandate in which the Diet forbids all and sundry to invade my property. I'll nail it upon the gate,--'tis engrossed in a good, legible hand,--and then I'll see who dares to break into my house."

"And I tell you that to-morrow your house will be razed to the ground, even if it be surrounded by armalists, and then the Diet may build you a new one if it is so disposed."

And with that Banfi turned away in high dudgeon, and almost ran into Nalaczi.

The two men greeted each other with constrained politeness; and while Dame Saint Pauli went off cursing, Nalaczi, after drawing a long breath, began in the sweetest of tones--

"His Highness the Prince desires to bring a very unpleasant matter to the notice of your Excellency."

"I am all attention."

"The Turk has thrice this year extorted gifts from us under various pretexts."

"You ought not to give them to him."

"If we don't he will force upon us as Prince the refugee Nicholas Zolyomi, now under the protection of the Porte."

"Let him come! We will kick him out again."

"Bravely spoken! But the Prince, weary of so much discord, and somewhat fearful besides, has resolved to amnesty Zolyomi and allow him to return."

"In God's name let him do so then!"

"Right, quite right! But your lordship knows very well that Zolyomi's estates are now in your lordship's possession; the Prince therefore finds himself compelled to request your lordship to surrender these estates to the returning Zolyomi, if it would not greatly inconvenience your lordship."

Nalaczi had been a little too curt in the delivery of his message, although he had done his best to sugar it with respectful epithets.

"What!" cried Banfi, stepping back, "do you really suppose that I will give up these estates? The Diet gave them to me with the onerous condition of equipping at my own cost twelve regiments for the defence of the country. That onerous condition I have faithfully fulfilled, and now you fancy that I shall surrender the estates merely because there is to be one fool the more in the land? Preposterous!"

"But if the Prince wishes it!"

"I'll not give them up whoever wishes it."

"And that is the answer I'm to take back?"

"You'll please take back these two words," said Banfi, emphasizing each syllable--"I won't!"

"Your most obedient servant," said Nalaczi, and with an ironical obeisance he turned upon his heel.

"Servus," replied Banfi contemptuously, as if he were throwing a bone to a dog; and then he looked out into the corridor, and seeing some of his vassals waiting there, hat in hand, roughly asked them what they wanted.

When the good people saw that their liege lord was in a villainous humour, they held back, but the steward pushed them in.

"We ought to have brought the tithes," began the oldest peasant, with a whining voice and downcast eyes, "but it was impossible."

"Why?"

"Because we have nothing, my lord. There has been no rain; the crops are a failure; we have not even seed enough to sow our fields. In the village the people are living on chance roots and fungus, and when these are all gone, God only knows what will become of us."

"Look now," cried Banfi, "another visitation of God, and yet we must needs have a war to boot! Steward, open at once the demesne granaries, and distribute seed to the vassals, that they may sow their fields. See too that the poor people have enough corn to feed them through the winter."

The poor peasants would have kissed Banfi's hands, but he would not suffer it. A tear stood in his eye.

"For what am I your lord if not to lighten your burdens when you are in need? My stewards will carry out my orders. If my own storehouses fall short, you shall have corn for ready money from Moldavia."

And with that he retired into the adjoining chamber.

* * * * *

Banfi's wife with a beating heart heard his familiar footsteps drawing nearer.

There she sits behind the fragrant jasmines and the quivering mimosas, herself as pale as the jasmine flowers and as tremulous as the mimosas.

Around her is nothing but pomp and splendour. On the walls hang cut Venetian mirrors in gold frames, portraits of kings and princes, the handsomest among which is John Kemeny's, painted while he still held with the Turk and wore close-cropped hair and a long beard in the Turkish fashion, so much affected by the magnates of those days.

On one side of the room is a wardrobe with countless drawers, a masterpiece of art, inlaid with tortoise-shell, lapis lazuli, and mother-of-pearl. In the centre of the room stands a variegated table surmounted by silver candelabra of exquisite workmanship. Within glass almeries the family treasures are piled up in gorgeous heaps: pocals encrusted with gems; gold-enamelled stags, whose heads can be screwed off and on; large silver filigree flower-baskets, each scarcely heavier than a crown-piece, filled with posies of precious stones of every hue, artistically disposed in dazzling groups, with here and there a butterfly poising above them with delicate wings of transparent gold.

Heavy red silk curtains fall down from the lofty windows to the floor, and the window-sills are covered with the most gorgeous of the flowers then in vogue, among which the shining, velvety, amaranthine cock's-comb, the liriodendron with its dependent, tulip-like calices, and the mesembryanthemum, with its leaves like dewy pearls, are the most conspicuous.

Of all these flowers only the trembling mimosa and the pale jasmine harmonized with the lady of the house, whose face contrasted so sadly with the gorgeous abode. The tiny, delicate figure seemed almost lost in the lofty arched room. She could not even have moved one of the massive morocco arm-chairs, nor have raised one of the huge heavy candlesticks, nor have pulled aside one of the heavy atlas curtains. Everything around her seemed to remind her of her feebleness. Every sound made her nervous, and when the well-known footsteps reached her threshold, all the blood rushed to her face. She was about to leap up when the door opened, and immediately she was as pale again as ever, and incapable of rising from her seat.

Banfi hastened, with expansive joy, towards his trembling wife, who could not for the moment find words to welcome him, seized both her delicate hands, and looked kindly into her dreamy eyes.

"So pretty and yet so sad!"

The lady tried to smile.

"And how sad that smile is too," remarked Banfi, gently embracing the sylph-like lady.

Lady Banfi laid her head on her husband's bosom, threw her arms round his neck, drew down his face to hers, and kissed it.

"That kiss too, how sad it is!"

She turned away to conceal her tears.

"What is it?" asked Banfi, stroking his wife's forehead. "What is the matter? Why are you so pale? What do you want?"

"What do I want?" returned Lady Banfi, turning her streaming eyes up to her husband and sighing deeply. Then she dried her eyes, placed her arm in his, and as if to give another turn to the conversation, led him to her flowers.

"Look at that passion-flower, how withered it is, and yet it is planted in a porcelain vase, and I water it every day with distilled water. But once I forgot to draw up the blinds, and now look how the poor thing has faded. It wants nothing--but sunshine."

"It seems," said Banfi, in a low voice, "as if we were to address each other in the language of flowers."

"What do I want?" repeated Lady Banfi, and leaning on her husband's neck, she burst forth sobbing. "I want my sunshine--your love."

Banfi at that moment looked very uncomfortable. He sat down on his wife's chair, took her gently upon his knee, and asked her in a kind tone, but not without a touch of temper too--

"Am I less able to show you my love now than heretofore?"

"Oh, no!--not less! But I see you so seldom. You have been away these six weeks, and you would not let me come to you."

"What, my lady! Have you suddenly become ambitious? Would you shine at the court of the Prince? Believe me, your court is much more splendid than his, and not nearly so dangerous."

"Oh, you know right well that I neither seek splendour nor fear danger. When our only shelter was a rude simple hut, nay, sometimes only a tent, half buried in the snow, then you made me lay my head upon your breast, covered me with your mantle, and I was so happy, oh, so happy. Oftentimes the din of battle, the thunder of the cannon, scared sleep from our eyes, and yet I was so happy. You mounted your horse, I sank down in prayer; and when you came back blood- and dust-stained, but unhurt, how happy I was then!"

"Heaven grant that you may always be so. But there is a happiness which stands higher than domestic happiness; there are matters where the mere sight of you would be to me a hindrance and an obstacle."

"Oh, I know what they are--sweet adventures, lovely women, eh?" returned Lady Banfi, with an arch voice but perhaps a bleeding heart.

"You are mistaken," cried Banfi, springing hastily from his chair. "I was alluding to the commonweal," and he began to pace angrily up and down the room.

When a husband takes umbrage at such jests, it is a sure sign that he feels himself hit.

At last Banfi unknitted his bushy brows and stood stock still before his trembling wife, who, ever since her husband entered the room, had been the prey of the most conflicting emotions; joy and grief, fear and rage, love and jealousy, still struggled for the mastery in her agitated breast.

"Margaret," he began, in an unsteady voice, "Margaret, you are jealous, and jealousy is the first step towards hatred."

"Then hate me rather than forget me!" cried the lady with a sudden outburst, which she instantly regretted.

"But what do you want me to do? Have you a single reason for suspecting me? Perhaps you want me to render you an exact account of how many miles I've travelled, how many people I've spoken to, like that blockhead Gida Bertai, for instance, who takes a diary with him every time he leaves the house, and reports to his better-half every half-hour? To hear you speak, one would fancy that I keep you under lock and key, like Abraham Thoroczkai keeps his wife, who, whenever he goes from home, puts a padlock on his wife's chamber, and on his return exacts an oath from all his neighbours that no one has spoken to her in the meantime."

Lady Banfi laughed, but it was a laugh which ended in a sigh.

"You evade the question with a jest. I certainly do not accuse you. I do not watch you, and if you were to deceive me I should be none the wiser. But look! there is that in a woman's heart (a sort of sixth sense) which smarts she knows not why, and whereby she can tell instinctively whether her beloved's love is on the wax or wane. I know not, nor wish to know, whence you come and whither you go; but this I do know--you stay away a long time, and do not make much haste in coming back. Banfi, I suffer--I suffer more than you can think."

"Madame!" cried Banfi, turning upon his wife with a flushed face, "in this country divorce suits do not last very long!"

Lady Banfi fell back into her chair, pressed her hands to her heart, and gasped for breath. She uttered one sharp, plaintive cry, but no other sound came from her parted lips. It was as though some one had suddenly severed the strings of a harp with a sword.

Half fainting, the wife looked up at her husband, as if to make sure whether after all it was not a mere jest, though certainly a very ghastly one.

"You are unhappy," continued Banfi, "and I cannot help you. You are so romantic, and I'm not given that way at all. Perhaps my heart wounds yours, and I'm sorry for it; but your heart certainly wounds mine, and I won't stand it. I recognize no tyrant over me, not even in love, and I'll not endure persecution--no, not even the persecution of a woman's tears. Let us rend our hearts asunder. Better do it now while they will still bleed from the rupture than wait till they drop away of their own accord. Let us rather part while we still love one another, than wait till we have learned to hate."

During the whole of this cruel speech the lady panted convulsively for breath, as if a heavy nightmare were pressing upon her bosom and depriving her of speech, till at last her emotion found an escape, and she uttered a piercing scream.

"Banfi! you are killing me!"

Banfi himself seemed aghast at this cry, and turning round in the very act of quitting the room, cast a glance at his wife.

He did not perceive that at that moment the door opened and some one entered; he only saw that his wife's agonized countenance was suddenly distorted by an unspeakably painful smile. A forced smile on those convulsed features was something too terrible. Banfi thought at first that his wife had gone mad.

The next instant Dame Banfi rose impetuously from her chair, and exclaiming, "Anna! my darling Anna!" rushed towards the door.

It was then that Banfi turned round, and saw before him Anna Bornemissa, the consort of Michael Apafi. That lady's sharp eyes instantly detected the agitation of the consorts, though they both did their best to hide it, and not without success. But she made as though she saw nothing, and drawing Margaret to her breast, kindly held out her hand to Banfi.

"I heard your voices outside," said she, "so I came in without waiting to be announced."

"Ah, yes ... we were ... laughing," said Dame Banfi, covertly wiping her eyes with the corner of her pocket-handkerchief.

"And to what circumstances do we owe this extraordinary piece of good fortune?" asked Banfi, concealing his embarrassment behind an exaggerated courtesy.

"As you did not bring my sister to see me," returned the Princess, with a reproachful smile, "I thought I would just visit my poor exiled Hungarian kinswoman myself."

Banfi felt the sting of these last words, and murmured as he stroked his beard--

"Here my fair sister-in-law may do with me what she will. She may make me the butt of her sparkling wit; she may overwhelm me with her playful sallies. In the Hall of the Diet, before the throne of the Prince, we stand, face to face, as foes; but here you may command me, here I am only your most devoted servant, who delights to do homage to your charms, and is beside himself for joy to have you as his guest."

With these words Banfi embraced the majestic lady with easy familiarity; then, turning to his wife, added, not without a touch of malice--

"I hope you will not be jealous of Anna?"

The Princess hastened to reply instead of Margaret.

"Methinks you fear me too much to make love to me."

"I might perhaps if you were my wife. Yet we were near being wedded once. There was a time when I wanted to make you my bride."

"But it went no further than wishing," returned the Princess, laughing.

"We soon learned to know each other," continued Banfi. "There would have been no room in one house for two such heads as ours, which find one realm too small to hold them both. We both of us love to rule. We should have been hard put to it if one had been obliged to obey the other. Things fell out for the best. We have found our corresponding halves--you Apafi; I Margaret--and we are both contented."

With these words Banfi tenderly kissed his wife's hand and departed, leaving the sisters alone.

Anna, with noble gravity, placed her hand on the shoulder of her sister, who looked up to her with a soft smile like an innocent child regarding its guardian angel.

"You have been weeping," began the Princess; "'tis in vain that you try to put a good face on it."

"I have not been weeping!" returned Margaret, keeping her countenance with wonderful self-control.

"Well, well; I'm glad you conceal it. That shows you love him; and if ever there was a time when your husband needed your love, your watchfulness, and your protection, it is now."

"Your words alarm me! You have something extraordinary to tell me!"

"My coming here at all must have been enough to have alarmed you. You may well suppose that I would not come to your castle for nothing. We have both equal cause to fear a certain person, and if we do not quickly come to an understanding, one of us may lose what she prizes most in the world."

"Speak! oh, speak!" cried Dame Banfi, trembling, and making her sister sit down beside her on the sofa.

"Our husbands have hated each other from the first. They were always of different opinions, belonged to opposite parties, and early became accustomed to regard each other as foes. Woe betide us if this hatred should turn to open strife, and we should see our loved ones compass each other's ruin."

"Oh, I can positively assure you that Banfi nourishes no hostile feeling against your husband."

"I do not apprehend Apafi's fall, but your husband's. The throne upon which he was placed by force has quite changed Apafi's character. I perceive, to my consternation, that he has begun to grow jealous of his authority. Why, even at Érsekújvár, when he first became Prince, he expressed his anxiety to the Grand Vizier that Gabriel Haller was plotting for the diadem, whereupon the Grand Vizier had poor Haller beheaded there and then without my husband's knowledge; but Apafi still recollects the message your husband sent him on that occasion, namely, that ere long he would tear from his shoulders the green velvet mantle, the symbol of the princely dignity."

"Oh, my God! what must I not fear?"

"Nothing, so long as I do not lose my husband's favour. While you are securely sleeping, I am watchfully guarding against his passionate outbursts, and hitherto God has given me strength to fight against the monsters who would make of his reign a bloody memorial. But there is a certain condition of mind to which my husband is liable when my influence over him loses all its talismanic power; when, revolting against his own nature, his gentleness turns to ravening savagery; when his eyes, usually so ready to weep at the death of his lowliest vassal, seem to thirst for blood; when he throws off his habitual circumspectness and becomes wildly reckless. And this condition--I blush to confess it--is drunkenness. I do not bring it against him as an accusation. He whom we love has no fault in our eyes."

"Except one thing--his infidelity to us," interrupted Margaret.

"That too, yes, that too must be forgiven when it becomes a question of saving his life," replied the Princess.

"Oh, Anna!" cried Margaret, "you make me suspect mysteries which you will not reveal to me."

"What you ought to know you shall know. A little while ago your husband, with haughty presumption, opposed himself to a mighty faction which has kings for its confederates and kings for its antagonists; he might just as well have opposed Destiny herself. He is too proud to calculate the dangers which he thus draws down upon his head; or does he really think that they who sharpen their swords against a reigning monarch would suffer for an instant one of their own subjects to raise his head against them? And Banfi has threatened, mocked, insulted them, and entangled the meshes of their well and widely laid plans--nay, more, he has encountered and browbeaten them in the very presence of the Prince."

Dame Banfi folded her arms in timid resignation.

"I see the storm which is gathering over Banfi's head. In his drunken fits, Apafi has let fall hints which have filled my soul with terror, and I don't wish Apafi's to be the hand to strike down Banfi for the sake of others. They will try to catch him at every turn, but we two will watch over him. I will endeavour to keep back the stroke, yet should it fall, 'tis for you to ward it off. We must both possess the entire love and confidence of our consorts, so as to be able to intervene energetically and decisively should they come to blows. For would it not be frightful if one fell by the other's hand, and one of us were the cause of the other's misery?"

Margaret timidly pressed Anna's hand.

"What am I to do? Oh, my God! what can I do? How can I intervene? I have no power."

"Your power lies in your love, watchfulness, and self-sacrifice," returned Dame Apafi with an exalted look, striving to inspire her weaker sister with something of her own strength.

At that moment the fate of two men was in the hands of two angels, and the fate of those two men was one with the fate of Transylvania.