CHAPTER V.

THE BANQUET TRIBUNAL.

The blast of hunting-horns resounded from the Batrina Mountains, the hubbub of the chase came nearer and nearer; a group of well-dressed, well-mounted gentlemen led the way, and at their head rode Count Ladislaus Csaky.

"After him! after him!" resounded on all sides, and the pack were already in full cry, when the cavalcade, emerging from the thicket into an open glade, suddenly encountered another party coming from the opposite direction, in whose leader they all recognized Denis Banfi. Csaky with considerable confusion called the beaters back.

Banfi rode up to the group with an ironical smile.

"Welcome, gentlemen, to my domains. Delighted, I'm sure, at my great good fortune. Probably you have lost your way; but, if not, you are my guests, and consequently doubly welcome. But, pray, why do you stare at me so wildly? You really remind me of the Hindoo proverb, which says, He who beats the woods for a stag, oftentimes falls in with a lion."

"We regard your Excellency neither as a stag nor yet as a lion," returned Csaky, blushing up to the ears in his confusion. "The fact is, we fancied ourselves on lawful ground."

"Of course! of course!" returned Banfi, with an offensive smile. "You are on my property, and that is certainly lawful ground. I don't know how to express my gratitude for such an honour. No doubt you are tired too. I therefore invite you all to Bonczhida, just to take a little pot-luck with me."

"We are much obliged," returned Csaky angrily, "but we are unable just now to accept your invitation."

"Nay, nay; you'll not put me off. It is not my practice to let those who have come to me as guests depart hungry and thirsty. I cannot regard you as poachers, I suppose? And if you are not poachers, you must be guests."

"A third case is also possible."

"I know of none."

"Your Excellency shall learn from me that there is, though."

"Quite right. But there will be time for that at table. So turn your horses' heads towards Bonczhida, gentlemen."

"I've already said that we can't accept your invitation."

"What! Are you so ill acquainted with my hospitality as not to know that, if necessary, I will carry you off by force? Ha, ha! You must take away with you a reminiscence of Bonczhida. As you know now what my wild animals are like, you must make the acquaintance of my domestic animals also. In any case, I mean to take you by force."

"A truce to jesting, Banfi. This is not the place for it."

"Methinks 'tis you that jest. I am perfectly serious when I say that I will take you with me even against your will."

"We should like to see you do it."

"Then see it you shall," and with that Banfi blew on his horn, and instantly armed squadrons poured forth from every corner of the wood. Count Csaky and his merry men were completely surrounded.

"Ha! this is treachery!" cried Csaky wildly.

"Oh dear, no! 'Tis only a little carnival jest," replied Banfi, laughing. "This time 'tis the quarry which captures the huntsmen. Forward, comrades! Take these gentlemen's horses by the bridles, and follow me with them to Bonczhida. If any one stands upon ceremony, tie his legs to the stirrups."

"I protest against this compulsion," cried Csaky furiously. "I take you all to witness that I enter my protest against this act of violence."

"I for my part call every one to witness," repeated Banfi, laughing, "that I've invited these gentlemen to a banquet in the most friendly manner in the world."

"I protest! 'Tis violence."

"Nonsense! 'Tis a merry jest. 'Tis Hungarian hospitality!"

Some of the gentlemen laughed, others swore. As however Banfi had numbers on his side, the Csakyites sulkily and wrathfully submitted at last to their jocose tyrant, and allowed themselves to be conducted to Bonczhida, though Csaky stopped every one he met on the road, and took them to witness that Banfi was doing him violence, while Banfi laughingly endeavoured to make it plain to the good people that the worthy gentleman was a trifle fuddled, and that they were playing a harmless little practical joke upon him.

"You will live to bitterly rue this!" cried Csaky, gnashing his teeth, and half beside himself with rage.

As they were passing through a village, one of Csaky's company, a young nobleman, whom his friends called Szantho, broke away from the crowd and vanished before he could be overtaken.

"Let him go to the devil!" cried Banfi gaily. "We will manage to be merry without him, eh! my lord Ladislaus Csaky?"

Gradually Csaky recovered his sangfroid, and his wrath seemed to abate; indeed, by the time they reached Bonczhida he wore a radiantly smiling countenance, for he was well aware that it would be indecent as well as ridiculous to pull wry faces before ladies. He therefore allowed himself to be presented to Dames Apafi and Banfi as a chance guest picked up on the way, without the least show of ill-humour.

Banfi crowned his insult by assigning to Csaky the place of honour at the head of the table, next his wife, and sitting opposite to him treated him with the most marked attention, through which there ran, however, a vein of the most trenchant irony. And Csaky was not even able to resent it! What must his feelings have been!

As the banquet was drawing to a close and the general mirth increased proportionately, Csaky grew more and more furious. He was sitting all the time on burning coals, and had to smile and simper as if he liked it. At last Banfi invented a fresh torture for him, by raising his pocal and drinking his guest's health. Csaky was obliged to clink glasses, drain his own to the very dregs, and endure to see Banfi laughing at him in his sleeve all the time. Every drop he drank was so much poison to him with that mocking laugh ringing in his ears.

And all this refined torture was so delicately veiled, that it escaped the attention of the ladies altogether.

Just as the mirth was most uproarious, the folding-doors suddenly flew wide open, and, without any previous announcement, Prince Michael Apafi, to whom the fugitive Szantho had brought the news of Csaky's capture, entered the room.

Both ladies, with a cry of joyful surprise, hastened towards the unexpected guest; but the gentlemen, perceiving from the Prince's face that a storm was brewing, suddenly became very grave.

Banfi alone preserved his usual grand seignorial gaiety, which could even express anger with a smiling countenance. He sprang quickly from his seat, and hastened joyfully towards the Prince.

"By Heaven, a lucky coincidence! Your Highness comes to us at the very instant that we are draining our glasses in your Highness's honour. This is what I call an unlooked-for and most timely arrival."

Apafi received this salutation with a slight nod, and leading the ladies back to their places, sat down himself on Banfi's chair. Several of the guests hastened to offer Banfi their seats, but the Prince beckoned him to approach.

"Your Excellency will remain standing. We would submit you to a little friendly cross-examination."

"If we are to be the judges in this case," interrupted the learned Master Csekalusi, taking up his glass, "allow me to inform you that the necessary preliminaries[40] have already been observed."

[Footnote 40: A banquet was the usual prelude to judicial as to all other public proceedings in Hungary.]

"I will be the judge," said Apafi; "although I do not quite know who is the master at Bonczhida, myself or Denis Banfi."

"The law of the land is the master of us both, your Highness," returned Banfi.

"Well answered! You would remind us that an Hungarian nobleman permits no one to sit in judgment upon him in his own house. But this affair is after all only a little carnival jest. At least you have been pleased to call it so, and we will follow your example."

The most anxious suspense was legible in the faces of all present: they did not know whether the jest would end seriously or the reverse.

"Your Excellency," continued Apafi, "has seized our envoy, Lord Ladislaus Csaky, and brought him to your house by force."

"Ah!" cried Banfi, with affected astonishment, "I see it all now. Why then did not the Count tell me at once that you had sent him to hunt in my preserves? And besides, if your Highness had taken a fancy to some of my game, why did you not let me know it? I would have shot more excellent bucks for your Highness than any that my Lord Csaky could catch."

"This has nothing to do with bucks, my lord baron. You know very well the ins and outs of the whole business. Don't force me to speak out plumply before these ladies."

At these words Lady Banfi would have risen, but the Princess prevented her.

"You must remain here," she whispered in her ear.

"So far, I don't understand a single word," said Banfi, in an injured tone.

"No? Then we'll recall to your mind a couple of circumstances. The peasants have caught sight of a panther in your woods."

"It is possible," returned Banfi, laughing--for a Hungarian gentleman may jest with his guests but never be rude to them, however much they offend him--"it is possible that this panther is a descendant of those which came into the land with Árpád,[41] and may therefore be called ancestral panthers."

[Footnote 41: Árpád, the primeval ancestor of the Hungarian princes, who first led the Magyars into the plains of Hungary. He died in 907. With Hungarians, to come in with Árpád is like our coming over with the Conqueror.]

"It is no matter for jesting, my lord. That panther has torn a young Wallach to pieces in the sight of several persons, wherefore I sent out Lord Ladislaus Csaky to hunt down the beast and kill it. And Csaky had seen the monster and was hard upon it when you met him in the forest and stopped him."

"Lord Ladislaus Csaky no doubt mistook his own tiger-skin for a panther."

"No gibes, please. The lair of the monster is discovered. Do you understand me now?"

"I understand your Highness. But 'twas a pity to put my lord Csaky to so much inconvenience for such a trifle. So 'twas he then who discovered the pleasure-house which I built over a hot spring among the rocks? Well, I don't think even such a discovery as that will earn for him the title of a Columbus."

"You persist in sneering then? Will nothing make you bow your haughty head? Suppose now I knew the secret of that mysterious cave, what then?"

Banfi began to change colour, and he answered in a low, husky voice, like a man who finds it very difficult not to speak the truth.

"'Tis a very simple matter, sir. It was I who discovered Börvolgy; but as soon as the rumour of the hot spring spread abroad, the public tried to take possession of it. Now, I had also discovered a rich mineral vein beneath the Gradina Dracului, and to prevent it from being appropriated, I had a little private pleasure-house built there among the rocks for the exclusive use of my wife."

By these last words Banfi wished to make the Prince understand that he ought to spare his wife, but they produced exactly the contrary effect.

"Oh, you vile hypocrite!" cried the Prince, starting up and striking the table with his clenched fist. "You would use your wife as a cloak, well knowing all the time that you keep there a Turkish girl on whose account the Sultan is about to ravage the land with fire and sword!"

Lady Banfi uttered a piercing shriek. Her sister whispered in her ear--

"Be strong! Now is the time to show what you are made of."

Banfi furiously bit his lips, but controlled himself with a mighty effort, and answered calmly--

"That is not true, sir! That I deny!"

"What! Not true! There are people who have seen her."

"Who?"

"Clement, the Patrol-officer."

"Clement the poet? Ah! We all know that lying is the masterpiece of poets."

"Very well, my lord baron. As you deny everything, I will try to get to the bottom of the matter myself. I will therefore go in person to the place in question, and if I find confirmation of that whereof you are accused, let me tell you that a threefold punishment awaits you: first, for the rape of the Turkish girl; next, for the violence done to a princely messenger; and thirdly, for adultery. Each one of these deeds is sufficient in itself to hurl you down from your presumptuous height. My lord Csaky, lead us to this place; and you, my lord Denis Banfi, will in the meantime remain here."

Banfi stood there with a bloodless face, and his feet rooted to the ground.

Meanwhile his wife had risen from her seat, and rallying all her strength with a supreme effort, stepped in front of the Prince and said--

"Sir, pardon my husband! He knows nothing of this thing--the fault is mine--the woman whom you seek turned to me for protection in her hour of need--and--I concealed her in that place--without my husband's knowledge."

Every word she spoke seemed to cost the pale, fragile lady superhuman exertion. Banfi turned very red and cast down his eyes before her. The Princess looked triumphantly at her sister and pressed her hand.

"Well done!" she whispered. "That was indeed noble and heroic!"

Apafi saw through the magnanimous fraud; but he was determined that Banfi should not escape him that way, so, turning wrathfully upon him, he exclaimed--

"And you permit your wife to commit such indiscretions, which might so easily ruin your family, nay, the realm itself? She must be punished for it, and I therefore request you to reprimand her on the spot!"

Lady Banfi, full of resignation, sank down upon her knees before her guests, and bowed her head like a criminal awaiting punishment.

"It is not my practice to correct my wife in public," murmured Banfi, with an unsteady voice.

"Then I'll do so myself," cried Apafi; and approaching the lady he said--"You deserve, madame, to be sent to jail!"

"That I would not allow, sir!" muttered Banfi between his teeth.

He was now as pale as a corpse. All his blood, all his fire, seemed concentrated in his eyes. All his muscles quivered with shame and rage.

"Gentlemen!" interrupted a sweet, sonorous voice. How soothingly it sounded amidst the rough contention of angry men. It was the voice of the Princess, who stepped between the lady and her accuser. "In former times," she cried reproachfully, "noblemen were ever wont to respect noble ladies."

"So you are again at hand to defend those whom I attack?" cried the Prince petulantly.

"I am again at hand to prevent your Highness from committing an act of injustice. I have always the _right_ to defend my sister--but it becomes my _duty_ to do so when she is insulted!"

With these words the Princess embraced Margaret, who no sooner felt herself in the embrace of a stronger than herself, than she lost all her artificial strength, and sank senseless into her sister's arms.

Banfi would have hastened to his wife's assistance, but Dame Apafi waved him back.

"Go!" cried she; "I'll take care of her!"

"Then you mean to remain here?" said the Prince to his consort, in a voice trembling between wrath and compassion.

"My sister has need of me--and you, I see, can do without me."

Apafi, ever since his wife had begun to speak, had plainly lowered his crest, and fearing lest she might rout him altogether, he hastily quitted the battle-field with a half triumph. He could not fail to be very much discontented with the result of his investigation. He felt that he had wounded Banfi in a sore place, but he also felt that the wound was not mortal. The great nobleman had been affronted rather than humbled. So much the worse for him! What will not bend must be broken.