CHAPTER IX.

CONSORT AND CONCUBINE.

Ever since that painful scene at Bonczhida, Lady Banfi had not met her husband. Fate so willed it that Banfi was constantly away from home; scarcely had he come back from the Diet of Fehervár when he was called away to Somlyo, where his troops stood face to face with the Turks. During the few hours however that he remained at home, his wife had locked herself up from him; not even the domestics caught a glimpse of her face. She did not quit her chamber, and received no one.

One day both the spouses were invited to Roppad by a distant kinsman, one Gabriel Vitez, who knew nothing of their estrangement, to act as sponsors to his new-born son. To decline the invitation was impossible, and thus it came about that on the day in question, Lady Banfi coming from Bonczhida and her husband from Somlyo met together, to their mutual confusion, at the festive mansion of the Vitezes.

At the first meeting they instinctively shrank back from each other. They had both indeed longed for such a meeting, but pride had kept them apart, and thus while their affection rejoiced at, their pride revolted against this chance encounter. Of course they let nothing of all this appear openly. In the presence of their friends they had so to conduct themselves that nobody might suspect that this meeting was anything but an everyday occurrence.

At the end of the banquet, which lasted far into the night, Master Gabriel Vitez took care that all his guests should be lodged with the utmost convenience. Husbands and wives and all the young girls had separate quarters, and the young men were accommodated in the hunting saloon. For Banfi and his spouse the garden pavilion had been reserved, which, being at some distance from the noisy courtyard, promised to be the quietest resting-place of all. The host, with the most distinguished courtesy, accompanied them thither himself.

It was now a long time since they had slept together under the same roof.

Before so many acquaintances they could not declare their estrangement, and had been compelled to accept the nice quarters provided for them by their amiable host, who insisted, despite their protests, in showing them the way; jested pleasantly with them for a time, and only left them to themselves after wishing them good-night some scores of times.

The pavilion consisted of two small adjoining rooms, such cosy little cribs, with quite an air of home about them. In one of them a merry fire was crackling and flickering on the hearth. In the corner a tall solemn clock was softly ticking. The brocade curtains of the large tester-bed were half drawn back, revealing behind them a comfortable, snow-white, downy expanse, on which lay, side by side, _two_ little pillows adorned with red ribbons.

In the other room, which was half lighted by the reflection of the fire, a couch was visible provided with a bear-skin covering and a single stag-skin bolster. In all probability no one had ever thought that it would be occupied.

Banfi looked sadly at his wife. Now that he was no longer free to approach her, he saw what a heaven he had possessed in that noble and lovely being. She stood before him with downcast eyes, so sorrowful and yet so mild.

In her heart, too, many traitorous thoughts pleaded for her husband; wounded pride, that unbending judge, was already beginning to waver. In a noble breast it is not hate but grief that takes the place of love.

Banfi drew nearer to his wife, seized her hand, and pressed it in his own. He felt that her hand trembled, but he also felt that it did not return his pressure.

He went still further. He tenderly pressed her to him, and kissed her forehead, cheeks, and lips. She suffered his caresses but did not return them. But if only she had looked up into her husband's eyes, she would have seen them glistening with two tears as sincere as ever repentant sinner shed.

Banfi, with a deep sigh, sat down in an armchair, still holding Margaret's hand in his own; it needed but a single tender word from his wife, and he would have flung himself at her feet and wept like a remorseful child. Instead of that, Dame Banfi, with self-denying affectation, said to her husband--

"Do you wish to remain in this room, and shall I go into the other?"

The icy tone of these words cut Banfi to the heart. His broad breast heaved a deep sigh, his eyes looked sorrowfully at Margaret's joyless face--to him a closed paradise. He rose gravely from his seat, pressed his wife's hand to his lips, whispered her a scarcely audible good-night, and tottered into the adjoining room, closing the door behind him.

Dame Banfi set about disrobing, but on casting a glance at the lonely couch, a painful feeling overcame her. She threw herself sobbing on the pillows, and then, finding no rest for her soul there, she stood up again, drew a chair in front of the fire, sat down, and burying her face in her hands indulged in brooding, melancholy, dreamy thoughts.

And can there be any greater grief than when the heart fights against its own conviction; when a woman can no longer conceal from herself that the ideal of her love, him whom, after God, she loves the most, is after all only a common, ordinary mortal?--that he whom she has loved so nobly deserves nothing but her contempt? And yet she cannot but love him! She feels she ought to hate him, yet she cannot bear the thought of being without him. She would fain die for him, and the opportunity of dying will not come.

A single unlocked door separates her from him. They are only a few steps apart. How small the distance, and yet how great! She can hear him sighing. He too cannot sleep while he is so near to her whom he has so deeply wounded. What bliss it would be to traverse those few steps, to nestle side by side, to gratify each other's longings! But reconciliation is impossible; her heart yearns after it and recoils from it, loves and loathes at the same moment.

Oh! why can we not forget the Past? Why is it impossible to prevent Grief from grieving?

The lady fell a-thinking, a-dreaming.

It seemed to her as if she were talking to her husband in a vision--

"You said yourself that we ought to part while we still loved each other, while our hearts would bleed at the rupture. Then why don't you do it? Why do you sigh when you look at me? Why do you kiss me? Those sighs, those kisses are torture to me; they wound my heart. Let us part! It was your own wish."

The fire had burnt very low in the grate; over the ruddy embers a pale, ever-dwindling flame was feebly flickering to and fro, like the last thought of an extinguished passion. All around the room was growing darker and darker; the light of the expiring embers barely lit up the form of the sorrowing lady who sat there, with her head buried in her hands, like a marble statue mourning over a tomb.

Suddenly, amid the silence of the night and of her own thoughts, it seemed to her as if whispering voices and stealthy footsteps were approaching the doors of the pavilion.

Lady Banfi really did hear these sounds; but she was like one but half-awakened from his first sleep, who hears but heeds not, who knows what is going on about him without regarding it.

The whispering was now audible close beneath the windows, and now and then it seemed to her as if the smothered clash of arms was mingling with it. In her dreamy state the lady fancied she had got up and bolted the door; but this was a delusion, the door remained ajar.

Then some one pressed the latch, and the creaking sound made Lady Banfi dream that her husband had come to her, and was speaking to her in a tearful, supplicating voice. She felt the terrors of nightmare strong upon her as she came within the magnetic influence of that shape. "Let us part, Banfi!" she would have said, but the words died away on her lips. Then the dream-shape whispered to her--"I am not Banfi, but the headsman!" and seized her hand.

At this cold touch Lady Banfi uttered a shriek and started up.

Two men stood before her with drawn swords. The lady looked into their faces with a shudder. Both were well known to her. One was Caspar Kornis, chief captain of the Maros district, the other John Daczo, chief captain of Csik, who now stood before her with menacing looks, and the points of their naked swords at her breast.

"Not a sound, my lady!" said Daczo grimly. "Where's Banfi?"

The lady, thus scared out of her first sleep, was scarcely able to distinguish the objects around her: terror made her dumb.

Suddenly she observed through the open door that the passage was filled with armed men, whereupon her presence of mind seemed instantly and completely to return. She grasped at once the tremendous significance of the moment, and when Daczo, gnashing his teeth, again asked her where Banfi was, she bounded from her chair, ran to the door which separated her husband's chamber from her own, turned the key quickly round, and screamed with all her might--

"Banfi! Save yourself! They seek your life!"

Daczo ran forward to stop her mouth and snatch the key from her; but with singular presence of mind Lady Banfi had, in the meantime, thrown the key into the heart of the red-hot embers, and cried again--

"Fly, Banfi! Your enemies are here!"

Daczo tried to pick the key out of the fire, and burnt his fingers very badly in the attempt, whereupon, still more furious, he rushed upon the lady sword in hand to cut her down, but Kornis held him back.

"Softly, sir! We have no orders to kill the woman, nor would it be worthy of us; let us try rather to burst open the door as quickly as possible," and with that they both pressed their shoulders against the door, Daczo cursing and swearing, and calling upon all the devils in hell to help him, while Lady Banfi on her knees prayed God to allow her husband to escape.

* * * * *

Banfi had gone to sleep at the same time as his wife. He too had had a tormenting dream. He fancied he was in prison, and the moment he heard Margaret's shriek, he sprang in terror from his couch, tore open the window of the pavilion, and without thinking what he was doing, leaped into the garden at a single bound. He looked hurriedly about him. The house was surrounded by armed Szeklers, and the rear of the garden was bounded by a broad ditch filled with greenish rain-water. Amongst the masses of infantry stood here and there a group of grooms, holding by the bridles the chargers from which their masters had just dismounted.

Banfi had very little time for reflection, nor did he need much. Under cover of the darkness, he rushed swiftly upon the nearest groom, gave him a buffet which brought the blood in streams from his nose and mouth, sprang upon one of the vacant horses, and struck the spurs into its flanks.

The cry of the groom, who had fallen beneath the horse but still held on fast by the bridle, brought up to the spot a crowd of yelling Szeklers. It immediately occurred to Banfi to put his hands into his saddle-pouches, where pistols were sure to be found, and the moment he felt the handles, he as quick as light sent two shots among the crowd which was pressing upon him from all sides, and taking advantage of the consequent hubbub and confusion, spurred his horse fiercely, till it reared and plunged and flew away with him through the garden. The groom still stuck to it like a leech, and allowed himself to be dragged along the ground, till at last his head came into collision with the stump of a tree and he fell back unconscious. Banfi thereupon galloped towards the ditch, and leaped it at a single bold bound; his pursuers, not daring to follow him that way, were obliged to make a long détour to reach the gates, thus giving Banfi a start of several hundred paces. His steed too, scared by the noise of the pursuit, had become half frantic, and Banfi gave him his head, and away they went over stock and stone, up hill and down dale, without aim or purpose.

* * * * *

"Oh, accursed woman!" roared Daczo, threatening Lady Banfi with his fists, when he learnt that Banfi had made his escape. "'Tis all through you that Banfi has slipped through our fingers."

"Oh, Almighty God! I thank Thee!" stammered Margaret, with hands upraised to heaven.

The Szeklers, enraged at having let the husband escape, swung their weapons and rushed upon the wife to murder her.

"Let her die! Her blood be upon her own head!" they roared, with bestial rage.

"Kill me! Death will be welcome to me!" cried Margaret, kneeling down before them. "To die for him was my only wish. God be with me!"

"Be off with you!" cried Kornis, suddenly intervening, beating down the weapons of the Szeklers with his sword, and covering the kneeling lady with his body. "Shame on you! Would you kill a woman? Ye are worse than the Pagan Tartars. If you've let Banfi escape, run after him."

"We'll kill her! We'll kill her!" bellowed the Szeklers, and again they attempted to tear Kornis away from the lady.

"Eh! you damned beasts! Who commands here, I should like to know? Am I not your captain?"

"No!" bluntly replied a stiff-necked, bull-headed Szekler, twitching his bulky shoulders to and fro. "Our captain is Nicholas Bethlen, and he is not here."

"Then go and find him. But let me tell you that whoever does not instantly quit this room shall be beaten into a pulp."

Still the Szeklers persisted in remaining, and there is no knowing what they might not have done, had not one of the hindermost suddenly exclaimed--

"Let us go to Bonczhida!"

Thereupon all the others fell a-shouting--"To Bonczhida! to Bonczhida!" and they withdrew, cursing horribly, and in the most chaotic confusion.

But Captain Kornis quietly put Lady Banfi into a carriage, and sent her to Bethlen Castle, which then belonged to Paul Beldi, hoping that Banfi would behave with a little more discretion when he heard that his wife was a prisoner.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, the Szekler rabble sent out against Banfi by order of the Prince had arrived at Bonczhida, and on showing the castellan the Prince's mandate, the gates were opened to them without the slightest contradiction. Daczo only left a portion of his band there, whom he strictly charged to arrest Banfi the moment he appeared, then with the rest he went on to Örmenyes, where Banfi had another castle, to seek him there.

The Szeklers left behind at Bonczhida no sooner perceived themselves captainless, than they proceeded to make themselves perfectly at home in the occupied castle. At first indeed they only jostled each other in the hall and vestibules, but presently they began to insist that the private apartments should also be thrown open to them.

The castellan hesitated. He declared that there was no necessity for such a step, and begged the noble gentlemen to keep within their legal rights, whereupon the before-mentioned broad-shouldered, bull-headed rogue stepped forth, twirled his blonde moustache, which consisted of about nine hairs, and thrusting his pock-marked face close under the castellan's nose, exclaimed--

"What do you mean by that? You are a conspirator! You have robber-bands concealed in those rooms. Open the doors instantly, or we'll burn the house down!"

The castellan was very wroth, but he was also very frightened, so he threw open the rooms in order that the Szeklers might see with their own eyes that nobody was concealed there.

The Szeklers thereupon, with astonishing conscientiousness, thoroughly explored every hole and corner, even looking into places where no one would ever have thought of hiding anything. They looked under and inside all the beds. They pulled out all the cupboards. They took the grates out bodily to see what was behind them. They pitched all the books out of the book-cases, and, after ransacking every room, came at last to Lady Banfi's bed-chamber.

"Look! look! There sits Banfi!" cried the bull-headed ringleader, recoiling at first before a lifelike portrait of the Baron, but immediately afterwards rushing forward and gouging out one of its eyes with his spear. "And that pretty lady yonder is his wife, I suppose?" asked he, pointing to another portrait by the side of the first. "Ai, ai, ai! We were like to have killed her a little while ago, not knowing that she was so pretty. Let us be off, comrades! This room we must leave untouched, for it belongs to that pretty lady," and with that he drove his comrades out, and wrote with a piece of charcoal on the white enamelled door, in letters each an ell long--"THIS IS THE PRETTY LADY'S CHAMBER."

"Why do you do that?" asked the castellan in some surprise.

"To prevent any fuddled blockhead from thrusting his nose in there, in case we all get drunk."

"But where will you all get the drink from, pray?" asked the castellan, more and more amazed.

"Nay, gossip! we must certainly have a peep at the cellars also, to see if anybody is lurking there."

"There you cannot go, and so I tell you once for all, unless you have brought petards with you under your coats of mail."

"What! Just say that again! I should like to hear it once more. Do you know, gossip, to whom you are speaking? My name is Firi Firtos, and if you speak a single word more, I'll chuck you over the house, so that you will fall to the ground in half-a-dozen pieces."

"Why bandy words with him?" cried a voice from the crowd. "Let us pitch the fellow out of the window."

The Szeklers did not wait to be told twice, but instantly raised the castellan into the air and threw him, despite his frantic struggles, out of the window. Luckily he fell on his feet, and took to his heels, to the great indignation of Firi Firtos, who seized all the cactus and hortensia plants that stood in the windows, and hurled them after him, pots and all, after which the whole mob rushed bellowing down to the cellars. Finding it impossible to open the large iron doors, they dragged forward huge casks, filled them with big stones, and sent them flying down the cellar steps, till at last the iron doors fell in with a tremendous crash.

The vast cellar was fitted with huge butts and barrels of every size and shape, and the Szeklers forthwith fell upon them and knocked the tops off with their morning-stars to see what was inside them. The costly wine poured out into the cellar. The Szeklers drank as only Szeklers can drink, and what they could not drink was simply wasted.

When they had all drunk as much as they could hold, the mob stormed up-stairs again, and while another batch took their place below, they forced their way into the state-rooms, rolled about on the costly divans and oriental carpets, hustled one another against the furniture and mirrors, and indulged in many other like pleasantries. Firi Firtos climbed on to a round ebony table in order to paint a moustache on the portrait of a mediæval lady with a piece of charcoal, but some one else jerked the table from under him, and the merry wag fell crashing down into a glass chest containing the family treasures. Mad with rage, he immediately began pitching about everything which came to hand: gorgeous gold pocals, silver plates, enamelled snuff-boxes, flew one after another at the heads of the Szeklers, who, entering into the joke, flung them all back at him with great spirit.

This was the signal for a general devastation. The mania for destruction is contagious. It needs but one to begin it, and the mob, as if rejoicing at the sight, is never so ready as when there is something to be pulled, torn, or smashed to bits. In an instant every piece of furniture was broken up and every bit of tapestry torn down. Splendid costumes, costly, fur-trimmed pelisses, gala-mantles--everything was torn to pieces. They ripped open the feather-beds, scattered the eider-down out of the windows, and bellowed to those who stood below--"It is snowing! it is snowing!" whereupon all the others came rushing up to tear and pull to pieces what still remained whole.

They pulled up the fragrant jasmines by the roots to make posies of them, and cut up into neckties the delicate tapestries which Lady Banfi had worked with her own hands. Stealing gave the Szeklers no pleasure, it was destruction for its own sake that they found so delightful. Thus they threw to the ground a rare and costly clock which needed winding only once a year, broke it up, distributed the wheels and chains as buckles for their shoes, and melted the silver keys into bullets, which they fired off into the air.

Here too it was edifying to see how Firi Firtos tried to get at the bottom of everything. He took down an antique urn and stuck it on his head upside down by way of a helmet. A clock chain he wound round his loins as a girdle, and he danced about hugging in his arms a huge statue of Gutenberg, declaring that it would make an excellent scarecrow for the Somlyo vineyards.

The fragments of the broken furniture they piled up on the hearth, and made a great fire of the priceless ebony, mahogany, and palisander woods. The conflagration of a whole village would not have been half so costly.

Over this fire they hung, on a silver chain, a Corinthian amphora of exquisite workmanship by way of a kettle, filled it with finely-chopped mutton, and sent Firi Firtos out for beans, salt, and onions. He brought them instead green coffee beans, white powdered sugar, and the most costly tulip, amaryllis, and hyacinth bulbs, all of which they threw pell-mell into the kettle, with the natural consequence that the mess, when finished, was very nearly the death of them all, and the end of it was that they pitched Firi Firtos neck and crop into the courtyard.

The Szekler, mad with rage and unable to obtain any other satisfaction, rushed down to the cellars to drink himself dead drunk, but there all the hogsheads had already been staved in, and he waded in wine up to his middle. Looking about him, he perceived a door leading to a second cellar, broke it open with his axe, and was overjoyed to see by the light of the torch he held in his hand, a whole row of fresh casks. He immediately rushed upon the first of them, and knocking the top in, held the torch over it to see what was flowing out. It was _gunpowder_! Luckily for him he was drunk, otherwise he would certainly have sent the castle and everything it contained the shortest way to heaven. "That's not good to drink!" thought he, and broke open the second cask; in that too there was powder, and in the third also, and he swore a terrible oath that if the fourth held the same thing he would hurl the torch into it holus bolus. In the fourth cask, however, there was honey, and shake it as much as he would, he could get nothing else out of it. At last he came upon a six-gallon cask, and, smelling the bung, inhaled a strong odour of spirits, which made him madder than ever, and seizing it by the spigot he raised it bodily from the ground and swallowed long draughts of the strong corn brandy, till over he fell backwards, cask and all. There he wallowed about in the streaming honey; struggled laboriously to his feet again, stumbled a few steps further on, fell down into the gunpowder; rolled backwards and forwards in it for some time, and finally, all candied as he was, scrambled into the courtyard, and there the honey-and-powder-bedaubed form fell prone into the heaps of eider-down which covered the ground, and sprawled helplessly about till he was covered with plumage from the crown of his head to the soles of his jack-boots, and in this plight the grotesquely hideous creature crawled up stairs on all fours in amongst his carousing companions. The man no longer resembled any known beast of the Old or New Worlds. He was black and white all over: white where he was not black, and black where he was not white. Perhaps he had some distant resemblance to a polar bear with a hide of feathers instead of hair, but his roaring was like the roaring of a hippopotamus. It is therefore not surprising that when the Szeklers beheld this strange monster crawling towards them on all fours and bellowing loudly, they should take to their heels in terror, scatter to all points of the compass, and leave the flesh-filled kettle in the lurch. Most of them took the shortest but most dangerous way out of the window, exclaiming--"That is Banfi's devil! Here comes Banfi's devil!"

The Szekler, perceiving the success of his involuntary masquerade, sent after the fugitives a still more ghastly howl, took the amphora down from the chain, sat down with it in the middle of the parquetted floor, thrust both hands into it at once like a demon of the woods, and gobbled and roared alternately.

And these savage scenes took place in the very same chamber where, only a few days before, the delicate form of Dame Banfi had appeared among her jasmines and mimosas like a melancholy shade from fairyland which only listens with its soul and speaks with its eyes.

* * * * *

Meanwhile Denis Banfi, after breaking through the ambush laid for him at Koppad, began, as the noise of the pursuit gradually died away, to look about him in the star-bright night, and picked his way so carefully through woods and over stubble-fields that, at dawn of day, he saw before him the towers of Klausenburg.

Once rid of the terrors of pursuit, anger and revenge began to rage within him. He thought at first that this night attack was simply an audacious conspiracy of his private enemies concocted without the knowledge of the Prince, on the principle that an accomplished act is more easily justifiable than an act that has still to be accomplished. But the attempt had not succeeded, and the escaped lion had both the will and the power to turn upon his pursuers and teach them respect for the laws.

In the plain before the town Banfi's troops were just going through their morning exercises when their leader came galloping up to them, pale, agitated, unarmed, and without either hat or mantle. His captains hastened towards him, aghast and curious.

"I've just escaped from a murderous assault," said Banfi, with a hoarse voice and a heaving breast; "my enemies have treacherously fallen upon me. I have escaped them, but my wife is in their hands. I recognized the voices of Daczo and Kornis among my pursuers."

"Yes, and Daczo's name is embroidered on this saddle-cloth," said Michael Angel.

Banfi appeared much disturbed. His face was dark and troubled, as if neither the future nor the past was quite clear to him.

"I don't understand it at all," said he to his captains. "If the attack was by the Prince's command, I ought to have been served beforehand with a writ, a citation, or, at the very least, a notice of judgment. If however it be only an act of private vengeance, my band is more than sufficient to reach these honest Szeklers. In any case, you will remain under arms before the town while I go up to my castle. In a few hours I shall know whither we have to turn."

Thereupon Banfi rode into the town, accompanied by Michael Angel. As he turned the corner of his palace, he was obliged to pass over the ground where the house of Dame Saint Pauli had formerly stood. All that remained of it now was a large stone, and Banfi, chancing to look in that direction, saw the mistress of the vanished house sitting on that single stone, and evidently awaiting him. He turned impatiently away, but she arose, curtseyed low, and cried derisively--

"Good-morning, your Excellency! Good-morning!"

Banfi haughtily rode on without a word. At the palace gate the castellan of Bonczhida awaited him, who, after escaping from the violence of the Szeklers, had discreetly kept his evil tidings secret, and now told his lord, in a hurried whisper, that his castle had been turned upside down, and the Szeklers were making merry there to their hearts' content.

Banfi answered not a syllable, but he sent for his armour and his charger, and calmly got ready to depart.

"Your lordship would do well to hasten," said the castellan; "by this time the Szeklers must have penetrated into the state apartments."

"It is well," replied Banfi, walking up and down the room with folded arms.

"No, my lord; it is not well. They have smashed to pieces everything in the rooms, torn the carpets to shreds, divided among them the curiosities, flooded the cellars with wine, and even made away with the horses."

"It does not matter," replied the magnate hoarsely. What cared he at that moment for his costliest treasures, his wine, his horses?

"They have done still worse, my lord. They forced their way into her ladyship's bedroom, set up the bust of her ladyship as a target, and mutilated it horribly amidst peals of laughter."

"What! My wife's bust?" cried Banfi, putting his hand to his sword. "My wife's bust did you say?" repeated he with sparkling eyes. "Ha!" he roared, and tearing his sword from its sheath, raised his face to heaven with an expression which no one had ever seen there before. It was like the face of a furious tiger chained down by force, with bloodshot eyes, thick starting veins in the forehead, and lips thirsting after blood. "God be gracious and merciful to them!" cried he, with a terrible voice, threw himself upon his horse, and hastened to his host.

"My friends!" cried he, ere yet he had had time to marshal their ranks. "A marauding swarm of hornets has fallen upon my castle and plundered it. They have smashed everything in my rooms, emptied my stables, stolen or destroyed my family treasures. All that troubles me little. Let the half-starved wretches eat and drink their fill! Let them keep what they have got! Let them rob, burn, and ravage if they will, poor devils! I am still the master of many mansions, and can pay off this beggarly Szekler crew out of one pocket. But they have defaced the image of my wife!--my wife I say! Therefore will I take vengeance upon them, a fearful vengeance. Follow me! The trees of the orchards of Bonczhida have not borne fruit for a long time. We will now hang fruit upon them ourselves!"

The enthusiastic shouts of the squadrons proved that the host was ready to follow Banfi whithersoever he might choose to lead it. The captains marshalled their divisions, and the second flourish of trumpets had already sounded, when a company of twelve horsemen suddenly appeared in front of Banfi's host. In the foremost of this company they recognized the Prince's herald, a broad-shouldered man of gigantic stature, who boldly rode up to Banfi and his staff, and raising his escutcheoned bâton, cried--"Halt!"

"Use your eyes! We _are_ halting!" retorted Michael Angel.

"In the name of his Highness, the Prince, I cite you, Denis Banfi, to appear within three days before the Privy Council at Karoly-Fehervár, there to defend yourself as best you may against the charges brought against you. Till then your consort remains in our hands as a hostage for your good behaviour."

"We _are_ coming," retorted Michael Angel; "don't you see that we are already about to start? We only wanted to know whither, and now we know it."

"Silence, captain!" cried Banfi; "one must not jest with the Prince's ambassador."

The herald next turned to the captains.

"This citation does not concern you. I have a very different message to deliver to you in the Prince's name."

"You had better keep your message to yourself, or I'll speak a word in your ears which will make them tingle," jeered one of the captains, aiming at the herald with his pistol.

"Down with your weapons," exclaimed Banfi; "let him proclaim the Prince's mandate. Give him room that he may speak freely."

The herald rose in his stirrups, and looking along the ranks cried aloud--

"The Prince forbids you from henceforth to obey Banfi! Whoever takes up weapons for him is a traitor!"

"You're a traitor yourself," roared Michael Angel, and the next moment the crowd fell furiously upon the herald, with loud cries of "Kill him! kill him!" A hundred blades flashed simultaneously over his head.

"Hold!" cried Banfi in a voice of thunder, covering the herald with his body; "this man's person is sacred and inviolable. To your places! Sheathe your swords! I--your leader--command it!"

"Eljen! eljen!" roared the brigades, and at the word of command they fell back into their places and stood there like an iron wall.

"You will not be very angry with me," said Banfi to the herald, who had suddenly turned deadly pale, "you will not be very angry with me, I hope, for making them obey me this once? Go back to the Prince and tell him that in three days I will appear before him."

"And tell him that we will be there too," cried the captains in chorus.

The herald and his suite withdrew. Banfi moodily bent his head.

The third flourish of trumpets had already sounded, and the banners were all unfurled; but Banfi still continued staring blankly, darkly, dumbly before him.

"Draw your sword, my lord!" cried Angel; "place yourself at our head, and let us start. First to Bonczhida and then to Fehervár."

"What do you say?" said Banfi, with a start. "What is it?"

"I say that if the law of the sword is to try you, the sword must also be your defence."

"And such a process is generally called _civil war_!"

"We have not kindled it."

"Nor will we fan it. 'Tis no longer, I see, a struggle against my personal enemies, but against the Prince, and he is the head of the land."

"And are not you its right arm? If they choose to light up the flames of civil war, we will not allow it to be quenched in your blood."

"And why should my blood flow at all? Have I committed any capital offence? Can I even be charged with such a thing?"

"You are powerful, and that is a sufficient reason for killing you."

"I care not. I'll go, and what is more, alone. My wife is in their hands. They have the power to make me feel their wrath in the most painful way, and if there were no other reason for appearing, it is my knightly duty to release her."

"You can save both her and yourself much more efficaciously by force of arms."

"I have nothing to fear. I have done nothing for which I need blush in the sight of justice, and if they plot privily against me, are not you here? Summon hither my Somlyo troops as well, and only intervene if they practise foul play."

"Oh, my lord! that army is good for nothing which is abandoned by its leader. To-day it would go through fire and water for you, and is even ready to proclaim you Prince; but to-morrow, when it hears that you have appeared before the court, it will disperse and deny you."

"They need know nothing of my resolution. I'll immediately take coach and go to Fehervár. Tell the troops I've gone to Somlyo to collect my other forces, and keep them under arms till you hear from me."

With that Banfi rode off to Klausenburg, and Michael Angel irritably stuck his sword into its sheath and told the troops that they might rest if they felt tired.

* * * * *

An hour later Banfi was rolling in a carriage-and-four towards Torda, on his way to Fehervár; a mounted servant led a spare horse after him by the bridle.

The further he withdrew from the seat of his power, the more anxious he became. His soul wavered. He began to see phantoms at every step. Only his pride prevented him from turning back again.

Everything now wore a different aspect. He could read in the looks and salutations of all whom he met what they thought of him. A smile was a sign of compassion; a mere nod, a token of ill-will. He stopped to speak to every one, even to very slight acquaintances, even to those whom he had hitherto looked down upon or had never regarded at all. He even condescended to question them. In the hour of misfortune it is wonderful how a man recollects all his acquaintances. At such a time he who once haughtily rejected the hand of friendship is ready to meet his very enemy half-way.

Suddenly he perceived an open carriage coming towards him from Torda, and in it sat a man wrapped up in a grey cloak, in whom, as he passed, Banfi recognized Martin Kuncz, the Unitarian bishop; he called to him to stop for a moment. The bishop, not hearing him for the clatter of the wheels, simply doffed his hat and drove on. Banfi thought he did it on purpose, and took it for a very bad omen. He who ordinarily treated all danger so lightly, now recoiled before the veriest bugbears. He stopped his carriage, and taking horse bade his coachman drive on to Torda and await him there. In the meantime he galloped after the bishop's carriage, whereupon the bishop, catching sight of him, stopped and awaited the magnate, who cried to him from a distance--

"So you will not answer when I speak to you, eh?"

"I am at your lordship's command. I did not know that you wished to speak to me."

"You know my situation, I suppose? What do you think of it? What ought I to do?"

"In such a case, my lord, it is as difficult to give advice as to take it."

"I have resolved to appear to the citation."

"Really, my lord?"

"I have nothing to fear. I feel that my cause is just."

"No doubt; but it does not follow that you will get justice because your cause is just. In this world anything is possible."

Banfi understood the allusion. He had formerly said the very same words to the bishop, and now he had not even sufficient strength of mind to leave him and go on his way defiantly; on the contrary, he dallied with him for some time longer.

"The Prince indeed is my enemy; but the Princess has always defended me, and I have every confidence in her Highness."

"Yes; but unfortunately the Prince has quarrelled with his consort. They say that he even forbids her to enter his apartments."

This answer seemed to quite confound Banfi; but he had still one hope left.

"I don't believe they'd dare to do me mischief, for they know that at Klausenburg and Somlyo I have armies in battle array which can call them to account at any moment."

"Oh, my lord, it is difficult to direct an army from the walls of a prison, and you know very well that a live dog is stronger than a dead lion."

These words seemed to produce a great change in Banfi. For a time he moodily rode by Kuncz's carriage; then, after a long pause, he replied in a very low voice--"You are right," gave his horse the spur, and rode back to Klausenburg with the firm resolve of not allowing himself to be enticed from his stronghold.

On reaching the spot where scarcely six hours before he had restrained the enthusiastic ardour of his troops, he was much surprised to find a band of gipsies apparently searching for something on the ground.

"What are you doing here?" cried he, as he came up to them.

At this question their leader came forward, and recognizing Banfi, humbly doffed his cap.

"Verily, your Excellency, the gipsies have come hither to collect the cartridges which the brave and noble gentlemen have scattered about here."

"But where then are the gentlemen?"

"Gone, your Excellency."

"But why, and whither?"

"The moment they heard your lordship had quitted Klausenburg--whew!--they dispersed in all directions."

"And Michael Angel?"

"He was the first to depart."

Banfi felt sick and dizzy. The tears rushed to his eyes. To be so abandoned by every one, by Fate, by his fellow-men, and even by his own self-confidence! What now remained of all his former might? Whither should he turn? What should he devise? Every way was closed against him. Neither with the sword of justice nor with the sword of battle could he fight. There was no hope and no refuge.

His horse carried him whither it would. The magnate sat upon it with a darkened face, staring blankly at the clouds or on the ground. The earth, the sky, and his own heart--everything within him and around him was dark and desolate. Hitherto his soul had been so full of pride that there was no room for anything else, and now all his pride was gone, and had left a hideous blank behind it. On, on he went; but it was his horse that chose the road. Vast forests lay before him, and he thought--What lies beyond those forests? Lofty hills. And what beyond the hills? Still higher hills. And what then? The snowy peaks. And nowhere was there any refuge or shelter for him! So at the very first stroke every one had fallen away from him, and he who only the day before had ruled over the half of Transylvania, and held fortresses at his disposal, cannot even find a hut to shelter him from the night. Or shall he give himself up to the derision of his enemies, and not even have the poor satisfaction of meeting death with front erect and a smiling countenance? Shall he perish ignobly like a hunted beast? He fell a-thinking. If die he must, he would at least die like a man. But how?

Gradually a thought began to dawn in his benighted soul, and with that thought the colour returned to his cheeks. Slowly he raised his head, and this secret thought ripening into a quick resolution, it was as though a voice within him cried--"Yes! Thither! thither!" His eyes began to sparkle, he turned his horse's head towards the forest, and disappeared beneath the thick foliage.

* * * * *

The tempest is raging. The storm snaps the trees. The rain patters down, and the swollen torrents roar. From time to time fitful lightning flashes illumine the whole region, and snowy mountain peaks grow dark and the black sky gleams white--and again the sky darkens and the snowy peaks shine forth.

The scanty patches of brushwood clinging to the bald rocks are rudely torn and shaken by the hurricane, and the distant pine forests roar like the last trump. Every beast crouches trembling in its den and listens to the storm.

Lofty, inaccessibly steep rocks shut out the horizon, and far, far down in the vale below, like a toiling ant, we see a horseman struggling through the pathless wilderness.

God be merciful to him in such a night in such a place!

It is the Devil's Garden!

* * * * *

A gorgeous oriental chamber opens out before us. Round about the walls gleam hundreds of torches; but the ceiling is so lofty that it is invisible, the light of the torches never reaches it. Two rows of columns support the gigantic architrave, slender columns with capitals in the shape of beasts' heads, as we are wont to see them in ancient Persian temples. Splendid curtains fill up the interstices of the columns. Moorish arabesques adorn the walls; the arched portals are ablaze with gold and malachite. In the centre of the room a lofty red velvet couch rests on four gold griffins with amethyst eyes. In front of the couch is a little ivory table, supported by intertwining silver snakes, and beside the table a golden censer exhales light-blue fragrant clouds of ambergris and aloes. On the couch reclines a sylph-like girl with languishing and yet ardent eyes. A string of pearls, dependent from her neck, draws her light tunic up to her bosom. Her slender form is girdled round the hips by a gorgeous oriental shawl. Her black locks are held together by a golden fillet, which encircles her brows, and the huge diamond clasp of this fillet flashes its myriad blinding rays amidst her dark tresses, like a rainbow condensed into a star gleaming through darkest night.

The girl is alone. Everything around her is motionless. We seem to be in an enchanted fairy palace. Nowhere a sound, a movement.

Who would ever have thought of finding such a magic chamber in the bowels of the earth, six hundred feet within the solid rock, on the surface of which the storm is worrying the hardy shrubs and trees?

It is the crypt of the Devil's Garden, and the woman, sylph or demon, who inhabits it is Azrael.

How can this woman live here so lonely, so far from everything human?

And yet, why not? She is a whole world, a hell, to herself. Within the resounding walls of the populous harem she felt herself lonely, and she peoples this vast vault with the creations of her own wild fancy. Here she shapes the future, forms endless plans, dreams of battles, of intoxicating love, of more than earthly might, of new realms of which she is the Queen, the Sun surrounded by her starry train.

Suddenly a light trampling is heard overhead, as if some one were riding over the vaulted roof. Azrael arises and listens. The sound of footsteps is audible in the corridors, and presently three familiar, measured knocks are heard at the doors.

"'Tis he!" she whispers; springs from her couch, hastens to the door, draws back the heavy bolts, tears the door violently open, and falls into the arms of him who enters.

"At last! at last!" she murmurs, twining her arms round the man's neck and pressing her cheeks to his lips.

The man is Denis Banfi.

Sad, speechless, broken as he never was before, he does not even greet the girl as he enters. He seems to freeze, all his limbs are trembling. He has left his tiger-skin outside, but the drenching rain has soaked him through and through.

"Thou art wet to the skin," says the girl. "Quick! warm thyself. Thou hast come from afar. Thou dost need repose," and dragging Banfi to her couch, she took off his dolman, covered him with her own costly ermine mantle, placed under his feet soft velvet cushions, which she first warmed over the steaming censer, and pressing the man's frozen hands to her throbbing bosom, warmed them there.

Yet Banfi remained dumb. Misfortune seemed to be written on his forehead. A far less practised eye, a far less penetrating genius than Azrael's, could have seen at a glance that he was no longer the haughty magnate he had been, but a fallen viceroy, whose fall was all the greater because he had stood so high; who had come to her, not because he had forsaken every one, but because every one had forsaken him; whom not pleasure but despair had brought to this place.

"I have been waiting for thee!" cried the girl, burying her head in Banfi's bosom, while he played involuntarily with her rich tresses. "To me thy absence is an eternity, thy presence but a fleeting moment."

Not for all the world would Azrael have let Banfi perceive that she had observed the change in him. She pushed a little round stool in front of the couch, took up her mandolin, and began to sing with a voice of thrilling sweetness one of those improvisations which the ardent imagination of the East brings spontaneously to the lips, striking the while with her fingers wild, fantastic chords.

"If thou hast joy, share it with thy beloved, and thou wilt have so much the more. If thou hast grief, share it with thy beloved, and thou wilt have so much the less."

Banfi looked at the odalisk with beetling brows.

But Azrael struck fresh chords and began another song--

"False is the world and all that is therein! Every day the sun forsakes the sky. Every day the sea forsakes her shores. Every year the swallow forsakes her nest. But the maiden who loves never forsakes her beloved."

Still Banfi remained silent. There he sat with staring, bloodshot eyes, his head resting on his elbows, like a poor, mortally-wounded lion.

And again the odalisk sang--

"If choice were thine, which wouldst thou choose--love with hell, or heaven without love?"

Banfi stretched out his arms towards Azrael, and as the odalisk, casting away her mandolin, bent down to kiss his hand, he drew her to his breast, and the odalisk, softly stroking Banfi's forehead, said--

"What mean these wrinkles on thy noble brow, which I have never seen there before? Vainly do I charm them away with my kisses; they come back again and again. Wait!--I'll cover them with this diadem. So!--how well a kingly crown becomes thy brow!"

Banfi uttered an inarticulate cry, tore the diadem from his head, and hurled it far away, while with the other hand he roughly repulsed the girl. Every line of his face proclaimed his agony of mind. The odalisk looked into his face and could read there everything which had happened.

This passionate outburst, however, aroused Banfi from out of his dull despondency. He sprang from the couch, resumed with an effort his usual proud, devil-may-care look, and raising the girl into the air cried, with bitter, scornful mirth--

"Bring me wine! To-day I'll make merry! Over our heads the storm is howling--let it howl! We'll laugh at it, eh! my pretty wench? To-day is ours! On this one day we'll heap together everything which can bring bliss and mad delight, so as to leave nothing for the morrow. Wine and kisses and music--and hell-fire!"

The girl skipped away like a chamois, and came back like a Hebe with a large silver salver covered with gold goblets.

"No, not the golden pocals!" cried Banfi. "They won't break when we dash them against the wall. Serve the wine in Venetian crystals."

The odalisk obediently brought forth the gorgeously-coloured and gilded Venetian glasses, then so much in vogue, and pushed a broad, short-legged table close to the couch.

"Come, embrace me!" cried Banfi, drawing the girl to his bosom, and gazing into her abysmal black eyes.

"My love is an endless sea," whispered the girl, her hands resting on Banfi's shoulder.

"My desire is as hell itself, which drinks to the very dregs!" cried Banfi, embracing the odalisk and pressing a burning kiss on her lips, as if he would have drunk in her very soul.

With that he seized the first glass that came to hand; the wine sparkled in the torch-light. Azrael's kisses had not yet softened his heart. With bitter scorn he raised the glass, and cried--

"I drink to my friends."

He drained it to the last drop, and hurled it contemptuously against the wall, so that it was shivered to pieces. Immediately afterwards he seized a second glass--

"I drink to my enemies."

With a wild peal of laughter he hurled the second glass into the air. In its flight it almost reached the ceiling, but it fell back again on the couch and did not break.

"See, it mocks me and will not break!" exclaimed Banfi, with sparkling eyes.

Azrael sprang up, seized the glass, and crushed it beneath her foot.

In Banfi's heart the flames of three passions began to mingle--wrath, intoxication, and frantic love.

He raised the third glass to his lips, and while the girl held his body fast embraced, Banfi exclaimed, with flushed face and strident voice--

"I drink to Transylvania."

He drained the glass, but when he took it from his lips, the smile had frozen on his face, and instead of dashing the glass against the wall, he placed it gently on the table. A cold shudder ran through him at his own words--"I drink to Transylvania."

He did not remove his hand from the glass, and would shyly have put it aside in a safe place, when the crystal, without any visible cause, suddenly burst in pieces, filling the magnate's hand with a million fragments.

The diamond ring on his finger had scratched the glass, which, as all badly-cooled crystals are wont to do, shivered instantly at the contact, scattering its sparkling fragments in every direction like a Bologna flask.

Banfi shrank shuddering back at this phenomenon and hid his face in Azrael's bosom, as if he had seen a portentous enchantment.

The girl, however, impetuously seized her glass and cried exultantly--

"I drink to our love."

Her voice broke the spell of Banfi's sobering horror and plunged him into frenzied joy. He caught the slim, supple body of the odalisk in his arms, and pressed her to him with the strength of a boa-constrictor: she was almost stifled in his embrace.

"I know not what you have given me to drink," stammered Banfi, "but I have lost my head. I am beside myself for love."

"Then take heed that thou dost not faint. Long hast thou let me languish, and I swore that when next thou camest, to murder thee in thy sleep, so that thou mightest never forsake me more."

"Oh, do it, do it," whispered he, and drawing his dagger from his girdle and stretching himself at full length upon the couch, he laid bare his breast with one hand and gave the girl the dagger with the other.

Azrael, with demoniacal ferocity, grasped the dagger by its beryl handle, and threw herself like an armed Fury upon Banfi, who looked at her with a frenzied smile as the sharp edge of the dagger grazed his breast. Then the weapon fell from the hand of the odalisk, and the madly-distended eyes and lips resumed their languishing smile.

"Kill me rather than forsake me," stammered the girl, embracing Banfi.

"We'll die together, eh?"

"Yes, yes!"

"Jest not, Azrael. I am ready to do what I say."

"And I am ready to die," replied the girl. "Come, I'll show thee something,"--and with that, drawing aside the carpet, she lifted up a trap-door, beneath which was visible through the gloom a deeper, lower room, supported by short, stout, arched columns, close beside which a number of large barrels had been placed.

"Yes," said Banfi, "I know. In that cellar I have hidden the gunpowder which I saved after John Kemeny's fall."

"Look at this long nitrous linstock," said Azrael, drawing up the end of a thick cotton coil out of the cellar; "the barrels are connected with it, and many a time when thou hast been with me have I had the end of this lunt under the cushions of my couch, and held in my couch the torch which was to have kindled it whilst thou wert sleeping with thy head upon my breast, and I lay and listened calmly for the explosion which was to send us both to heaven or to hell."

"And you were afraid to do it?"

"Not for myself. But I reflected that thou wert not thine own but thy country's."

"I belong to no one now."

"Thy mind was so full of lofty plans. Destiny chose thee to be a Prince among men, a hero among the kings of the earth whose name should fill the pages of history."

"All that is over now," cried Banfi, with drunken self-forgetfulness. "I am nobody and nothing. The vault beneath this floor is all that belongs to me. In the world without I am a fugitive and a vagabond."

"Ha!" hissed Azrael. "Then thy enemies have triumphed over thee?"

"My curse be upon their heads! I had compassion upon them, so I have perished."

"Is Csaky also among thy persecutors?"

"Yes; he is my most pitiless pursuer."

"And have all thy faithful friends deserted thee?"

"The fallen has no faithful friends."

"Thou mightst hire mercenaries and begin the struggle anew. Thou art rich enough."

"My wealth has gone."

"Thou mightst beg for help from foreign lands."

"That would be treason against my country. I have fallen and know what awaits me. I must die. But my enemies shall not triumph at my death as at a festival, or laugh aloud to see me go pale and downcast to my doom. I will die alone."

"By Allah, thou shalt not die alone! Come, let us fill our glasses. Accursed be the world! we'll speak of it no more. Come, stifle thy soul in the delirium of joy, and when thy drooping head sinks down upon my breast, I will light the end of this lunt. Thou shalt dream of bliss, of paradise, of kisses ravished and returned; the twofold throbbing of our hearts shall beat the minutes; here below, the stillness of death; there above, the howling of the tempest and of thy foes; and then an earthquaking thunder, rending and scattering the rocks, shall proclaim to heaven and hell that none shall ever find Denis Banfi here on earth again!"

"Azrael, thou art a devil, and I love thee!" cried Banfi, and he clasped the girl in his arms as if she had been a little child.

* * * * *

An hour has passed, and the room has grown dark. The torches are expiring. In the huge vaulted chamber no other light is visible but the red vapour streaming from the orifices of the censer, which gleams like a many-eyed monster, and the burning end of the linstock, lit by Banfi in the midst of his mad orgy, crawling slowly along the room like a fiery serpent.

Naught is to be heard in the deep silence but the sighs of two lovers, and the throbbing of two hearts.

Banfi slept long.

Suddenly he awoke. Pitch-black darkness surrounded him. It was some time before his reeling brain could realize where he was, or why he was there. He felt an icy wind streaming through the room, but it was only after a long interval that he grasped the fact that a door was open somewhere, and that the cold night air was rushing in from outside.

Gradually the scenes of the by-gone night and the vows of death came back to his mind, and he felt that he still lived. "The girl has certainly repented of her wish to die," thought he, and he began to grope about for her. The couch was empty.

"Azrael! Azrael!" he cried repeatedly; but there was no answer.

At last he tottered to his feet, and snatching some embers from the hearth, lit a torch. The solitary, feeble light did not penetrate far, but as far as it extended Azrael was nowhere to be seen.

The first thing he perceived was the linstock cut in two by a pair of shears.

"Coward soul!" he growled, and, pierced through and through by the air, would have put on his mantle, when a roll of parchment fell at his feet, and picking it up he recognized Azrael's handwriting, and read as follows--

"My lord, you read not hearts aright. We give our love for our own sakes, but we do not give ourselves for love's sake. You have frittered away your power, and, deserted by all the world, think to find me faithful who loved your power and that only: I am his who has inherited that power. He who is in the ascendant I adore, but I hate and despise the fallen. Corsar Beg's fate should have warned you that one day you too might fare like him ..."

Banfi could not read it to the end. His face grew dark with shame. "To sink so low as this! This wretched slavish soul even while embracing me was devising treachery! And I to wish to spend my last moments in the arms of such a monster----" At that moment he _loathed_ himself.

"Cowardice and infamy! A man who has lived as I have lived, to desire such a death! He who has always been wont to meet his foes face to face, to hide himself from them in his last moments!--to hide himself in the arms of a slave! Shame upon him!

"This lesson has done me good. It was meet that I who could forget a wife who sacrificed herself to deliver me out of the hands of my enemies, should fall into the power of a harlot who would have betrayed me to them. Yet even now it is not too late. My life is forfeit, but at least I can save my honour. None shall be able to boast that he has betrayed me. My enemies shall never say that I hid myself from them and they found me out. I'll appear before them boldly, as I ought to have done at first."

Full of this resolution, Banfi went straightway into the secret courtyard, where he had left his horse. He was surprised to find it no longer there. The odalisk had taken it away with her.

He smiled disdainfully.

"What matters it, so long as she has not stolen me also."

He returned into the rocky chamber, rekindled the lunt, came out, and closing the iron door behind him made his way along the banks of the cold Szamos.

Towards midday he sat down on the bank to rest, and he had scarcely been there a quarter of an hour, when he heard the trampling of horses, and looking up--the bushes completely concealed him--beheld Ladislaus Csaky and Azrael on horseback, side by side, at the head of an armed band. The girl seemed to be pointing out something to Csaky on the rocks above, and the worthy gentleman was beside himself for joy.

Banfi smiled scornfully.

"Poor Tartars!"

As soon as the band had passed by, Banfi continued his journey. He had not gone far when he came upon a poor peasant cleaving wood.

"Dost know whither that armed band has gone?" he asked.

"Yes, sir. They have gone to capture Denis Banfi, on whose head a great price has been set."

"How much?"

"If a noble capture him he will receive an estate, if a peasant, two hundred ducats."

"Little enough, but enough for you, I dare say. I am Denis Banfi."

The peasant took off his cap.

"Does my lord wish to be led anywhither?"

"Lead me to the place where they will pay you two hundred ducats."

* * * * *

A quarter of an hour afterwards a tremendous explosion resounded through the mountains, which shook the earth for half-a-mile around. The enchanted garden of the Gradina Dracului had collapsed into an inaccessible chaos.

Csaky had fortunately lingered on the road, or he and his company would have perished utterly.

On returning, he found Banfi already under arrest, and was thus deprived of the glory of having captured his foe with his own hand. He immediately hastened to accost him, and, with exquisite malice, brought with him the odalisk, who looked at Banfi as if she had never seen him before.

Banfi, however, since his voluntary surrender, had quite resumed his former sangfroid, and looking contemptuously over his shoulder at Csaky, said--

"So your Excellency means in future to wear my cast-off clothes, eh?"

At this bitter jest Azrael hissed like a snake upon whose tail one has suddenly trodden, whilst Csaky blushed up to his ears and tried hard to smile.

"Does your Excellency desire any favour from me?" asked Csaky presently, with insulting commiseration.

"None from _your_ Excellency. I came here of my own free will, and have been arrested I know not why. My wife, therefore, can now be set free."

"So at last we begin to whine for our wife, eh?"

"On the contrary. So far from wishing to meet her, I desire that as soon as I am put in prison she should be let go."

"It shall be as you desire, my lord!" replied Csaky, with ironical benevolence.

Banfi requited him with a look of the most withering contempt, and turning to the jailers entered into conversation with them: the magnates he no longer regarded.

* * * * *

When Teleki heard of the capture of Banfi, he ordered him to be sent at once to Bethlen Castle, to make the world believe that the anti-Banfi faction was headed, not by him, but by Beldi, to whom the castle belonged.

On his way thither, the captive magnate learnt that his consort had already been released, and thus relieved of his one remaining anxiety, cared little for the rest.

On reaching Bethlen Castle he was received by the Rev. Stephen Pataky, Rector of Klausenburg, to whom he cried jocosely--

"So they've appointed you my father confessor, eh?"

Pataky wept bitterly, but Banfi only smiled.

The jailer conducted Banfi up the steps with every demonstration of respect.

Banfi turned round to him.

"I hope you will let Reverend Master Pataky remain with me all the time?" said he.

Pataky was understood to say through his sobs--

"Truly your Excellency will find far better company awaiting you than any my poor self can offer."

Banfi, not knowing what to say to this, only shrugged his shoulders and hastened towards the door of his prison, but remained standing on the threshold transfixed with astonishment. In the room was a lady in deep mourning, who turned very pale on perceiving him, and clung to the table unable to utter a word.

Banfi felt all his blood rush to his heart. The next moment he darted impetuously forward and cried--

"My wife! Margaret!"

The lady threw herself upon her husband's breast and sobbed aloud.

"What! have they not released you?" inquired Banfi anxiously.

"I would not be released," answered Margaret. "How _could_ I forsake you in your prison?"

The tears came to Banfi's eyes. Speechless he sank to the ground, and covered her hands with glowing kisses.

"While we were what the world calls happy we might avoid each other," said Margaret, with a choking voice, "but misfortune has brought us together again," and she bowed her head to kiss her husband's forehead.

Banfi fell senseless at her feet. It was more than even his strong soul could bear.