CHAPTER III.

A PRINCE IN HIS OWN DESPITE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His eyes were blinded by excess of light.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Pasha began again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Apafi began to scratch his head.

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

"We can assemble here in Kis-Selyk."

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

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

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

Apafi saw no further escape.

"Can you write?" asked the Pasha.

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

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

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

"It is a W," answered Apafi.

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

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

"Read aloud then what you are writing."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 11: _Mente._ See Note 2, p. 21.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Keep your seat."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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