PLEASANT SURPRISES.
All the chief generals, all the border pashas, had received the Sultan's
orders to gather their hosts together and lead them against the armies
of the King of the Romans, and besiege the places which were the pretext
of the rupture--to wit, the fortresses of Fuelek, Boeszoermeny, and Nagy
Kalla.
At the same time the Government of Transylvania also received permission
to attack Hungary with its armies, as had already been decided at the
Diet of Szamosujvar.
Vast preparations were everywhere made. The Magyar race is very hard to
move to war, but once in a quarrel it does not waste very much time in
splitting straws.
Teleki, too, had attained at last to the dream of his life and the
object of all his endeavours, for which he had knowingly sacrificed his
own peace of mind, and the lives of so many good patriots--he was the
generalissimo of the armies of Transylvania.
The Hungarian exiles in Transylvania hailed him as their deliverer, and
he saw himself a good big step nearer to the place of Esterhazy--the
place of Palatine of Hungary. And why not? Why should he not stand among
the foremost statesmen of his age?
All the way to the camp at Fuelek he was the object of flattery and
congratulation; the Hungarians gathered in troops beneath his banner,
colonels and captains belauded him. As for the worthy Prince, he did
not show himself at all, but sat in his tent and read his books, and
when he felt tired he took his watch to pieces and put it together
again.
At Fuelek the Transylvanian army joined the camp of Kara Mustafa.
Teleki dressed up the Prince in his best robes, and trotted with him and
his suite to the tent of the Grand Vizier with growing pride when he
heard the guards blow their trumpets at their approach, and the Grand
Vizier as a special favour admitted them straightway to his presence,
allowed them to kiss his hand, made the magnates sit down, and praised
them for their zeal and fidelity, giving each of them a new caftan; and
when they were thus nicely tricked out, he dismissed them with an escort
of an aga, a dragoman, and twelve cavasses to see the whole Turkish camp
to their hearts' content.
Teleki regarded this permission as a very good omen. Turkish generals
are wont to be very sensitive on this point, and it is a great favour on
their part when they allow foreigners to view their camps.
The dragoman took the Hungarian gentlemen everywhere. He told them which
aga was encamped on this hill and which on that, how many soldiers made
up a squadron of horse, and how many guns, and how many lances were in
every company. He pointed out to them the long pavilion made of deal
boards in which the gunpowder lay in big heaps, and gigantic cannon
balls were piled up into pyramids, and round mortars covered with pitchy
cloths, and gigantic culverines, and siege-guns, and iron howitzers lay
on wooden rollers. The accumulated war material would have sufficed for
the conquest of the world.
The gentlemen sightseers returned to their tents with the utmost
satisfaction, and, overjoyed at what he had seen, the Prince gave a
great banquet, to which all the Hungarian gentlemen in his army were
also invited. The tables were placed beneath a quickly-improvised
baldachin; and at the end of an excellent dinner the noble feasters
began to make merry, everyone at length saw his long-deferred hopes on
the point of fulfilment, and none more so than Michael Teleki.
One toast followed another, and the healths of the Prince and of Teleki
were interwoven with the healths of everyone else present, so that
worthy Apafi began to think that it would really be a very good thing if
he were King of Hungary, while Teleki held his head as high as if he
were already sitting in the seat of the Palatine.
Just when the revellers were at their merriest, a loud burst of martial
music resounded from the plain outside, and a great din was audible as
if the Turkish armies were saluting a Prince who had just arrived.
The merry gentry at once leaped from their seats and hurried to the
entrance of the tent to see the ally who was received with such
rejoicing, and a cry of amazement and consternation burst from their
lips at the spectacle which met their eyes.
Emeric Toekoely had arrived at the head of a host of ten thousand Magyars
from Upper Hungary. His army consisted of splendid picked warriors on
horseback, hussars in gold-braided dolmans, wolf-skin pelisses, and
shakos with falcon feathers. Toekoely himself rode at the head of his host
with princely pomp; his escort consisted of the first magnates of
Hungary, jewel-bedizened cavaliers in fur mantles trimmed with
swansdown, among whom Toekoely himself was only conspicuous by his manly
beauty and princely distinction.
The face of Teleki darkened at the sight, while the faces of all who
surrounded him were suddenly illuminated by an indescribable joy, and
their enthusiasm burst forth in _eljens_ of such penetrating enthusiasm
at the sight of the young hero that Teleki felt himself near to
fainting.
Ah! it was in a very different voice that they had recently cried
"_Viva!_" to him, it was a very different sort of smile with which they
had been wont to greet _him_.
Meanwhile Toekoely had reached the front of the marshalled Turkish army,
which was drawn up in two rows right up to the pavilion of the Grand
Vizier, allowing the youth and his suite to pass through between them
amidst a ceremonious abasement of their horse-tail banners. The young
general had only passed half through their ranks when the Grand Vizier
came to meet him in a state carriage drawn by six white horses.
From the hill on which Teleki stood he could see everything quite
plainly.
On reaching the carriage of the Grand Vizier, Toekoely leaped quickly from
his horse, whereupon Kara Mustafa also descended from his carriage, and,
hastening to the young general, embraced him and kissed him repeatedly
on the forehead, made him take a seat in the carriage beside him, and
thus conveyed him to his tent amidst joyful acclamations.
Teleki had to look on at all this! That was very different from the
reception accorded to him and the Prince of Transylvania.
He looked around him--gladness, a radiant smile shone on every face. Oh!
those smiles were so many dagger-thrusts in his heart!
In half an hour's time Toekoely emerged from the tent of the Grand Vizier.
His head was encircled by a diamond diadem which the Sultan had sent for
all the way to Belgrade, and in his hand was a princely sceptre. When he
remounted and galloped away close beside the tents of the
Transylvanians, the Hungarians in Teleki's company could restrain
themselves no longer, but rushed towards Toekoely and covered his hands,
his feet, his garments, with kisses, took him from his horse on to their
shoulders, and carried him in their arms back to camp.
Teleki could endure the sight no more; he fled into his tent, and,
throwing himself on his camp-bedstead, wept like a child.
The whole edifice which he had reared so industriously, so doggedly,
amidst innumerable perils, during the arduous course of a long
life--for which he had sacrificed relations, friends, and all the great
and wise men of a kingdom, and pledged away the repose of his very
soul--had suddenly collapsed at the appearance of a mere youth, whose
only merit was the exaggerated fame of a few successful engagements! It
was the heaviest blow he had ever staggered under. Oh! Fortune is indeed
ingenious in her disappointments.
Evening came, and still Teleki had not quitted his tent. Then the Prince
went to see him. Teleki wanted to hear nothing, but the Prince told him
everything.
"Hearken, Mr. Michael Teleki! The Hungarian gentlemen have not come back
to us, but remain with Toekoely. And Toekoely also, it appears, doesn't want
to have much to do with us, for instead of encamping with us he has
withdrawn to the furthest end of the Turkish army, and has pitched his
tents there."
Teleki groaned beneath the pain which the distilled venom of these words
poured into his heart.
"Apparently, Mr. Michael Teleki, we have been building castles in the
air," continued Apafi with jovial frankness. "We are evidently not of
the stuff of which Kings and Palatines of Hungary are made. I cannot but
think of the cat in the fable, who pulled the chestnuts out of the fire
with the claws of others."
Teleki shivered as if with an ague.
Apafi continued in his own peculiar vein of cynicism: "Really, my dear
Mr. Michael Teleki, I should like it much better if we were sitting at
home, and Denis Banfy and Paul Beldi and the other wise gentlemen were
sitting beside me, and I were listening to what they might advise."
Teleki clenched his fists and stamped his feet, as much as to say: "I
would not allow that."
Then with a bitter smile he watched the Prince as he paced up and down
the tent, and said with a cold, metallic voice:
"One swallow does not make a summer. If ten or twelve worthless fellows
desert to Toekoely, much good may it do him! The army of the real
Hungarian heroes will not follow their example, and when it can fight
beneath the banner of a Prince it will not fling itself into the arms of
a homeless adventurer."
"Then it would be as well if your Excellency spoke to them at once, for
methinks that this night the whole lot of them may turn tail."
Teleki seemed impressed by these words. He immediately ordered his
drabants to go to the captains of the army collected from Hungary who
had joined Apafi at Fuelek, and invite them to a conference in his tent
at once.
The officers so summoned, with a good deal of humming and hahing, met
together in Teleki's tent, and there the Minister harangued them for two
good hours, proving to demonstration what a lot of good they might
expect from cleaving to Apafi, and what a lot of evil if they allowed
themselves to be deluded by Toekoely, till the poor fellows were quite
tired out and cried: "Hurrah!" in order that he might let them go the
sooner.
But that same night they all fled to the camp of Toekoely. None remained
with Apafi but his faithful Transylvanians.
But even now Teleki could not familiarise himself with the idea of
playing a subordinate part here, but staked everything on a last,
desperate cast--he went to the Grand Vizier. He announced himself, and
was admitted.
The Grand Vizier was alone in his tent with his dragoman, and when he
saw Teleki he tried to make his unpleasant face more repulsive than it
was by nature, and inquired very viciously: "Who art thou? Who sent thee
hither? What dost thou want?"
"I, sir, am the general of the Transylvanian armies, Michael Teleki; you
know me very well, only yesterday I was here with the Prince."
Just as if the two speakers did not understand each other's language,
the dragoman had to interpret their questions and answers.
"I hope," replied the Grand Vizier, "thou dost not expect me to
recognise at sight the names of all the petty princes and generals whom
I have ever cast eyes on? My master, the mighty Sultan, has so many
tributary princes in Europe, Asia, and Africa, that their numbers are
incalculable, and all of them are superior men to thee, how canst thou
expect me to recognise thee among so many?"
Teleki swallowed the insult, and seeing that the Grand Vizier was
anxious to pick a quarrel with him, he came straight to the point.
"Gracious sir, I have something very important to say to you if you will
grant me a private interview."
The Grand Vizier pretended to fly into a rage at these words.
"Art thou mad or drunk that thou wouldst have a private interview with
me, although I don't understand Hungarian and thou dost not understand
Turkish, or perchance thou wouldst like me to learn Hungarian to please
thee? Ye learn Latin, I suppose, though no living being speaks it? And
ye learn German and French and Greek, yet ye stop short at the language
of the Turks, though the Turks are your masters and protectors! For a
hundred and fifty years our armies have passed through your territories,
yet how many of you have learned Turkish? 'Tis true our soldiers have
learnt Hungarian, for thy language is as sticky as resin on a growing
tree. Therefore, if thou art fool enough to ask me for a private
interview--go home and learn Turkish first!"
Teleki bowed low, went home and learnt Turkish--that is to say, he
packed up a couple of thousand thalers in a sack--and, accompanied by
two porters to carry them, returned once more to the tent of the Grand
Vizier.
And now the Grand Vizier understood everything which the magnate wished
to say. The dragoman interpreted everything beautifully. He said the
Sultan was building a fortress on the ice when he entrusted the fate of
the Hungarians to such a flighty youth as Emeric Toekoely. How could a
young man, who was such a bad manager of his own property, manage the
affairs of a whole kingdom? And so fond was he of being his own master,
that he suffered himself to be exiled from Transylvania with the loss of
all his property rather than submit to the will of his lawful Prince.
The man who had already rebelled against two rulers would certainly not
be very loyal to a third; while Apafi, on the other hand, had all his
life long been a most faithful vassal of the Sublime Porte, and, modest,
humble man as he was, would be far more useful than Toekoely, whom the
Porte would always be obliged to help with men and money, whereas the
latter would always be able to help with men and money the Porte and its
meritorious viziers--_uti figura docet_.
Mustafa listened to the long oration, took the money, and replied that
he would see what could be done.
Teleki was not quite clear about the impression his words had made, but
he did not remain in uncertainty for long; for scarcely had he reached
the tent of the Prince than a defterdar with twelve cavasses came after
him, and signified that he was commanded by the Grand Vizier immediately
to seize Michael Teleki, fling him into irons, and bring him before a
council of pashas.
Michael Teleki turned pale at these words. The faithless dragoman had
told everything to Toekoely, who had demanded satisfaction from the Grand
Vizier, who, without the least scruple of conscience, was now ready to
present to another the head of the very man from whom he had accepted
presents only an hour before.
The magnate now gave himself up for lost, but the Prince approached him,
and tapping him on the shoulder, said:
"If I were the man your Excellency is pleased to believe me and make
other people believe too--that is to say, a coward yielding to every
sort of compulsion--in an hour's time your Excellency would not have a
head remaining on your shoulders. But everyone shall see that they have
been deceived in me."
Then, turning towards the defterdar, he said to him in a firm,
determined voice:
"Go back to your master, and say to him that Michael Teleki is the
generalissimo of my armies and under my protection, and at the present
moment I have him in my tent. Let anyone therefore who has any complaint
against him, notify the same to me, and I will sit in judgment over him.
But let none dare to lay a hand upon him within the walls of my tent,
for I swear by the most Holy Trinity that I will break open the head of
any such person with my cudgel. I would be ready to go over to the enemy
with my whole army at once rather than permit so much as a mouse
belonging to my household to be caught within my tent by a foreign cat,
let alone the disgrace of handing over my generalissimo!"
The defterdar duly delivered the message of the enraged Prince to the
Grand Vizier. Emeric Toekoely was with him at the time, and the two
gentlemen on hearing the vigorous assertion of the Prince agreed that
after all Michael Apafi was really a very worthy man, and sending back
the defterdar, instructed him to say with the utmost politeness and all
due regard for the Prince that so long as Michael Teleki remained in the
Prince's tent not a hair of his head should be crumpled; but he was to
look to it that he did not step out of the tent, for in that case the
cavasses who were looking out for him would pounce upon him at once and
treat him as never a Transylvanian generalissimo was treated before; and
now, too, he had only the Prince to thank for his life.
Teleki was annihilated. Nothing could have wounded his ambitious soul so
deeply as the consciousness that the Prince was protecting him. To
think that this man, whom the whole kingdom regarded as cowardly and
incapable, could be great when he himself had suddenly become so very
small! His nimbus of wisdom, power, and valour had vanished, and he saw
that the man whom he had only consulted for the sake of obtaining his
signature to prearranged plans was wiser and more powerful and more
valiant than he.
Peering through the folds of the tent he could see that, faithful to the
threatening message, the cavasses were prowling around the tent and
telling the loutish soldiers that if Teleki stepped out they would seize
him forthwith. The Szeklers laughed and shouted with joy thereat.
Then the magnate began to reflect whether it would not be best if he
drew his sword, and rushing out, slash away at them till he himself were
cut to pieces.
What a ridiculous ending that would be!
Towards evening Emeric Toekoely paid a visit to the Prince. He approached
the old man with the respect of a child, did obeisance, and would have
kissed his hand, but Apafi would not permit it, but embraced him, kissed
him on the forehead repeatedly, and made him sit down beside him on the
bear-skin of his camp-bed.
The young leader feelingly begged the old man's pardon for all the
trouble that he had caused him and Transylvania.
"It is I who ought to beg pardon of your Excellency," said Apafi in a
submissive voice.
"Not at all, your Highness and dear Father. I know that you have always
loved me, but evil counsellors have whispered such scandalous things to
you about me that you were bound to hate me--but God requite them for it
if I cannot."
"Be magnanimous towards them, my dear son; forgive them, for my sake."
Toekoely was silent. He knew that Teleki was in the tent, he saw him, but
he would not take any notice of him. At last, without even looking
towards him, he said, in the most passionate, threatening voice:
"Look, ye, Teleki, you have practised all sorts of devices against me,
but if you put your nose outside the tent of the Prince you will eat his
bread no more. You would be in my power now, and here your head would
lie, but for his Highness whom I look upon as a father."
Michael Teleki was silent, but future events were to prove that he had
heard very well what was now spoken.
After surrendering the fortress of Fuelek to the Turks, the Transylvanian
gentlemen returned home with their army; and Michael Teleki, when he got
home, paid a visit to the church where lay the ashes of Denis Banfy, and
hiding his face on the tomb, he wept bitterly over the noble patriot
whom he had sacrificed to his ambitious plans.