A MAN ABANDONED BY HIS GUARDIAN-ANGEL.
One blow followed hard upon another.
In the following year the Sultan assembled a formidable host against
Vienna, and the Transylvanian bands also had to go. Teleki would have
avoided the war, but his representations and pretexts fell not upon
listening ears. They asked him why he, who had hitherto urged on the
campaign, wanted to withdraw from it now that it was in full swing? If
he had liked the beginning, the end also should please him.
But the end was exceedingly bitter.
The formidable host surrounding Vienna was scattered in a single night
by the heroic sword of Sobieski, the gigantic military enterprise was
ruined.
The Transylvanian forces took no part in these operations. During the
siege of Vienna they had been left at Raab, and Teleki did not let the
opportunity pass. While the stupid Turks were fighting in the trenches,
he entered into communication with the German commander at Raab and
attached himself to the winning side.
Everything which the insane Feriz had prophesied in the Divan was
literally fulfilled.
The Turkish armies were everywhere routed. They lost the fortresses of
Grand Visegrad and Ersekujvar one after the other. The fortress of
Nograd was struck by lightning, which fired the powder-magazine and blew
up the garrison. Finally Buda was besieged and captured in the sight of
the Grand Vizier, and after a domination of one hundred and fifty years,
the half-moons were hauled down from the bastions and crosses
re-occupied their places.
And all those who were present at the Divan fulfilled, one by one, the
prophecy that they should see Paradise before long.
Rislan Pasha fell beneath the walls of Buda at the head of the
Janissaries, the Vizier of Buda was throttled by order of Kara Mustafa
after the battle was lost, Rifa Aga was drowned in the Danube among the
fugitives, Kara Ogli fell defending the ramparts of Buda, Toekoely killed
Ajas Pasha at the Sultan's command; and, after the fall of Buda, Olaj
Beg brought to Kara Mustafa for his own use the silken cord and the
purple purse. It was the last purse which Kara Mustafa ever saw, for
after his decapitation his head was put inside it.
And, finally, the people of Stambul, maddened by so many losses and
reinforced by the rebellious Janissaries, rushed upon the Seraglio, cut
down the counsellors of the Sultan, and threw the Sultan himself into
the same dungeon in which he had let his own brother languish for
thirty-nine years. The brother was now set on the throne, and the
dethroned Sultan died in the dungeon.
And this also was fulfilled that those who had stirred up the Turks to
begin the war turned against them at the end of it. Transylvania
deposited its oath of homage in the hands of Caraffa, and Michael
Teleki, who became a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, opened the gates of
the towns and fortresses to German garrisons. The Prince paid the
victors thirteen thousand florins, which it took heavy wagons two weeks
to convey from Fogaras to Nagyszeben. But Michael Teleki, in addition to
his countly escutcheon, got a present of a silver table service which
cost ten thousand florins. So Transylvania became imperial territory,
and its alliance with the Porte was dissolved.
And then it was that God called to Himself the last lovable figure in
our history, the virtuous and magnanimous Anna Bornemissza.
Only after her death did Apafi feel what his wife had been to him, his
guardian-angel, his consoler in all his sorrows, the brightest part of
his life, and when that light set, everything around him was doubly
dark. Every misfortune, every trouble, now weighed doubly heavy on his
mind and heart; he had no longer any refuge against persecuting sorrow.
He fled from one town to another like a hunted wild beast which can find
no refuge from the dart which transfixes it. At last he barricaded
himself in his room, which he did not quit for six weeks; and if
visitors came to see him he complained to them like a child:
"I am starving to death. I have lost everything. It is a year since I
got a farthing from my estates or my mines or my salt-works. If the
farrier comes I cannot pay him his bill for my mantle, for I haven't got
a stiver. What will become of my son when I am gone, poor little Prince?
There's not enough to send him to school."
He began to get quite crazy, and could neither eat, drink, nor sleep.
The whole day he would stride up and down his room, and utter strange
things in a loud voice. What troubled him most was that he must die of
hunger.
At last those about him hit upon a remedy. Every day they laid purses of
money before him and said: "This sum Stephen Apor has sent from your
property, and that amount Paul Inezedi has collected from your
salt-works. Why should your Highness be anxious when there is such lots
of money?"
And the next day they presented the same purses to him over again, and
invented some fresh story. And this simple deceit somewhat pacified the
poor old man, but the old worries had so affected his mind, never very
strong at any time, that he could never recover his former spirits. He
grew duller and more stupid every day, and often when he lay down he
would sleep a couple of days at a stretch.
And at last the Almighty had mercy upon him and called him away from
this vale of tears; and he went to that land where the Turks plunder
not, and there is no warfare.