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[Illustration: cover of 'Midst the Wild Carpathians by Dr. Jókai Mór]
'MIDST THE WILD CARPATHIANS
("AZ ÉRDÉLY ARÁNY KÓRA")
BY MAURUS JÓKAI
TRANSLATED BY R. NISBET BAIN FROM THE FIRST HUNGARIAN EDITION
Authorised Version
LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, LD.
1894
[All rights reserved]
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON & BUNGAY.
INTRODUCTION.
Hungarians regard _Az Érdély arány kora_ as, on the whole, the best of
Jokai's great historical romances, and, to judge from the numerous
existing versions of it, foreigners are of the same opinion as
Hungarians. Few of Jokai's other tales have been translated so often,
and the book is as great a favourite in Poland as it is in Germany. And
certainly it fully deserves its great reputation, for it displays to the
best advantage the author's three characteristic qualities--his powers
of description, especially of nature, his dramatic intensity, and his
peculiar humour.
The scene of the story is laid among the virgin forests and inaccessible
mountains of seventeenth-century Transylvania, where a proud and valiant
feudal nobility still maintained a precarious independence long after
the parent state of Hungary had become a Turkish province. We are
transported into a semi-heroic, semi-barbarous borderland between the
Past and the Present, where Mediævalism has found a last retreat, and
the civilizations of the East and West contend or coalesce. Bizarre,
gorgeous, and picturesque forms flit before us--rude feudal magnates and
refined Machiavellian intriguers; superb Turkish pashas and ferocious
Moorish bandits; noble, high-minded ladies and tigrish odalisks;
saturnine Hungarian heydukes, superstitious Wallachian peasants, savage
Szeklers, and scarcely human Tartars. The plot too is in keeping with
the vivid colouring and magnificent scenery of the story. The whole
history of Transylvania, indeed, reads like a chapter from the _Arabian
Nights_, but there are no more dramatic episodes in that history than
those on which this novel is based--the sudden elevation of a country
squire (Michael Apafi) to the throne of Transylvania against his will by
order of the Padishah, and the dark conspiracy whereby Denis Banfi, the
last of the great Transylvanian magnates, was so foully done to death.
In none of Jokai's other novels, moreover, is the individuality of the
characters so distinct and consistent. The gluttonous Kemeny, who
sacrificed a kingdom for a dinner; the well-meaning, easy-going Apafi,
who would have made a model squire, but was irretrievably ruined by a
princely diadem; his consort, the wise and generous Anna, always at hand
to stop her husband from committing follies, or to save him from their
consequences; the crafty Teleki, the Richelieu of Transylvania, with
wide views and lofty aims, but sticking at nothing to compass his ends;
his rival Banfi, rough, masterful, recklessly selfish, yet a patriot at
heart, with a vein of true nobility running through his coarser nature;
his tender and sensitive wife, clinging desperately to a brutal husband,
who learnt her worth too late; the time-serving Csaky, as mean a rascal
as ever truckled to the great or trampled on the fallen; Ali Pasha and
Corsar Beg, excellent types of the official and the unofficial Turkish
freebooter respectively; Kucsuk Pasha, the chivalrous Mussulman with a
conscience above his creed; the renegade spy Zülfikar, groping in
slippery places after illicit gains, and always falling on his feet with
cat-like agility; and, last of all, that marvellous creation, Azrael,
the demoniacal Turkish odalisk, blasting all who fall within the
influence of her irresistible glamour, a Circe as sinuously beautiful
and as utterly soulless as her own pet panther--all these personages of
a, happily, by-gone age are depicted as vividly as if the author had
known each one of them personally.
Finally, the book contains some of Jokai's happiest descriptions, and in
this department it is generally admitted that the master, at his best,
is unsurpassable. The description of the burning coal-mine in _Fekete
Gyemantok_, of the Neva floods in _A szabadság a hó alatt_, of the
plague in _Szomoru napok_, or of the Danube in all its varying moods in
_Az arány ember_, stand alone in modern fiction; yet can any of these
vivid tableaux compare with the wonderful account of Corsar Beg's aërial
fairy palace, poised on the top of the savage Carpathians, or with the
glowing picture of the gorgeous harem of Azrael, or with the fantastic
scenery of the Devil's Garden, with its ice-built corridors, snow
bridges, boiling streams, fathomless lakes, and rushing avalanches?
R. N. B.
CONTENTS.
BOOK I.
BY COMMAND OF THE PADISHAH.
CHAP. PAGE
I. A HUNT IN THE YEAR 1666 1
II. THE HOUSE AT EBESFALVA 18
III. A PRINCE IN HIS OWN DESPITE 27
IV. A BANQUET WITH THE PRINCE OF TRANSYLVANIA 37
V. BODOLA 45
VI. THE BATTLE OF NAGY SZÖLLÖS 57
VII. THE PRINCESS 70
VIII. THE PERI 85
IX. THE PRINCE AND HIS MINISTER 105
BOOK II.
THE DEVIL'S GARDEN.
I. THE PATROL 125
II. SANGE MOARTE 135
III. AN HUNGARIAN MAGNATE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 155
IV. THE MIDNIGHT BATTLE 173
V. THE BANQUET TRIBUNAL 189
VI. THE DIET OF KAROLY-FEHERVÁR 197
VII. THE JUS LIGATUM 210
VIII. DEATH FOR A KISS 218
IX. CONSORT AND CONCUBINE 228
X. THE SENTENCE 257
'MIDST THE WILD CARPATHIANS.
BOOK I.
BY COMMAND OF THE PADISHAH.
CHAPTER I.
A HUNT IN THE YEAR 1666.
Before us lies the valley of the Drave, one of those endless
wildernesses where even the wild beast loses its way. Forests
everywhere, maples and aspens a thousand years old, with their roots
under water; magnificent morasses the surface of which is covered, not
with reeds and water-lilies, but with gigantic trees, from the dependent
branches of which the vivifying waters force fresh roots. Here the swan
builds her nest; here too dwell the royal heron, the blind crow, the
golden plover, and other man-shunning animals which are rarely if ever
seen in more habitable regions.
Here and there on little mounds, left bare during the long summer
drought by the receding waters, sprout strange and gorgeous flowers,
such perhaps as the earth has not brought forth since the Flood
overwhelmed her. In this slimy soil every blade of grass shoots up like
gigantic broom; the funnel-shaped convolvuluses and the evergreen
ground-ivy put forth tendrils as stout and as strong as vine branches,
which, stretching from tree to tree, twine round their stems and hang
flowery garlands about the dark, sombre maples, just as if some
hamadryad had crowned the grove dedicated to her.
But it is only when evening descends that this realm of waters begins to
show signs of life. Whole swarms of water-fowl then mount into the air,
whose rueful, monotonous croaking is only broken by the melancholy
piping of the bittern and the whistle of the green turtle. The swan,
too, raises her voice and sings that melodious lay which now, they tell
us, is only to be heard in fairy-land,--for here man has never yet trod,
the place is still God's.
Now and again, indeed, sportsmen of the bolder sort presume to penetrate
far into this pathless labyrinth of bush and brake; but they are forced
to wind their way among the trees in canoes which may at any moment be
upset by the twisted tangle of roots stretching far and wide beneath the
water, and it is just in these very places that the swamp is many
fathoms deep; for although the dark green lake-grass and the yellow
marsh-flowers, with the little black-and-red efts and newts darting
about among them, seem close enough to be reached by an outstretched
hand, they are nevertheless all under water deep enough to go over the
head of the tallest man.
In other places it is the dense thicket which bars the canoe's way.
Fallen trees, the spoil of many centuries, but untouched by the hand of
man, lie rotting there in gigantic heaps. The submerged trunks have been
turned to stone by the water, and the roots of the lake-grass, the
filaments of the flax-plant, and the tendrils of the clematis have grown
together over them, forming a strong, tough barrier just above the water
which rocks and sways without giving way beneath one's feet. The knotty
clout-like film of the lake, stretching far and wide, seems, to the
careless eye, a continuation of this barrier, but the treacherous
surface no longer bears--one step further, and Death is there. This
unknown, unexplored region has however but few visitors.
Southwards, the wilderness is bounded by the river Drave. The trees
which line its steep banks dip over into its waves. Not unfrequently the
fierce stream sweeps them into its bed and away, to the great peril of
all who sail or row upon its waters.
Northwards, the forest extends as far as Csakatorny, and where the
morass ends oaks and beeches of all sorts flourish. In no other part of
Hungary will you meet with trees so erect and so lofty. The wide waste
abounds with all sorts of game. The wild boars, which wallow in the
swampy ground there, are the largest and fiercest of their kind. The red
deer too is no stranger there, and huge, powerful, and courageous you
will find him; nay, at that time, even gigantic elks showed themselves
occasionally, and made nocturnal incursions into the neighbouring
millet-fields of Totovecz; but at the first attempt to lay hands upon
them, they would throw themselves into the innermost swamps, whither it
was impossible to follow them....
On one of the brightest days of the year in which our story begins, a
numerous hunting-party was bustling about an old-fashioned hunting-box
which then stood on the borders of the forest.
The first rays of the sun had scarcely pierced through the thick
foliage, when the grooms and kennel-keepers led out the hunters by their
bridles and the hounds in leashes, which sprang yelping up to the
shoulders of their keepers in joyful anticipation of the coming sport.
The huge store-wagons, each drawn by from six to ten oxen, have already
gone on before to fixed rallying-places, whither all the quarry is to be
carried. The villagers for miles round have been enlisted as beaters,
and stand together in picturesque groups armed with axes, pitch-forks,
and occasional muskets. A few smaller groups have been posted at regular
intervals along the wood, with canoes made from the trunks of trees.
Their duty is to scare the game back from the swamp, should it turn
thither for refuge. Every man, every beast shows signs of that
precipitancy, that ardour, that restlessness by which the true huntsman
is always distinguishable; only a few of the older hands find time to
sit by the fire and roast slices of bacon with perfect equanimity.
At last comes the signal for departure, the blast of a horn from the
porch of the hunting-box; the retinue spring shouting upon their
snorting horses; the unruly, barking pack drag the kennel-men hither and
thither; the huntsmen wind up their heavy shooting muskets, and every
one stands in eager expectation of their lord and his noble guests.
They have not long to wait. A cavalcade, with a few attendant pages,
descends the hill. Foremost rides a tall, muscular man--the lord of the
manor--the rest, as if involuntarily, linger some little way behind him.
His broad shoulders and superbly-arched chest indicate herculean
strength; his sun-burnt features are wonderfully well preserved, not a
wrinkle is to be seen on them; his short clipped beard and his shaggy
moustache, which is twisted sharply upwards, give his face a martial
expression, and his very pronounced aquiline nose and coal-black, bushy
eyebrows lend him a haughty, dictatorial air; while the dreamy cut of
his lips, his mild, oval, blue eyes and high, smooth forehead throw a
poetic shimmer over his peculiarly chivalrous countenance. A round,
unembroidered hat, surmounted by an eagle's plume, covers his
closely-cropped hair; his upper garment is a simple green, shaggy
jacket, which he wears open, thus allowing you a glance at his
under-garment, a white buckskin dolman,[1] trimmed with silver braid. By
his side hangs a broad scimitar in an ivory sheath, and the
mother-of-pearl handle of a crooked Turkish dagger peeps forth from a
scarlet girdle richly set with precious stones.
[Footnote 1: _Dolman._ An Hungarian pelisse. A more
magnificent kind, worn only on state occasions, is
called the _attila_.]
The pair which ride immediately behind him consists of a young cavalier
and a young Amazon. The cavalier can scarcely have counted more than
two-and-twenty summers, the lady seems even younger. A better-assorted
couple you could find nowhere.
The youth has smiling, gentle, pallid features; rich chestnut-brown
locks fall over his shoulders; a slight moustache just shades his upper
lip; an eternal smile, nonchalance, not to say levity, are mirrored in
his bright blue eyes; but for his brawny arms and his stalwart frame,
the iron muscles of which protrude at the slightest movement through his
tight-fitting dolman, you might take him for a child. His head is
covered by a kalpag[2] of marten skin with a heron's plume in it; his
dress is of heavy twisted silk stuff; down from his shoulders hangs a
splendid tiger's skin, the claws meeting together round his neck in a
gorgeous sapphire agraffe. He rides a pitch-black Turkish stallion,
whose shabrack, richly embroidered with golden butterflies, is plainly
the work of a gentle lady's hand.
[Footnote 2: _Kalpag_ or _Calpak_. A tall, skin cap of
Tartar origin, part of the Hungarian national costume.]
The Amazon, over whom the youth bends from time to time (doubtless to
whisper some sweet compliment in her ear), is his very antithesis, and
perhaps for that very reason tallies so well with him.
Hers is an earnest, dauntless, energetic countenance; her eyes are
brighter than garnets; she loves to pout a little and arch her bushy but
delicate eyebrows, which lend a proud expression to her features, and
when she raises her flashing eyes and her coral-red lips expand into a
peculiar enthusiastic smile, a heroine stands before you whose head,
heart, and arm are as strong as any man's. Her jasper-black, braided
locks, which fall half-way down her shoulders, are surmounted by an
ermine kalpag, from the top of which waves a gorgeous plume of
bird-of-paradise feathers. A light, lilac robe, meet for an Amazon,
clings tightly to her slim waist, and sweeps down in ample, majestic
folds over the flanks of her rose-white Arab. This robe is unbuttoned in
front, so as to leave free her heaving bosom, which is covered right up
to the neck with lace frills. Her short sleeves, richly trimmed with
batiste, are fastened by intertwining gold cords. Over her left foot,
which rests upon the stirrup, the long robe is thrown carelessly back,
presenting us with a glimpse of her white satin, padded petticoat, and
one of her little feet in its red morocco shoe. Her snow-white arms are
half protected by silk embroidered buckskin gloves, which do not quite
conceal the velvety skin, and the play of the well-developed muscles.
Both form and face rather demand our homage than our love. A smile
rarely rests on those features; the glance of her large, dark, sea-deep
eyes rests from time to time upon the youth who is bending over her, and
then there beams from them such witchery, such tenderness--yet all the
while her face is without a smile. A loftier, nobler longing is then
visible on her face, a longing deeper than love, higher than the desire
of fame--perhaps it is that self-consciousness of great souls who
foresee that their names will be an eternal remembrance.
Behind the loving pair, ride side by side two cavaliers who, to judge
from their dress, belong to the higher nobility. One of them is a man of
about thirty, with a long, glistening black beard; he sits upon a
full-blood Barbary charger, with a white star upon its forehead; the
other is a sallow man advanced in years, whose long, light moustache is
already touched with grey; an astrachan cap covers his high, bald,
wrinkled forehead; his beard is carefully clipped, and his dress almost
ostentatiously simple. No lace adorns his jacket, no fringe of any sort
sets off the caparison of his good steed; his neckerchief, which peeps
out of his dolman, might almost be considered shabby.
This man does not appear to stand very high in the estimation of his
companion, and marks of annoyance at the neglect he suffers are plainly
visible on his shrewd, not to say crafty, features. The reader would do
well to study this man's face, for we shall often meet with him. Cold,
withered features, thin fair hair and beard speckled with grey; a
pointed, double chin; disdainful, contracted lips; keen and lively,
red-rimmed, sea-green eyes; projecting eyebrows; a lofty, bald, shining
forehead which, beneath the play of his emotions, becomes furrowed with
wrinkles in all directions. This face we must not forget; the
others--the herculean horseman, the laughing youth, the stately
Amazon--will only flit across our path and disappear; but he will
accompany us all through our story, pulling down and building up
wherever he appears, and holding in his hands the destinies of great men
and great nations.
The bald-pate drew nearer to the cavalier trotting by his side, who was
balancing his spear in one hand as if to test it, and said to him in a
low tone, as if continuing a conversation already begun--
"So you will not interfere in the matter?"
"Pray don't trouble me with politics now," replied the other, with a
gesture of angry impatience. "You cannot live a day without planning or
plotting; but pray spare me for to-day! I want to hunt now, and you know
how passionately I love the chase."
With these words he gave his horse the spur, galloped forward, and
caught up the herculean horseman.
The other bit his lips angrily at this roughish flout, but immediately
turned with a smile towards the youthful cavalier ambling in front of
him.
"A splendid morning, my lord! Would that our horizon were only as serene
in every direction!"
"It is indeed," returned the youth, without exactly knowing what he was
saying, whilst his heroine bent over him with a darkening face, and
whispered--
"I don't know how it is, but I am always suspicious of that man. He is
continually asking questions, but never answers any himself."
At this moment the stately cavalier reached the hunting-party, returned
their boisterous greetings, and halted close to them.
"David!" cried he to an old grey-bearded huntsman, who at once stepped
forth, cap in hand.
"Put on your cap! Have the beaters taken their places?"
"Every one is in his place, my lord! I have also sent canoes into the
swamp to scare back the game."
"Bravo, David! you know your business. And now set off with the dogs and
the huntsmen, and strike into the path which we usually take. Our little
company will be sufficient for my purpose. We mean to cut our way
straight through the forest."
A murmur of surprise and incredulity began to spread among the huntsmen.
"Your pardon, gracious sir!" returned the old huntsman, who now took off
his cap a second time, "but I know that way, and it is no good way for a
god-fearing man. The impenetrable thicket, the bottomless waters, the
sticky slime present a thousand dangers, and then there is the wide
Devil's-dyke which goes right across the forest: no horse or horseman
has ever leaped that dyke."
"We at any rate, my worthy old fellow, will go for it; we have done
worse bits than that ere now. He who follows me will not come to grief;
don't you know that I am Fortune's favourite?"
The old huntsman donned his plumed cap, and set out on his way with the
others.
But now the bald-pate rode up to the hero's side.
"My lord!" remarked he calmly, but not without a touch of sarcasm, "I
hold it a great blunder for a man to jeopardize his life for nothing,
especially when he may turn it to good account. I know indeed that say
and do are one with your lordship; but pray be so good as to cast a
glance around, and you will perceive that we are not all men here; one
of that sex is among us whom it were cruelty to expose to certain peril
for the mere love of adventure."
During this speech, the hero gazed fixedly, not at the speaker but at
the Amazon, and the fiery pride on his cheeks flamed up still higher
when he saw how contemptuously the stately girl measured her unsolicited
advocate from head to foot, and with what haughty self-confidence she
chose a dart, adorned with ostrich feathers, from a bundle carried by a
page, and then like a defiant matador planted the shaft firmly upon her
saddle-bow.
"Look at her, now!" cried the hero. "Is that the girl you are so fearful
about? I tell you, sir, she is my niece!"
The hero's exalted words rang far and wide through the forest like a
peal of bells. There was, at that time, no voice in Hungary like his; so
thunderous, so deep, and yet so melodious and penetrating.
The Amazon permitted the cavalier who had called her his niece to
embrace her slim waist; she even allowed him to kiss her rosy red
cheeks: in those days an Hungarian girl used to blush even when the kiss
came from a kinsman's lips.
"Not in vain does my blood flow in her veins! Ha, ha! For valour I'll
match her with the best of men. Have no fear for her! The time is coming
when she will face greater perils than any of to-day, and still hold her
own."[3]
[Footnote 3: The Amazon was Helen Zrinyi. She married
first the young cavalier with whom we now meet her,
Francis Rakoczy, and subsequently the famous Emerich
Tököly, whose acquaintance we shall make presently. Her
spirited defence of the fortress of Mohacz, 1689,
against the Emperor is well known.]
After these prophetic words, the rider pressed his spurs into his
horse's sides; the wounded beast plunged and reared, but the pressure of
a knee as hard as steel quickly brought it to reason.
"Follow me!" cried he, and the picturesque little group dashed after him
into the depths of the forest.
Let us anticipate them. Let us go whither the stag rests at noonday in
the shady groves, whither the heron bathes and the turtle basks in the
sun.
What habitations are these which rise up before us, built upon piles, in
groups of five and six, between the waters and the wilderness, little
huts carved out of the stumps of trees with round, clay-plastered,
red-thatched roofs? Who has built that dam there, so that the water may
never fall too far below the thresholds of those tiny houses? Here dwell
the diligent beavers whom Nature herself has taught the art of building.
This is their colony. 'Tis they who have gnawed through the thick trees
with their teeth; they who have brought those logs hither; they who have
thrown up a bank to make a dam, and watch over its safety all the year
round. Look there! One of them has just glided out of the lowest storey
of his dwelling, which is under the water. With what mild and gentle
eyes he looks around him! He has never yet seen man!
Let us go on further. In the shadow of an old hollow tree rests a family
of stags. A buck and a doe with her two little fawns.
The buck has come forward into the sunlight; his stately form seems to
give him pleasure; he licks his smooth, shiny coat again and again;
softly scratches his back with his branching antlers, and struts about
with a proud, self-confident air, daintily raising his slender legs from
time to time: the undulating movements of his slim and supple form show
off to the best advantage the play of his elastic muscles.
The doe lies lazily in the rank grass. From time to time she raises her
beautiful head, and looks with her large black eyes so feelingly, so
lovingly at her companion or at her sportive little ones, and if she
perceives they have strayed too far, she utters an uneasy, plaintive
sort of whine, whereupon the little creatures come bounding back to her
helter-skelter, frisking and gambolling about their dam; they cannot
keep still for a moment, all their limbs quiver and shake, and all their
movements are so graceful, so lively, and so lovely.
Suddenly the buck stands motionless and utters a low cry. He scents
danger and raises his nose on high; his distended nostrils sniff the air
in every direction; he scratches up the ground uneasily with his feet;
runs round and round in a narrow circle with lowered head, and shakes
his antlers threateningly. Once more he stands perfectly still. His
protruding eyes betoken the terror which instinctively seizes him. All
at once he rushes towards his companion; with an indescribable sort of
gentle whine they rub noses together; they too have their language in
which they can understand each other. The two fawns instantly fly in
terror to their mother's side; their tender little limbs are trembling
all over. Then the buck disappears into the forest, but so warily that
the sound of his footsteps is scarcely audible. The doe however remains
in her place, licking her terrified young (which return these maternal
caresses with their little red tongues), and hastily raising her head
and pricking up her ears at the slightest sound.
Suddenly she springs up. She has heard something which no human ear
could have distinguished. In the far, far distance the forest rings with
a peculiar sound. That sound is familiar to huntsmen. The hounds are now
on the track. The beating-up has begun. The doe throws uneasy glances
around her, but ends by quickly lying down in her place again. She knows
that her companion will return, and that she must wait for him.
The chase draws nearer and nearer. Presently the buck comes noiselessly
back, and turns with a peculiar kind of squeak towards his mate, who
immediately springs up and scuds away with her young ones obliquely
across the line of the beaters. The buck remains behind a little while
longer, and tears up the ground with his antlers, either from fury, or
on purpose to efface all traces of his mate's lair. Then he stretches
out his neck and begins to yelp loudly, imitating the barking of the
hounds, so as to put them on a wrong track, a stratagem which, as old
hunters will tell you, is often practised by the more cunning sort of
stags. Then, throwing back his antlers, he disappears in the direction
taken by his mate.
Nearer and nearer come the beaters. The crackling of the down-trodden
brushwood and the shouts of the armed men mingle with the barking of the
dogs. The forest suddenly teems with life. Startled by the cries of the
pursuers, scores and scores of hares and foxes dart away among the trees
in every direction. Sometimes a panting fox makes for an open hole, but
bounds back terrified before the fiery eyes of the badger which inhabits
it. Here and there a grey-streaked wolf skulks along among the
scampering hares, standing still, from time to time, with his tail
between his legs, to look round for some place of refuge, and then, as
the pursuing voices come nearer, running off again with a dismal howl.
And yet no one pursues these animals; the huntsmen are after a greater,
a nobler prey, a stag with mighty antlers. The beaters draw nearer and
nearer; the dogs are already on the track; the blast of a horn indicates
that they are hard upon the stag.
"Hurrah, hurrah!" resounds from afar. The beaters, advancing from
different directions, halt and fall into their places, completely
barring the way. The din of the hunt approaches rapidly.
Shortly afterwards, a peculiar rustling noise is heard. The hunted
stags, with their young ones, break through the thicket and disappear. A
broad chasm lies between them and the beaters. Quick as lightning, both
the noble beasts bound over the fallen tree-stumps which lie in the way,
and reach the chasm. The pursuit is both before and behind, but the
danger is greatest from behind, for there the herculean hero, the bold
Amazon, and the ardent Transylvanian huntsman head the chase. The buck
leaps across the broad chasm without the slightest effort, raising both
feet at the same time and throwing back his head; the doe also prepares
for the leap, but her young ones shrink back in terror from the dizzy
abyss. At this the poor doe collapses altogether; her knees give way
beneath her, and bowing her head she remains beside her young. A dart,
hurled by the Transylvanian huntsman, pierces the animal's side. The
wounded beast utters a piteous cry, resembling the moan of a human
being, but much more horrible. Even her slayer, moved by sudden
compassion, forbears to touch her till she has ceased to suffer.
The two kids remain standing mournfully beside their dead dam, and allow
themselves to be taken alive.
Meanwhile, the flying buck, shaking his heavy antlers with frenzied
rage, rushes with bloodshot eyes upon the beaters who bar his way. The
beaters, well knowing what this generally mild and timid beast is
capable of in his valiant despair, throw themselves with one accord to
the ground so as to allow him a free passage. A few of the dogs, indeed,
go at him; but the now furious animal gores them with his antlers, hurls
them bleeding to the ground, and then dashes off towards the swamps.
"After him!" roars the hero, in a voice of thunder, and he urges his
horse towards the chasm over which the stag has just flown.
"Help, Jesu!" cry the terrified beaters on the opposite side; but the
next moment their terror is changed to boisterous joy; the horse with
his bold rider has come safely across.
Of the whole of his suite only two dared to imitate him, the stately
Amazon and the gentle stripling. Both horses flew over the abyss at the
same moment; the lady's long velvet robe flapped the air like a banner
during the leap, and she threw a proud look behind her as if to inquire
whether any man was bold enough to follow her.
Their suite thought it just as well not to risk their necks over such a
piece of foolhardiness. Only the young Transylvanian made a dash at the
chasm, although, as his horse had already injured one of its hind legs
in the forest, he might have been quite sure that it was unequal to such
an effort. Fortunately for him, just before the leap his saddle-girth
burst and he was pitched across the chasm, just managing to scramble up
the bank on the other side. His good steed, less fortunate, was only
able to reach the opposite margin with its front feet; and after a wild
and hopeless struggle, fell crashing back into the abyss below.
The three riders alone pursued the flying stag, which, now that he had
got clear away, drew his pursuers after him into the marsh-lands. The
hero was close upon his heels; the Amazon and her cavalier trotted a
little on one side, for the forest was very dense here, and prevented
them from going forward abreast. At last the stag forced his way into
the thick reed-grown fens and took to the water, with the hero still in
hot pursuit. The youthful riders were also on the point of plunging
among the reeds, when two hideous, black monsters, fiercely snorting,
suddenly confronted them. They had fallen foul of a brood of wild swine.
The loathsome beasts had been lying, deaf to everything around them, in
their bed of trampled reeds and slush, and only became aware of the
presence of strangers when the youth's horse, in bounding over them,
trampled to death a couple of the numerous litter that lay crouching by
the side of the sow. The rest of the speckled little pigs scattered
squeaking among the reeds, while the two old ones, savagely grunting,
advanced to the attack. The sow fell at once upon the slayer of her
little ones; but the boar remained, for a moment, on his haunches; his
bristles stood erect; he pricked up his ears, gnashed his tusks
together, then, wildly rolling his little bloodshot eyes, rushed at the
Amazon with a dull roar.
The youth flung his javelin at the sow from afar with a steady hand. The
dart whirred through the air and then stuck fast, upright and quivering,
in the horny skull of the impetuous beast, the point piercing to the
very brain. The sow, not unlike a huge unicorn, ran forward a little
distance; but its eyes had lost their sight, and it staggered past the
rider only to fall down dead without a sound, a little distance off.
The lady calmly awaited the furious boar. She held her dart with a
reversed grasp, point downwards, and drew tight her horse's reins. The
noble steed stood perfectly motionless, but he pointed his ears, threw a
sidelong glance at the boar, and at the very instant when the rabid
beast had passed beneath the horse's belly, and was about to rip it
asunder with a powerful upward heave of his gleaming tusks, the
well-trained charger suddenly reared and sprang over his assailant; at
the same instant the Amazon deftly stooped and hurled her dart deep
between the shoulder-blades of the wild boar.
The mortally-wounded beast sank bellowing down into the long grass. Once
more he would have rushed upon the girl, but the youth sprang, quick as
light, from his horse, and gave him the _coup de grâce_ with his dagger.
At that moment the blast of a horn was heard in the distance. The hero
had brought down the stag. The other horsemen, who now overtook the
leaders of the chase (but only after making a wide circuit), welcomed
the hero of the day with loud cries of "Eljen!"[4]
[Footnote 4: _Eljen!_ = Long live!]
The herculean horseman was mud-stained from head to foot, nor did the
others look much better; only the Amazon's robe was spotless and untorn.
Even at such times a girl knows how to take care of her clothes!
When the hero beheld the wild beast slain by his niece, which, as it lay
stretched out stark and stiff before him, looked even larger than
life-size, he was at first deeply affected, as if he now, for the first
time, fully recognized the greatness of the peril to which his darling
had been exposed, and he exclaimed, not without alarm--"My Nelly!" but
immediately afterwards he stretched out his hand towards her with a
smile, and gazed round triumphantly upon the bystanders.
"Did I not say she had my blood in her veins?"
Every one hastened to pay an appropriate compliment to the radiant
heroine, who appeared to experience, on this occasion, something of that
peculiar satisfaction which only belongs to the lucky huntsman.
The hero again looked proudly around till his eye fell upon the young
Transylvanian, who was now sitting on a fresh horse. Him he at once
accosted, and pointing to the dead boar asked--
"Nicolas, my son! prithee tell me, does Transylvania produce such boars
as that?"
Now, not to mention that the Transylvanian was already somewhat sore on
account of his recent mishap, it was not to be expected that he, a
Transylvanian born and bred, would for a single moment permit the
assumption that any natural product of Hungary was superior to the like
product of Transylvania to pass unchallenged, so he answered defiantly--
"Most certainly, and even finer ones."
Nothing at that moment could have more mightily offended the questioner
than this curt answer. What! to tell an enthusiastic huntsman that he
will find elsewhere game even finer than what he has just been lauding
to the skies; game, too, which the darling of his heart has just slain!
It was simply outrageous.
"Very well, my son, very well," growled the hero; "we shall see, we
shall see!"
With obvious marks of annoyance on his face, he turned away from his
contradictor, and ordered that the quarry should be conveyed at once to
the hunting-box. Not another word did he exchange with any one but his
Nelly; but her he literally overwhelmed with compliments and caresses.
* * * * *
It was already late in the afternoon when the hunters sat them down to a
simple but tasty repast spread upon a huge and level grass-plot in the
midst of the wood. Wine and merry jests soon set everything right again;
they talked of everything at the same time, of war and the chase, of
beautiful dames, of poetry (a fashionable subject then amongst the
higher classes), and of the intrigues of courts; but even after all this
blithe discourse the hero could not quite forget his grievance, and
again he inquired impatiently--
"So there really is excellent sport in Transylvania?"
The young Transylvanian began to feel this perpetual harping on the same
string a little tiresome. He had never meant to be taken so literally.
The bald-pate, remarking the growing tension, sought to change the
conversation, and raising his beaker proposed the following toast--
"God keep the Turks in a good humour."
But the hero angrily overturned his glass.
"God grant no such thing!" cried he savagely. "I'm not going to pray for
the goggle-eyed dogs now, after fighting against them all my days. The
man who is always trying to change masters is a fool."
"Yet the Turk is a very gracious master to us," put in the young
Transylvanian, with an ambiguous smile.
"Ha, ha! didn't I say so? With you, even Turks are bigger and finer than
they are with us. Of course! of course! In Transylvania everything
flourishes better than in Hungary: the boars are bigger, the Turks are
daintier, than they are in this part of the country."
At this moment David, the old huntsman, approached the hero and
whispered something in his ear. The hero's features brightened as if by
magic, and springing from his seat he cried--"Give me my gun!" then,
holding his long, silver-mounted musket in his hand, he turned towards
his guests with a radiant countenance. "All of you stay here. There is a
colossal boar close at hand. You shall see him, my son," added he,
tapping Nicolas on the shoulder. "Twice already have I vainly pursued
the fellow; this time I mean to catch him. He is, I assure you, a
descendant in the flesh of the Calydonian boar"--and with that, carried
away by his enthusiasm, he hastened towards that part of the wood which
the old huntsman had pointed out to him. David he presently ordered
back: nobody was to accompany him.
"I know not how it is," whispered Helen to the youth at her side, "but I
have a foreboding that my uncle is in danger. How I wish you were by his
side!"
The youth said nothing in reply, but he instantly stood up and seized
his gun.
"Pray don't go after him," remarked the Transylvanian, when he saw the
young man about to hasten off. "You will only enrage him. He wants to do
the whole business himself, and a man who has exterminated hordes of
Tartars can easily dispose of a single brute beast."
And so they kept the youth back from going. The men went on drinking,
and the lady remained in a brown study, glancing uneasily, from time to
time, at the skirts of the wood.
Suddenly a shot resounded through the forest.
Every one put down his glass and glanced at his neighbour with a beating
heart.
A few moments passed and then they heard the roar of a wild beast; but
it was not the well-known roar of a mortally-wounded boar--no, it was a
peculiar, gurgling, half-stifled sound that told of a fierce struggle.
"What is that?" was the question which rose to every one's lips. "Surely
he would call out if he were in danger!" Then came a second shot. Every
one instantly sprang to his feet. "What was that?" they cried. "Oh! let
us go! let us go!" exclaimed the girl, trembling in every limb, and the
whole company hastened in the direction of the shot.
* * * * *
Our hero had scarcely advanced four or five hundred paces into the
thicket when, at the foot of a mighty oak, he came upon the wild beast
he sought. It was a gigantic boar, with span-long, glistening black
bristles on its back and forehead; the tough hide lay, like plated
armour, in thick folds about its huge neck; its feet were long and
sinewy. Lazily grunting, it was making for itself a bed beneath the
bushes in which its shapeless body was stretched out at full length, and
it had found a place for its enormous head by rooting out with its tusks
bushes as thick as a man's arm.
On hearing approaching footsteps, the monster irritably raised its head,
opened wide its jaws, and cast a sidelong glance at its assailant.
Our hero knelt upon one knee so as to take better aim, and fired at the
wild beast just as it suddenly raised its head, so that the bullet
pierced its neck instead of its skull, wounding it seriously but not
mortally.
The wounded boar instantly sprang from its lair, and gnashing its
crooked tusks together so that sparks flew from them, rushed upon its
foe. It would not have been difficult to have avoided such a furious
attack by a skilful side-spring; but our hero was not the man to get out
of any opponent's way; so he threw his gun aside, tore his dagger from
its sheath, faced the savage beast, and dealt at its head a blow
sufficient to have cleaved it to the chine; but the tremendous blow fell
short upon one of the monster's tusks, and the dagger, coming into
contact with the stone-like bone, broke off short at the hilt.
Half stunned by the shock, the boar only succeeded in grazing the hero's
leg, whereupon the latter seized the beast by both ears and a desperate
struggle began. Weaponless as he was, he grappled with the monster,
which, grunting and roaring, twisted its head about in every direction;
but the hero's iron grasp held fast the broad ears of the monster with
invincible force, and when the boar tried to overturn its assailant by
suddenly going down on its haunches, the hero, with a swift and
tremendous blow of his clenched fist, hurled it backwards, falling
himself indeed at the same time, but uppermost, and quickly recovering
his balance pressed down with his whole weight upon the boar (which
valiantly but vainly continued struggling against superior strength),
and triumphantly bestrided its huge paunch.
The boar now appeared to be completely beaten; its glassily glaring eyes
were protruding, the blood streamed from its jaws and nostrils; it had
ceased to bellow, but a rattling sound came from its throat; its legs
writhed convulsively, its snout hung flabbily down; it was plain that it
could not hold out much longer.
The hero had now only to call to his companions, who were close at hand,
but that would have been too humiliating; or to wait till the boar bled
to death, but that would have been too tiresome. Suddenly he recollected
that he had a Turkish knife in his girdle, and, meaning to put a speedy
end to the long tussle, he pressed down the boar's head with his knee
and felt for his knife with one hand.
At that moment the report of a gun[5] resounded somewhere in the wood.
The down-trodden boar suddenly seemed to feel that the pressure of his
opponent's hands and knees was slackening, and rallying all his
remaining strength, threw off his assailant and dealt him one last blow
with his tusks, and that blow was fatal, for it ripped open the man's
throat.
[Footnote 5: Some pretend that this shot was fired by a
secret assassin sent from Vienna. Many doubt whether a
shot was fired at all.]
* * * * *
His kinsmen and friends, hastening to the spot, found the hero in the
throes of death by the side of the dead boar. They rushed up with loud
lamentations, and bound up his throat with their kerchiefs.
"It is nothing, my children; it is nothing!" he gasped, and expired.
"Alas! poor warrior!" sighed those who stood around him.
"Alas! my country!" sobbed Helen, raising her tearful eyes to heaven.
The gala-day had become a day of mourning; the hunt a funeral.
The guests sorrowfully followed the body of their best friend to
Csakatorny. Only the bald-head took the opposite direction.
"Didn't I say that life was meant for other and better things?" murmured
he. "Well, well! the world is large, and men are many. I'll go a kingdom
further on."
* * * * *
Thus died Nicolas Zrinyi[6] the younger, his country's greatest poet and
bravest son.
[Footnote 6: It is not without reason that Jókai
alludes to Zrinyi as "the hero." He was one of the
greatest warriors of his day (1618-1666), and his
victories over the Turks were many and brilliant. As a
poet he stands high, even judged by a modern standard.
His chief works are his great epic, _Szigeti
veszedelem_, and his religious poems, _Keresztre_, "On
the Cross!"]
Thus died the man whom Fortune always respected, the darling, the
bulwark, the ornament of his fatherland.
In vain will you now seek for his hunting-box or his castle. All has
perished--the name, the family, nay, the very remembrance of the hero.
The general and the statesman are forgotten; only one part of him still
survives, only one part of him will live eternally--the poet.
CHAPTER II.
THE HOUSE AT EBESFALVA.
And now we too will go "a kingdom further on."
Let us go one kingdom forward and four years backward. We are in
Transylvania; the year is 1662.
A simple country-house stands before us, at the lower end of Ebesfalva,
being almost the last house in the place. Evidently the architect of
this edifice had rather an eye to usefulness than beauty, for each part
of it has a style of its own, and differs from every other part in
shape, size, and quality. On both sides stand stables, cow-houses,
wagon-sheds, fowl-houses, and high-gabled, straw-thatched sheepfolds. In
the rear lies an orchard, from which the pointed roof of a beehive peeps
forth, and in the middle of the courtyard stands the whitewashed
dwelling-house, surrounded by shady nut trees, beneath which stands a
round table improvised from a millstone. A stone wall separates the
courtyard from a thrashing-floor, in which we see incipient haycocks
piled up into hillocks, and enormous stacks of corn, on the topmost
point of the tallest of which an adventurous peacock shrieks exultantly.
It is evening; the herds are returning home; the oxen are being unyoked
from the huge, maize-laden wagons; the herds, jingling their bells, come
back from the pastures; the swine jostle one another in the narrow
gateway and rush grunting to their troughs; the cocks and hens are
squabbling in the large nut tree, where they have taken up their
quarters for the night; far away sounds the vesper bell, and further
still the song of the village beauty, on her way to the spring; the
hands see to their cattle: one carries a freshly-mown bundle of
millet-grass across the farmyard, another bends beneath the weight of a
huge pitcher, filled to overflowing with yellowish, fragrant, foaming
milk, fresh from the udder. Through the kitchen window is to be seen the
merry sparkle of a roaring fire, over which a girl with round, red
cheeks holds a large pan; the fragrant odour of the savoury mess spreads
far and wide. And now the meal is served on large, green platters; the
family take their places round the millstone table, and eat with a good
appetite, the white watch-dogs looking up respectfully all the while at
the hasty gobblers. Then the dishes are cleared away, and the maize is
shot out of the wagons beneath the projecting eaves. The peasant girls
come trooping in from the neighbouring villages to help to husk the
pods, and sit them down upon the odorous heaps. Some merry wag or other
scoops out a ripe pumpkin, carves eyes and a mouth in it, sticks a
burning light inside, and hangs it up by way of a lantern, and the girls
shriek and pretend to be terribly frightened. Then the more handy lads,
sitting on over-turned bread-baskets, plait long wreaths out of the
maize-husks; and while the tranquil toil proceeds, merry songs are sung
and fairy tales are told of golden-haired princesses and persecuted
orphans. Now and again the fun requires a kiss or two to keep it going,
and loud screams proclaim the daring deed to all the world. The little
children cry out for joy if they chance to find an occasional scarlet or
mottled maize knob among so many yellow ones. And there they sit and
tell tales, and sing and laugh at the merest nothings till all the maize
is husked, and then they wish one another good-night, and, chatting and
bawling, linger over a long, last good-bye; and then they go singing
aloud along their homeward way, partly from fun and partly from pure
light-heartedness.
Then every one enters his house, shuts the door behind him, and puts out
the fire; the sheep-dogs hold long dialogues in the village streets; the
crescent moon rises; the night watchman begins to cry the hours in
long-drawn rhythm; the others sleep and do not hear his golden saws.
Only in one window of the manor-house a light is shining. There some one
still is up.
The watchers are a grey-haired, venerable dame and a much younger
serving-maid. The old lady is reading from a worn-out psalter, every
line of which she already knows by heart; the serving-maid, as if not
content with a long day's work, has sat herself down to her distaff, and
draws long threads out of the silky flax which she heckled yesterday and
carded to-day.
"Go to bed, Clara," said the old woman kindly, "it is enough if I remain
up. Besides, you have to rise early to-morrow morning."
"I could not sleep till our mistress has returned," replied the girl,
continuing her work. "Even when all the men are in, I always feel so
frightened till she has come home, but when once she is here, I feel as
safe as if we were behind the walls of a fortress."
"Quite right, my child; she is, indeed, worth many men. Shame upon it
that the cares and anxieties which it behoves a man to bear should rest
upon her shoulders! She has to look after the whole of this vast
household, and, as if that were not enough, she must needs farm the
estates of her sisters, the ladies Banfi and Teleki. How many lawsuits
must she not carry on with this neighbour and with that! But they've met
their match in her, I'll warrant. She appears in person before the
judges and pleads so shrewdly, that our best advocates might take
lessons from her. And then, too, when my Lord Banfi came capering hither
with his killing ways, some little time ago, fancying that our gracious
lady was one of your straw-widows, how she sent him away with a flea in
his ear! The worthy gentleman did not know whether he stood on his head
or his heels, and yet he is one of the chief men in the land! And
afterwards, too, when, out of revenge, he saddled us with that
freebooter of a captain and his lanzknechts, don't you recollect how our
lady had them all flogged out of the village, and how the rascals took
to their heels when they saw our gracious mistress herself march out
against them, blunderbuss in hand?"
"Would that they had not scampered off quite so quickly," interrupted
the girl, with a burst of enthusiasm. "I'd have laid the poker about
their ears, I warrant you."
"Hark'e, Clara! when a woman has been forced to keep house alone for so
long a time, and to defend herself and family by the might of her own
arms, she comes at last to feel herself a man all over. That is why our
mistress looks as stern as if she had never been a girl."
"But tell me, Aunt Magdalene," returned the girl, drawing her chair
nearer, "shall we never see master again?"
"Alas! God only knows," replied the old dame, sighing. "How can I tell
when the poor fellow will be released from his captivity? I always had a
presentiment that it would come to this, and I said so, but no one
heeded me. It happened in this wise. In the days when our Prince
George[7] of blessed memory, not content with his own land, must needs
set out to conquer Poland at the head of the Hungarian chivalry, our
good master, Sir Michael, went with him. Oh, how I tried--and our lady
too--to keep him back. They were a newly-wedded couple then, and the
good gentleman himself had little heart for war--he always preferred to
sit at home among his books, his water-mills, and his fruit trees--but
honour called him and he went. I begged him to at least take my son Andy
with him. God gave me that thought, for otherwise we should never have
heard again of our gracious master, for when his Highness, our Sovereign
Prince George, beheld the bestial hordes of Tartars marching out against
him, he himself galloped off home, leaving his nobility captives in the
hands of the heathen, who dragged them off in fetters to Tartary. My son
Andy, who was of no use to them, for he was badly wounded in the thigh,
and therefore could not work, they sent home; he brought the tidings
that Sir Michael was sickening in sad confinement, and the Tartars,
perceiving how high he stood in the esteem of his fellow-prisoners, took
him for their prince, and set upon his head such a frightfully high
ransom, that all his property turned into gold could not have paid it
off. Nevertheless our noble lady rejoiced exceedingly when she heard
that her husband was still alive, and ran hither and thither and left no
stone unturned to raise the money. But neither her kind friends nor her
dear relations would lend her anything--no, not on the best security,
for no one willingly lends on land in time of war. So she sold her
treasures, her bridal dower which her mother had given her; all the
beautiful silver plate, jewelled bracelets, and embossed gold and pearl
ornaments which her ancestors had handed down to her; her large
satin-trimmed, fur-embroidered mantle and her filagreed _mente_[8]; her
rings, agraffes, and hairpins; her carbuncle bracelets and orient
pearls; her diamond ear-rings--in short, everything which could be
turned into money. Yet even all that came to not one-half of what the
Tartar demanded, so what does she do but farm the estates of her
sisters, plough up the fallow-lands, and cut down the forests to make
way for corn-fields. To find time for more work, she turned night into
day. No sort of husbandry whereby money could be made escaped her
attention. At one time she laid down clay-pits and dug out quarries, the
products of which found customers in the neighbourhood. At another time
she bred prize oxen and sold them to the Armenian herdsmen. She visited
all the markets in person; carried her wine as far as Poland, her corn
to Hermannstadt, her honey, wax, and preserved fruits to Kronstadt--nay,
in order to obtain a fair price for her wools, she crossed the border
and took them as far as Debreczin. And how frugally she fared all the
time! It is true she never stinted her servants in anything, but she
seemed to weigh every morsel that went into her own mouth. At harvest
time she would have nothing cooked for herself at home for weeks
together, so that she might remain in the fields all day. A piece of
bread which would have been too little for a child was all she ate, and
her drink was a bowl of spring water; yet, believe me, Clara, we never
once saw her in a bad humour, and never did a single bitter tear fall
upon the dry bread which her loyalty to her husband constrained her to
live upon."
[Footnote 7: George Rakoczy I., Prince of Transylvania,
1630-1648.]
[Footnote 8: _Mente._ A fur pelisse.]
"And why was all this?"
"I'll tell you, my child. The money which she thus scraped together by
toil and frugality, year by year, is regularly sent by Andy to Tartary,
in part payment of Sir Michael's ransom. At such times our dear lady
grudges herself every morsel she puts into her mouth."
The old nurse wiped the tears from her eyes.
"And what then was the amount of the ransom?"
"That's more than I can tell you, my daughter. Andy always brings back
the parchment on which the Tartar marks down the amount received and the
amount still due. Our noble lady keeps it herself. I, of course, never
ask any questions about it."
The girl was silent and appeared to be reflecting; doubly quick the
spindle flew round in her hands, and her heart beat faster too.
"My son Andy is there now," said the old dame, weary of the long
silence. "I expect him back every hour now; from him we shall hear
something certain."
At that moment the gate outside creaked on its hinges, a little gig
rolled boisterously into the courtyard, and a joyful barking and yelping
told that an old acquaintance had arrived.
"Our mistress has come," cried the two servants, rising from their
seats, and at the same moment the door opened and Anna Bornemissa,
Michael Apafi's wife, stepped in.
A stately woman of almost masculine stature; the outline of her slim but
vigorous and muscular figure is plainly visible through her simple grey
linen dress. She cannot be more than thirty-six, but her face is of
those on which time leaves no trace until extreme old age. Her features
are deeply tanned by the sun, but the velvet down of well-preserved
youth and the natural ruddiness of perfect health lend a peculiar
loveliness to that extraordinary countenance. Her look surprises,
dominates, subdues; the charm which lies concealed there appears not so
much in the features as in the expression--her face is the mirror of a
noble soul. Not as if there was anything hard, rough, stiff, or
masculine in the features themselves: on the contrary. Her brow is
finely arched, delicately smooth, unobscured as yet by a single wrinkle,
and yet so full of majesty; her eyelashes are most exquisitely
pencilled; the shape of the eyes is enchanting, those large, not exactly
wild-black, but rather deep, bright, nut-brown eyes, half hidden by
their long eyelashes, and in those eyes there is so much fire, so much
sparkle, and yet so much coldness. The delicate nose, the oval face,
every feature is so femininely regular. Even the mouth when closed is so
sweet, so tender, the other features seem to use violence towards it to
prevent its smile from spreading further, and yet when it opens, how
haughty, how commanding it becomes.
"What, still up?" cried she to her servants.
The voice is pleasantly sonorous, although affliction has somewhat
deadened its lower notes.
"We thought it best to stay up, in case your ladyship might be kept
waiting outside," replied the old woman, tripping round her mistress and
taking the heavy mantle from her shoulders.
"Has not Andy yet returned?" asked Lady Apafi, in a low, melancholy
voice.
"Not yet; but I expect him every moment."
Lady Apafi sighed deeply. How much of stifled grief, vanishing hope, and
patient renunciation was concealed in that sigh! The recollection of the
manifold sufferings of her wretched life rose up before that heroic
woman's soul. She called to mind her brave struggle with fate, with her
fellow-men, and with her own heart; her love, grafted on pain, had
brought forth not gladness but ungratified longing. Another toilsome
year of her life had passed away. With the self-sacrificing industry of
a bee, she had hoarded up, morsel by morsel, her little store, and who
could tell how many years would be requisite to complete it? And till
then nothing but toil, patience, and unrequited love.
Lady Apafi, not without an effort, resumed her habitual coldness, wished
her servants good-night, and was already on her way to her chamber, when
Clara rushed forward and kissed her mistress's hand. The lady looked at
her with astonishment. She felt that a burning tear had fallen on her
hand, which the girl held fast and pressed to her lips.
"What ails you?" asked Dame Apafi, much surprised.
"Nothing," replied the girl, sobbing; "it is only that I feel so sorry
for your ladyship. I have long had an idea in my head, but have never
yet dared to express it. We have often talked about our master's
captivity and his grievous ransom. We village girls have all of us got
necklaces of gold and silver coins which are no good to us. So we have
agreed among ourselves to club together all this money now lying idle
and give it to your ladyship towards our master's ransom. It may not be
much, but still is something."
Lady Apafi, her eyes glistening with involuntary tears, pressed hard the
peasant girl's trembling hand.
"I thank thee, my girl," she said, deeply touched. "I prize thy offer
more highly than if my sister Banfi had placed ten thousand gold chains
at my disposal. But God will also be my helper. In Him is my trust."
At that moment the trampling of horses was heard in the courtyard and
the dogs fell to barking.
"Who can that be? Robbers, perhaps!" stammered the old nurse, and
neither of the two servants durst approach the door.
Then Dame Apafi took the light from the table, stepped to the door,
opened it, and looked out into the courtyard.
"Who's there?" she cried, loudly and clearly.
"We!--I mean to say I," returned a hesitating voice, which all three
immediately recognized as Andy's.
"Oh, 'tis you? Come hither quickly!" said Lady Apafi joyfully, pushing
Andy into the room, who was plainly very much confused, for he kept on
twirling about his hat in his hands, and looked sheepishly at the floor.
"Well, did you see him and speak to him? Is he well?" asked Lady Apafi
impetuously.
"Yes, he is quite well," replied the man, glad to have found his voice
again; "he respectfully kisses your ladyship's hand. He also bade me say
that God is good!"
"But what do you keep looking sideways for? At whom are the dogs
barking?"
"At the black horse perhaps; it is a long time since they saw him."
"And you gave the purse to the Mirza?"
Instead of answering this question, Andy began to fumble about in the
pocket of his sheepskin jacket, and as this pocket was very high up,
narrow and deep, his features expressed the most exquisite torture till
he had fished up the parchment, and he trembled all over as he handed it
to his mistress.
"Is there still much in arrear? What says the Mirza?" asked Lady Apafi,
with a very shaky voice.
"There is not much more. One might even say there is very little,"
replied Andy, with downcast eyes, fumbling in his confusion with the rim
of his hat.
"But how much, how much then?" they all cried together.
Andy got very red.
"Well--well, there is nothing at all!"
He said this in a broken voice, and with that he burst into a loud and
long roar of laughter, and immediately after wept as if his heart would
break.
The mind of Dame Apafi instantly grasped the whole truth.
"Speak, man!" cried she passionately, seizing the fellow by the
shoulder; "you have brought my husband back with you?"
Andy waved his fist behind him and nodded his head; he laughed and wept
at the same time; but, to save his life, he could not have uttered a
word.
Dame Apafi, with a sob and a cry of boundless joy, rushed to the door
which already stood ajar. Some one had been waiting there and listening
all the time; it was Michael Apafi, her long expected, often bewailed
consort.
"Michael! my beloved husband!" cried the woman, trembling with emotion;
and half swooning, half beside herself, she fell upon her husband's
neck, murmuring unintelligible words of love, joy, and tenderness.
Apafi pressed her to his breast. She embraced him convulsively; no other
sound was to be heard but a deep sobbing.
"Thou art mine!" she stammered, after a long pause, when the tempest of
her emotion had somewhat subsided and she was more herself.
"I am thine," cried Apafi; "and I swear that nothing in the world shall
ever tear me from thee again!"
"O God, what bliss!" cried Anna, raising her streaming eyes to heaven.
"What joy thou hast brought back to me!" she stammered once more,
leaning on her husband and hiding her face in his bosom.
"And if the whole world were mine," continued Apafi, "even then I should
not be rich enough to requite thy devotion. I take God to witness, that
if I could call a kingdom my own I would give it thee, and think it but
a beggarly recompense."
The joyful, loving pair, happy beyond all expression, were then left
alone with their joy and happiness. Late into the night burned the taper
in their window. How much, how endlessly much they had to say to one
another!
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?
CHAPTER IV.
A BANQUET WITH THE PRINCE OF TRANSYLVANIA.
Meanwhile, his Highness, Prince John Kemeny, was faring sumptuously at
Hermannstadt. This gentleman's darling vice was gluttony--even if the
whole machinery of state were to fall to pieces in consequence, he would
not have risen from table, and amongst all his counsellors his cook
always stood highest.
And now, too, we find him at dinner. He has converted the Town-hall to
his own use, and it is thronged by his suite. In the courtyard we see
spurred and iron-clad cuirassiers flirting with the Saxon serving-maids;
German musketeers, professedly on guard, who have left their muskets
standing against the doorposts, in order to cultivate friendly relations
with the scullions removing the dishes. With brimming glasses raised on
high, they jocosely warble Hungarian airs picked up on the spur of the
moment, improvising at the same time an absurdly artless sort of dance,
in which one leg performs aimless aërial gyrations. On the other hand,
the heydukes of the Hungarian bodyguard, dressed in yellow dolmans with
green facings, sit morosely in twos and threes against the wall, not
even condescending to look at the bumpers of wine thrust, from time to
time, into their hands; but gravely tossing it down at a single gulp
into its proper place, returning the empty pocal to the friendly butler,
who has as much as he can do to keep his feet; keeps on offering the
noble fluid to Tom, Dick, and Harry; and finding it easier to go
backwards than forwards, is constantly backing against the head cook as
he passes to and fro, bearing now a sugared almond tart adorned with
flowers on a silver salver, and representing the tower of Babel, now a
large porcelain bowl exhaling the spicy fragrance of hot punch, or a
peacock on a large wooden platter, roasted whole, with his gorgeous
head-dress and splendid tail still upon him.
The head cook is scarcely able to force his way through the gaping mob
of petitioners assembled here, who must wait till the Prince has dined,
and are regaled in the meantime with wine, roast meats, and pastry,
getting in short everything but what they came for--justice.
Within the dining-room itself the gentlemen and ladies are by this time
in a merry mood. The meal has already lasted a pretty long time, and is
likely to last a good while longer.
French gastronomic science seemed to have reserved all her masterpieces
for Kemeny's banquet. Nature's three kingdoms have been laid under
contribution to tickle the human palate. Every extravagant and
extraordinary delicacy invented by Epicureanism, from the days of
Lucullus to the days of Gallic gourmandism, is here in abundance. Here
is to be seen every sort of foreign and domestic wine, in
artistically-carved and gorgeously-coloured Venetian flasks, placed in
huge silver refrigerators; game, large and small, of the rarest kind, on
silver dishes; transparent, rose-coloured, quivering jellies with names
unpronounceable by Hungarian lips; Indian fruits preserved in cane
sugar; _ragoûts_ of cocks' combs; enigmatical-looking snails, fit rather
for the eye than for the palate; gigantic lobsters and the rarer kinds
of marine fish fantastically disposed; meats which men who have already
eaten to surfeit can only make believe that they enjoy by a supreme
effort of the imagination; dishes which a true man would only eat by way
of penance; immense pasties made entirely of pikes' livers; large
baskets of rosy swans' eggs, which the guests may boil for amusement in
little silver egg-boilers placed over spirit-lamps in front of them, and
other wonderful dishes innumerable, the purpose of which is not
immediately obvious to ordinary children of men, and everything in such
profusion as would have more than sufficed for six times the number of
guests present. Then too there were there all sorts of spiced drinks to
suit every one's taste, from punch-royal to Polish brandy. Nothing was
forgotten.
Behind every guest stands a little page, who whisks away his well-filled
plate from him the instant he turns his head, and places before him a
clean one instead. Behind the Prince's chair stands the son of Count
Ladislaus Csaky, who is right proud that a son of his should have the
privilege of filling and refilling the Prince's pocal.
And the Prince's pocal has to be filled pretty often. Transylvanian
banquets generally ended with a wager on the part of the gentlemen to
drink one another under the table. At such banquets John Kemeny has no
equal. Now too he invites the bolder spirits to take up the usual
challenge. The greater part of the guests, however, decline the
invitation. Only three persons respond to the Prince's challenge. The
first is Wenzinger, the leader of the German mercenaries, a big,
raw-boned man, with a closely-shaven head, bright blue eyes, somewhat
stooping neck, and scarcely visible grey eyebrows. The second is Paul
Beldi, Captain-General of the Szeklers, a grave, handsome,
amiable-looking man with a very high forehead. The wine he has taken
gives a sparkle to his gentle eyes, and his taciturn lips are parted in
a half-smile--drink produces no other effect upon him. He wears a simple
yellow camelot dolman, with a scarlet, silver-embossed girdle round the
waist; his white shirt-collar extends far over his dark-blue kerchief.
His smoothly-combed hair is parted down the middle, brushed behind his
ears, and falls in long locks over his shoulders. The man with delicate
white hands who sits opposite to him, Denis Banfi, Lord-Lieutenant of
Klausenburg, is the third competitor. He is a middle-aged,
broad-shouldered, haughty-looking man, with an air of savage truculence
on his aristocratic face. His thick black beard has never yet been
touched by a razor. His dark, chestnut brown locks lie in spiral rolls
upon his forehead, and flow down over both shoulders in rich crisp
curls. His round face is red by nature, but wine has now made it redder
than ever. His sparkling eyes glance defiantly around. When he addresses
any one he strokes his double chin, screws his neck on one side, and
speaks in a sharp, irritating tone, at the same time throwing back his
haughty head provocatively, and assuming an expression of endless
condescension. His dress consists of a purple dolman with large
enamelled buttons, and over that a short, heavy, white silk tabard
trimmed with swan's-down, the sleeves of which are slit up to the elbows
and garnished with rubies. His golden knightly belt is thrown over his
shoulder with lordly negligence.
At the head of the table sits John Kemeny himself, with the consorts of
Beldi and Banfi one on each side of him. Kemeny, despite his frequent
intercourse and close relations with the West, still prefers to adopt
the oriental costume. He is characterized by short clipped hair, a long
beard, a grave, dignified face, and a curt, monosyllabic style of
speech. The ruling expression of his face is an unmistakable, fatalistic
indifference to everything about him, an indifference which was ere long
to overwhelm him in so terrible a catastrophe.
One of the ladies by his side, Banfi's wife, is a delicate, nervous,
gentle being, scarcely twenty years old. Ever since her sixteenth year
she has stood beneath the influence of her violent, imperious husband,
and is now almost as timid as a child. She scarcely ever dares to raise
her eyes, and then only to look at her lord, whom she loves
idolatrously. Her neck and shoulders are covered by a heavy, watered
silk dress, fastened by a row of diamond buttons. Round her neck twines
a gold chain, between each of the large broad links of which sparkles an
emerald. A silk coif set with pearls adorns her head, reaching half-way
down over her forehead, and jealously hiding the blonde locks of the
lovely lady.
On the other side, between her husband and the Prince, sits Beldi's
wife, still a dazzling beauty. Her complexion ordinarily has the tint of
the white rose, but is now all aglow with the fire of the banquet: her
flushed cheeks seem literally to burn. Her coquettish black eyes roam
hither and thither. A seductive magic lurks in her eyebrows, and when
she lowers her long eyelashes over her burning eyes, how ravishing she
is! Her black locks are held together, not by a coif, but by strings of
pearls artistically intertwined and fastened behind to a little diamond
diadem, from which a long gold filigree veil descends to the ground. Her
dress consists of a tight-fitting, cherry-coloured kirtle of Hungarian
velvet, wide open in front and fastened over her embroidered cambric
smock by strings of pearls. Her snow-white shoulders peep half out of
the short, puffed sleeves, which are fastened in the middle by huge opal
clasps, leaving bare her exquisitely-shaped arms. She wears bracelets of
large oriental pearls, and a pale pink rose is stuck nonchalantly in her
bosom.
The guests sitting at the far end of the table are plainly scandalized
by the coquettish ways of the siren, who, although she has a
marriageable daughter, still presumes to appear publicly in an open
kirtle; but the Prince, the impetuous Banfi, and even her own dove-like
husband, who worships his wife, appear to be all the more delighted with
her in consequence.
The drinking wager had already somewhat exhilarated the worthy
gentlemen, so that they began to mingle their songs with the music which
had been playing in the gallery ever since the banquet began, when the
captain of the guard, Gabriel Haller, suddenly rushed into the room with
a very serious face, and hastening to the Prince, whispered a couple of
words in his ear. Kemeny looked first at him and then at the glass he
held in his hand, emptied it with the utmost composure, and then burst
into a loud peal of laughter.
"Pray tell your tidings to the company, that they may know what is going
on," cried he to Haller, in a loud voice.
Haller hesitated.
"Come! Out with it. You could not, if you tried, invent anything half so
entertaining. Stop playing up there, will you! This is something like a
joke."
The company urged Haller to lose no time in passing the joke on.
"There is not much to tell," said Haller, shrugging his shoulders. "It
is only that Ali Pasha has proclaimed Michael Apafi Prince of
Transylvania."
"Ha! ha! ha!" resounded on all sides. The Prince, with comic
affectation, turned first to one and then to the other.
"Who is the individual? Does any one know him? Has anybody ever heard of
him?"
Lady Banfi turned pale and clung tightly to her husband's arm, who
leaned his elbow on the table and replied with sublime indifference--
"The poor devil is, I believe, a very distant connection of mine. He has
married some relation or other of my wife's. He was for a long time a
slave among the Tartars, and the Turks (being wroth with us just now)
have no doubt only released him on condition that he allows himself to
be made Prince. He must be clean out of his senses."
At this all the gentlemen laughed still more loudly than before.
"Well, we'll go and inaugurate him," said Kemeny sarcastically, throwing
back his head.
"That has already been done, your Highness," put in Haller.
"Where? By whom?" asked the good-humoured Prince, with arched eyebrows.
"At Kis-Selyk, by the Diet!"
Kemeny intimated by a wave of his hand and a contraction of his eyebrows
that this explanation was not quite clear to him.
"Who then were present? Where were the Estates? All the men of any
importance in the land are here with us."
"There were Stephen Apafi, Nalaczi, Kun, Daczo, and some two hundred
Szeklers."
"Well, we'll go and count them as soon as we have disposed of our other
affairs," said the Prince contemptuously. "Pray give Master Haller a
chair!"
"But they are not awaiting us there. They are marching against us. By
this time they must be at Segesvar."
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Kemeny. "I suppose, then, Master Michael Apafi
thinks to drive us out of the country with his couple of hundred
Szeklers."
But now Wenzinger rose from his chair, and remarked with soldierly
precision--
"Does your Highness wish me to concentrate the army? We have eight
thousand armed men, and, if it please your Highness, we will disperse
this mob of nondescripts so effectually that not a couple of them shall
remain together."
"Keep your seat!" commanded Kemeny, who treated the whole affair with
the most sovereign contempt. "Sit down again and drink! Let them come a
little nearer! Why should we inconvenience ourselves by going out
against them? We can then take the whole lot together bag and baggage. I
much regret, my lord Denis Banfi, that this fellow is a kinsman of
yours; but, out of regard for you, I will take care that he is not
broken on the wheel--I will simply have him _stuffed_!"
Kemeny's witticism was received with uproarious laughter.
"Give Master Haller a glass. And you up there! go on playing where you
left off."
And once more the music resounded. The gipsy band now played a
_csárdás_.[12] The gentlemen clinked glasses and sang in unison. The
guards outside joined in the song. The glasses flew against the wall.
Every one was ready to dash his glass into a thousand pieces except
Gabriel Haller, who, being the last comer and therefore tolerably
sober, was ashamed to destroy the expensive Venetian crystals so
recklessly.
[Footnote 12: _Csárdás_ [pr. _chárdásh_]. The national
dance of Hungary. It is danced in 3/4 time by single
couples, who improvise the figures. It commences with a
very slow and stately movement, gradually quickening
into a furious gallop.]
"Come! down with it! Let the splinters fly!" roared the Prince at him,
and to please his Highness Haller dutifully but gingerly rapped his
glass against the table till it broke off clean at the neck, quite
decently and respectably, whereupon he bowed low to his Highness with
obsequious humility.
Dame Banfi sighed at the thought of her kinswoman; but Banfi, to show
how very little he cared about the matter, leaped from his chair, and
with the wild music of the _csárdás_ ringing in his ears, invited the
lovely Lady Beldi to a dance.
The merry siren did not require twice bidding. Banfi passed his arm
around her slender waist, pressed her tightly to his breast, and whirled
away with her. The fiery beauty hung with elfin airiness on her
partner's arm.
Then all the other gentlemen present, carried away by Banfi's example,
also leaped from their seats and whirled away with their fair
neighbours, till the whole company resolved itself into a maze of
fantastically revolving figures, every one dancing, applauding, and
huzzahing to his heart's content.
Banfi was an impetuous, hot-blooded man who loved pretty women in
general and at all times. Now, moreover, he was heated with wine, and
thus it came about that as his lovely partner was dangling on his arm
and her glowing cheeks came very near to his, he suddenly so far forgot
himself as to press the bewitching dame to his breast and imprint a
burning kiss upon her lips.
Lady Beldi shrieked aloud, and instantly repulsed the self-forgetful
Lothario. Banfi, much confused, cast a glance around him; but apparently
every one was so taken up with his own amusement, that neither the
shriek nor the kiss had been observed.
Nevertheless, Lady Beldi, very much offended, left off dancing, and when
Banfi began stammering some sort of an apology, she sharply told him to
be off and leave her.
Banfi will one day have to pay very dearly for that kiss!
Nobody had observed it, however, save him whom it most concerned--the
husband. Beldi's eyes had seen it. Oh! you must not imagine that an
uxorious husband is never jealous. Even though he makes as though he
hears and sees nothing, he sees and hears and observes all the same. He
had seen Banfi kiss his wife, although he feigned not to perceive his
consort's confusion as, excited and indignant, she went in search of
him. He took her by the hand and led her out of the room. When they got
outside, he bade her go to her lodgings and dress for a journey.
"Whither are we going?" asked the agitated lady.
"Home to Bodola!"
* * * * *
Of all the guests, Denis Banfi was the only one who saw them quit the
room.
CHAPTER V.
BODOLA.
In one of the innermost recesses of the county of Felsö-Feher, when you
have left behind you the Boza Pass, or avoided it by taking one of the
narrow footpaths which wind along the mountain side, you will come in
sight of the Tatrang valley.
On every side of you are hills wrapped in lilac-coloured mists, and
behind the hills the heaven-aspiring peak of Kapri, glistening with
early-fallen snow. From the mist-shrouded valley below emerge four or
five villages, with their white houses sending up bluish smoke-wreaths
among the green orchards. The little Tatrang stream winds, silvery blue,
in and out among the quiet villages, forming cascades in its downward
progress, which in the dim distance look like fleecy mists. The clouds
sink so deeply down into the valleys that their golden, veil-like shapes
hide first this and then that object from the eyes of the observer on
the hill-tops. There you can see Hosszufalva, with its far-stretching
street. There, again, the tiny church of Zajzonfalva, whose pointed,
tin-covered roof gleams far and wide in the rays of the sun. Tatrang
lies on the banks of the stream, just where a large wooden bridge has
been thrown across it. Far, very far off, black and misty, are to be
seen the walls of Kronstadt and the blue outlines of the still unscathed
citadel. In the valley just below you is the straggling village of
Bodola. The houses lie low, but the church stands on rising ground, and
opposite the village you notice a sort of small fortress with broad
towers, black bastions, and projecting battlements. The western bastion
is built on a steep rock, whence there is a fall of three hundred feet
on to the roofs of the houses below.
It is only in the distance, however, that the castle looks so gloomy. On
approaching nearer, you perceive that what had seemed, from afar, to be
a dark green belt of bushes, is really a wreath of flower-gardens thrown
round the ramparts. The large Gothic windows are adorned with handsome
sculptures and stained glass. A well-kept, serpentine path winds up the
steep rock, and there is a mossy stone seat at every bend. Where the
rock is most precipitous a breastwork has been thrown up. The pointed
turrets of the castle are all painted red, and adorned with fantastic
weathercocks.
The path leading through the Boza Pass to Kronstadt is not more than an
hour's journey from this little castle, and along this path, at the very
time when Prince John Kemeny was still regaling himself at Hermannstadt,
we see a long line of cavalry wending their way into the valley
below--two thousand Turkish horsemen, or thereabouts, distinguishable
from afar by the scarlet tips of their turbans and their snow-white
kaftans. Among them are some hundreds of Wallachian irregulars in brown
gabardines and long black _csalmaks_.[13]
[Footnote 13: _Csalmak_ [pr. _chalmak_]. A low, skin
turban.]
The way is so narrow here that the horsemen can only proceed along in
couples, so that while the rearguard is still painfully making its way
through the narrow defile between converging rocks, the vanguard has
already reached Tatrang.
The Turkish general is a middling-sized, sunburnt man, with eyes as bold
and bellicose as an eagle's. A large scar runs right across his
forehead. His beard curls in little locks around his chin. His moustache
is twisted fiercely upwards on both sides, making one suspect an
excessively fiery temper in its possessor, a suspicion confirmed by his
hard and curt mode of speech, the haughty carriage of his head, and the
impatient movements of his body.
He halts his little army outside the village, to give the rearmost time
to come up. Last of all roll a few wagons and a large pumpkin-shaped
coach. This is all the heavy baggage which the Turks carry with them.
The rearguard is led by a child whose round, cherub face contrasts
strangely with his glittering scimitar and his grave, commanding look.
He cannot be more than twelve. Inside the coach, the curtains of which
are thrown back on both sides so as to freely admit the evening air, we
perceive a young lady of about five-and-twenty years of age, dressed
half in Turkish, half in Christian costume, for she wears the wide
silken hose and the short blue open kaftan of the Turkish ladies, but
has taken off her turban, and her face, contrary to Turkish custom, is
without a veil. She gazes with the utmost composure out of the carriage
window, bestowing her attention now upon the landscape and now upon the
passing peasants.
The Turkish commander is marshalling his forces in the village below.
They seem used to the strictest discipline. Every one looks steadily at
his leader without moving a muscle. At the head of the left wing stands
the little boy; a tall, muscular man leads the right. The Wallachs are
drawn up in the rear.
"My brave fellows,"--the Pasha addresses his troops in a hard, sharp
voice--"you will pitch your tents here! Every one will remain in his
place hard by his saddled horse, without laying aside arms or armour.
Ferhad Aga[14] with twelve men will go into the village and respectfully
ask the magistrate to send hither forty hundredweights of bread, just as
much flesh, and double as much hay and oats, at the average price of
four asper[15] per pound, neither more nor less."
[Footnote 14: _Aga._ An honorary title among the Turks,
here equivalent to lieutenant.]
[Footnote 15: _Asper._ A small silver coin worth about
fifteen to twenty kreutzers.]
Then the Pasha turned towards the Wallachs--
"You, dogs! don't suppose that we have come hither to plunder! Stir not
from this spot, for if I find out that so much as a goose has been
stolen from the village, I'll hang up your leaders and decimate the rest
of you!"
He then selected four horsemen.
"You will follow me," said he; "the rest remain here. This very night we
resume our march. During my absence Feriz Beg commands."
The little boy bowed.
"If Feriz Beg receives orders from me to quit you, you will obey Ferhad
Aga till I return."
With that the Pasha struck his spurs into his horse's sides, and
galloped with his escort towards Bodola.
Then the boy whom the Pasha had called Feriz Beg rode forward with
soldierly assurance, and in a deep, sonorous voice gave the order to
dismount. His hard-mouthed Arab plunged, kicked, and reared, but the
little commander, heedless of the capers of his steed, delivered his
further orders with perfect self-possession.
Meanwhile the Pasha pursued his way towards Bodola Castle.
Paul Beldi had arrived there only the day before with his wife, having
quitted Kemeny's Court without a word of explanation, and was standing
in the porch at the moment when the Turkish horsemen trotted into the
courtyard. In those days the relations of Transylvania with the Turks
were so peculiar, that visits of this kind might be made at any time
without any previous announcement.
The Pasha no sooner beheld Beldi, than he sprang from his horse, ran up
the steps to him, and brusquely presented himself--"I am Kucsuk Pasha.
Being in the way, I came to have a word with thee if thou canst listen."
"Command me," replied Beldi, pointing to the reception-room, and
motioning to his guest to enter first.
It was a square-built room, the walls of which were painted with
oriental landscapes, the spaces between the windows being filled by
large cut-glass mirrors in steel frames. The marble floor was covered
with large variegated carpets. Round about the walls hung ancestral
pictures, with clusters here and there of ancient weapons of strange
shape and construction. In the middle of the room stood a large green
marble table with fantastically twisted legs. Huge arm-chairs with
morocco coverings and ponderous carvings were dispersed about the room.
Facing the entrance was a door leading to a balcony, commanding a
panorama of the snow-capped mountains. The evening twilight cast red and
lilac patches through the painted windows on the faces of those who are
now entering.
"How can I serve you?" inquired Beldi of the Pasha.
"Thou art well aware," replied Kucsuk, "that great discord now prevails
in this country on account of the throne."
"It does not concern me. I have made up my mind to remain neutral."
"I have not come hither to beg for thy advice or assistance in that
matter; the sword will decide it. What brings me to thee is a purely
family affair which concerns me deeply."
Beldi, much surprised, made his guest sit down beside him.
"Speak," said he.
"Thou mayest perhaps have heard, that once upon a time a daughter of the
Kallay family fell in love with a young Turkish horseman, naturally
without the consent of her kinsfolk?"
"Yes, I've heard of it. People say that the young Turk was equally
victorious in love and in war."
"Possibly. His victories in war, however, have disqualified him from
being the Knight of Love. Thou seest that my face is furrowed with
scars; know that I am the man who wedded that woman!"
Beldi began to regard the Pasha with curiosity and astonishment.
"I have continued to love that woman devotedly," pursued the Pasha.
"That may appear strange to thee in the mouth of a Turk, but so it is. I
have had neither wife nor concubine beside her. She has borne me a son,
of whom I am proud. My affairs just now are in such a critical condition
that I must, with God's help, work wonders, or perish on the
battle-field. Thou knowest that the religion of Mahommed highly commends
such a death. I have therefore no anxiety on that score. It is the
thought of my wife which disturbs me. If she should lose me and my son,
she would be in great straits. She would be persecuted in Turkey because
she remained a Christian; she would be persecuted in Transylvania
because she married a Mussulman. There my kinsfolk, here her own, are
her enemies. I come to thee therefore with a petition. I have heard tell
of thee as an honourable man, and of thy wife as a worthy woman. Receive
my consort into thy family circle. She will not be a burden to thee, for
I leave her everything I possess. All she wants is thy protection. If
thou dost promise me that, thou canst count upon my eternal friendship
and gratitude, and mayst command my fortune, my sword, and my life in
case I survive."
Beldi pressed the hand of the Pasha.
"Bring your wife hither. I and my family will welcome her as a
kinswoman."
"I may bring her then?"
"We shall be delighted to see her," returned Beldi; and he commanded his
retainers to escort the Pasha's suite back to Tatrang with torches, and
fetch from thence his carriage.
Kucsuk sent word by them that Feriz Beg was to come too.
Meanwhile Beldi introduced Kucsuk to his wife, and he was not a little
delighted to find that she recollected the Pasha's wife as one of her
girlish friends, whom she looked forward to see again with sincere joy
and some curiosity.
After the lapse of some hours the carriage rumbled noisily into the
well-paved courtyard. Feriz Beg escorted it on horseback.
Lady Beldi hastened down the steps to meet the Pasha's wife as she
stepped out of the coach, and received her with a cry of joy--"What!
Catharine! Do you still know me?"
The lady immediately recognized her youthful playfellow, and the two
friends rushed into each other's arms, kissed again and again, and said
of course the sweetest things to each other--"Why, darling, you are more
handsome than ever!"--"And you, dear! What a stately woman you have
grown!" etc., etc., etc.
"Look, this is my son," said Catharine, pointing to Feriz Beg, who,
after dismounting, had hastened with childlike tenderness to help his
mother out of her coach.
"Oh, what a little darling!" cried Lady Beldi, quite enchanted, and
covering the rosy-cheeked child with kisses.
If only she had known that this child was a child no longer, but a
general!
"And I've got children too!" continued Lady Beldi, with maternal
emulation. "You shall see them! Does your son speak Hungarian?"
"Hungarian!" cried Catharine, almost offended; "what! the child of an
Hungarian mother, and not speak Hungarian! How can you ask such a
question?"
"So much the better," said Lady Beldi, "the children will become friends
all the more quickly. From henceforth you belong to the family. Our
husbands have settled all that already, and we shall be so delighted!"
The amiable and sprightly housewife then embraced her friend once more,
took Feriz Beg by the hand, and led them both into the family circle,
chatting merrily all the time, and asking and answering a thousand
questions.
A cheerful fire was sparkling in the chimney of the ladies' cabinet.
Large flowered-silk curtains darkened the walls. On a little ivory table
ticked a gorgeous clock, ablaze with rubies and chrysoprases. Sofas
covered in cornflower-blue velvet offered you a luxurious repose. On a
round table in the centre of the room, from which an embroidered Persian
tapestry fell in rich folds to the ground, stood a heavy candelabrum of
massive silver, representing a siren holding on high a taper in each of
her outstretched hands.
In front of the fine white marble chimney-piece were Dame Beldi's
children. The elder, Sophia, a tall, slight, bashful-looking beauty of
some fourteen summers, was bustling about the fire. She still wore her
hair as children do, thrown back in two long, large plaits which reached
almost to her heels. This girl was afterwards Paul Wesselenyi's consort.
The second child, a little girl of about four, was kneeling at the feet
of her elder sister, and throwing dried flowers into the fire. She went
by the name of _Aranka_, which in Hungarian means "little goldy," for
she carried her name on her locks, which flowed over her round little
shoulders in light golden waves. Her vivacious features, sparkling eyes,
and tiny hands are never still, and now too she is mischievously teasing
and thwarting her elder sister, laughing aloud with artless glee
whenever Sophia, naturally without succeeding in the least, tries to be
very angry.
On hearing footsteps and voices at the door, both children spring up
hastily. The elder one, perceiving strangers, tries to smooth the
creases out of her dress, while Aranka rushes uproariously to her
mother, embraces her knees, and looks up at her with her plump little
smiling face.
"These are my children," said Lady Beldi with inward satisfaction.
Catharine embraced the elder girl, who shyly presented her forehead to
be kissed.
"And here's your cousin, little Feriz. You must kiss him too!" said Lady
Beldi, pushing together the bashful children, who scarcely dared to
press the tips of their lips together. Sophia immediately afterwards
blushed right up to the ears, and rushed out of the room. Nothing would
induce her to show herself again that evening.
"Oh, you shamefaced mimosa!" cried Lady Beldi, laughing loudly. "Why,
Aranka is braver than you. Eh, my little girl? You're not afraid to kiss
Cousin Feriz, are you?"
The little thing looked up at the boy and drew back, clinging fast all
the time to her mother's skirts, but never once removing her large,
dark-blue eyes from Feriz, who knelt down, took the little girl in his
arms, and gave her a hearty kiss on her round, rosy cheeks.
Having gone safely through this ordeal, Aranka was quite at home with
her new acquaintance. She bade the Turkish cousin sit him down on a
stool by the fire, and, laying her head on his lap, began asking him
questions about everything he wore, from the hilt of his scimitar to the
plume in his turban--absolutely nothing escaped her curiosity.
"Let the children play!" cried Lady Beldi merrily, as with high
good-humour she led her friend out upon the balcony, from whence they
could survey the whole Tatrang valley now floating in the bright
moonlight.
Here the two women--while the men were engaged with serious matters, and
the children were playing--here the two women entered into one of those
long confidential chats which young ladies find so charming when they
are by themselves, especially when they have as much to ask and answer
as these two had.
Kucsuk Pasha's wife was a middling-sized, powerfully-built woman. Her
well-rounded bosom and broad shoulders were shown off by her
tight-fitting kaftan, which was fastened round the waist by a girdle of
gold thread, and reached somewhat lower down than is usual with the
dresses of Turkish ladies, just permitting a glance at her wide,
flowing, red silk pantaloons and her dainty little yellow slippers. Her
face, if a trifle too stern and hard, was yet most lovely; her full and
florid complexion betokened a somewhat choleric temperament; her thick,
coal-black eyebrows had almost grown together, and her gaze was burning
in its intensity.
Lady Beldi made her sit down by her side, took her familiarly by the
hand, and playfully asked--
"Your husband then has no other wife but you?"
Catharine laughed, and replied with just a shade of impatience--
"I suppose, now, you fancy that an Hungarian woman has only to wed a
Turk to instantly become his slave? You have no idea how dearly my
husband loves me."
"I am sure of it, Catharine. But recollect that my question related to
what has long been customary among you."
"Among us! My dear, I am not a Turkish woman!"
"What then?"
"A Christian, just as you are. We were married by a Calvinist minister,
the Rev. Martin Biro, now an exile in Constantinople, and for whom my
husband, out of gratitude, has built a church where the Hungarians and
Transylvanians who dwell there may attend divine service."
"Really! Then your husband does not persecute the Christians?"
"Certainly not. He believes that every religion is good, as leading to
heaven, but that his own faith is the best, as opening the gate of the
very highest heaven. Moreover, my husband has a very good heart, and is
much more enlightened than most of his fellows."
"But why have you not tried to convert him to the Christian religion?"
"Why should I? Because our poets regularly conclude their love-romances
in which a Turk falls in love with a Christian girl, by bringing him to
baptism and dressing him in a mente instead of a kaftan? Here, however,
you have one of those romances of real life, in which a woman follows
her spouse and sacrifices everything for him."
"No doubt you are right, Catharine; but you must let me get used to the
idea that a Christian, let alone an Hungarian, girl may wed a Turk."
"And listen, dear Lady Beldi: surely God would have imputed less merit
to me, if I had converted my husband to our faith, instead of leaving
him in the faith wherein he was born? As a Christian renegade he would
have occupied but a humble place in our little church; while as one of
the most influential of the Pashas, he has made the fate of all the
Christians in Turkey so tolerable, that the Christian subjects of other
states flock over to us as to a land of promise. Often, when he has
received his share of the spoils of battle, he has handed me a long list
with the names of those of my enslaved countrymen whom he has ransomed
at a great price. He has expended immense treasures in this way. And
believe me, love, the perusal of such a list gives me more pleasure than
the sight of the most beautiful oriental pearls which my husband might
easily have purchased with the amount, and it has raised him higher in
my estimation than if he had learnt the whole Psalter by heart. And he
is not the man to break the word he has once given, whether it be to God
or to his fellow-man. If he were capable of abjuring his religion, I
could believe no longer in his love, for then he would cease to be him
whom I have always known; he would cease to be the man who, when once he
has said a thing, always abides by it, never goes back from, and is to
be moved neither by the terrors of death nor the tears of a woman."
Lady Beldi embraced her friend, and kissed her glowing cheeks.
"You are right, my good Catharine! 'Tis our prejudices that prevent us
from rising higher than everyday thoughts. It is true. Love also has her
faith, her religion. But how about your country? Have you never thought
of that?"
Catharine rose with proud self-satisfaction from her seat, and pressed
her friend's hand.
"Let this convince you that I indeed love my country. I am about to
sacrifice for it the lives of my husband and my son, whom perhaps I now
behold for the last time."
Lady Beldi's face plainly showed that she did not quite grasp the
meaning of these words, and Catharine was about to explain them to her,
when a servant announced that the gentlemen had long been awaiting them
in the dining-room.
Lady Beldi thereupon gave her arm to her friend and led her into the
dining-room. The children had already become such close friends that
Aranka allowed Feriz Beg to carry her in to dinner, playing all the time
with childish coquetry with the diamond clasp of his agraffe.
The lady of the house assigned to every one his place. Catharine took
the upper end of the table. On her right sat the Pasha, on her left the
hostess. The host took his place at the lower end of the table. Feriz
and Aranka sat side by side. Opposite Feriz was an empty place, the shy
Sophia's, whom nothing could induce to come to dinner.
Catharine seeing that a large wine-jug was placed in front of her
husband, quickly seized it in order to exchange it for a cut-glass
caraffe full of pure, sparkling spring water. Lady Beldi remarked the
action, and glanced mischievously at her embarrassed friend.
"He never drinks wine," said Catharine apologetically. "It is not good
for him. He is of a somewhat excitable nature."
Kucsuk smiled and lifted Catharine's hand to his lips.
"Why gloss over the truth? Why not say straight out that I do not drink
wine because the Koran forbids it, because I am a Mussulman?"
Beldi shook his head at his wife and pointed at the children in order to
give another turn to the conversation.
"It looks as if your son were already quite at home with us, Kucsuk. You
shall see, when you come back, what a Magyar we have made of him."
Kucsuk and Feriz exchanged a proud and rapid glance, and then both of
them looked at Beldi.
The child's features had suddenly and completely changed; at that moment
he looked wondrously like his father. There was the same hard, stony
glance, the same defiant bearing, the same haughty elevation of the
brows.
"So thou dost imagine, Beldi," said Kucsuk severely, "that I only
brought my son hither to leave him with thee?"
"But surely you do not mean to take that child with you to battle?"
"Child dost thou call him! He is already the commander of four hundred
mounted Spahis; has already been in three engagements; has had two
horses shot under him, and is to command the left wing of my forces in
the impending battle."
The Beldis looked with amazement at the child, who, with all eyes fixed
upon him, assumed his most manly air.
"But I hope that you will at least keep him by your side in the heat of
the fight?" said Lady Beldi, much disturbed.
"Not at all. I lead the centre. He too will give a good account of
himself. When I was his age I already wore the Nishan[16] order on my
breast, and I hope that this time he will not return home without having
at least deserved it."
[Footnote 16: _Nishan Order._ A Turkish order of merit
for valour, instituted by Selim III. It consisted of a
gold medallion bearing the Sultan's effigy.]
"But if it comes to a _mêlée_, and he is in danger?" continued Lady
Beldi, with increasing apprehension.
"Then he will fight as a brave soldier should," returned Kucsuk,
stroking his moustache, which immediately twisted upwards of its own
accord.
"Ah, no; he is far too tender to sustain a conflict with grown men!"
cried Dame Beldi compassionately.
"Feriz," cried Kucsuk to his son, "just take down that sabre from the
wall, and show our friends that thou canst wield it like a man."
The boy sprang up, and, proudly confident in his own strength, chose
from the weapons that hung on the wall not a sabre but a huge
club--seized it by the extreme end of the handle, and swung it with
outstretched arms in every direction with an ease and a dexterity which
would have done honour to any man. His feat was rewarded by enthusiastic
applause.
"Deuce take it!" cried the astonished Beldi; "that is what I call a good
graft, a Magyar scion on a Turkish stock. You did not carry off his
mother for nothing. Come, Kucsuk--give me that lad!"
"Be it so! But give me thy daughter."
"Which? Make your choice."
"She who sits next to him. When she has grown up they will make a good
pair, and then we shall both have a son and a daughter."
Beldi laughed heartily, and both the women exchanged a smile. Kucsuk
looked with an air of satisfaction at his son, who took his aigrette
from his turban, tore off the diamond buckle which had pleased Aranka so
much, and handed it to the little girl with lavish gallantry. The child
timidly stretched out her tiny hand towards the costly gift, the
material as well as the moral worth of which she was far from
suspecting, but which nothing in the world would now have made her
relinquish.
The parents suddenly became silent. Their faces still wore a smile, but
there was a melancholy earnestness in their eyes.
CHAPTER VI.
THE BATTLE OF NAGY SZÖLLÖS.
Meanwhile Michael Apafi, comforted by Ali Pasha's assurance that help
was nigh at hand, had thrown himself into Segesvar, and there awaited
the turn of Fortune's wheel. John Kemeny came out against him with a
vast host. He had with him an imposing array of German and Hungarian
troops, but what his army really wanted was an enterprising general.
Michael Apafi had very little to oppose to such a host--a few hundred
stubborn, undisciplinable Szekler spearmen, a handful of Saxon burghers,
and a bodyguard of blue Janissaries, altogether only about a tenth part
of Kemeny's army.
Acting therefore on the advice of his brother Stephen, the Prince
resolved to remain strictly on the defensive at Segesvar till
auxiliaries should reach him from his Turkish protector. This resolution
pleased the Saxon burghers immensely, for they were well able to defend
themselves behind the walls of their own city, but never felt quite at
ease in the open field. Upon the Szeklers, however, Apafi's resolution
produced just the contrary effect.
It was Nalaczi's mission to keep the Szeklers in a martial humour, and
one evening he took them all into the tavern, and filled them with such
ardour that at break of day they marched clamorously beneath the windows
of the Prince, and swore by hook and by crook that they must have one of
the city gates opened for them at once, so that they might fall upon
Kemeny there and then and fight him to the death.
The Prince and his counsellors went down among them in great alarm, and
tried in every way to make it clear to them that Kemeny's suite alone
was more numerous than all the Szeklers put together; that at least
one-half of his army was armed with muskets, whereas with them scarcely
any one except the Saxon burghers knew even how to use fire-arms; and
that if they rushed out at one door, the enemy would rush in at the
other, and then there would be neither outside nor inside--and much more
to the same effect.
But whoever fancies he can drive out of a Szekler's head what he has
once got into it is mightily mistaken.
"Either you must let us march against the foe or home we go!" cried
they. "We don't mean to lie here for the next ten years like the
Trojans, for there's work to be done at home. Apportion, therefore, so
many of the enemy to each one of us; let every man go out and slay his
lot, and then in God's name dismiss us. We won't submit to be blockaded
and rationed on dog and rat-flesh."
"My good fellows, if you don't like stopping here, go home by all
means," was Apafi's ultimatum; "but to fight a battle in my
circumstances were mere madness."
The Szeklers did not waste another word; but they seized their wallets,
shouldered their lances, and marched out of Segesvar as if they never
had had anything to do with it.
From that moment the Szeklers became Apafi's enemies to his dying day.
Next day Kemeny's host stood beneath the walls of the town where Apafi
now barely had armed men sufficient to guard the gates.
The siege operations were entrusted to Wenzinger as having had most
experience in warfare. This great general, true to the principles of the
school in which he had been brought up, first of all carefully surveyed
every inch of his ground; then he cautiously occupied every position
which by any possibility might become important, and took care also that
the besieging host should be covered at all points--in short, he so spun
out his preparations by his systematic way of going to work, that by the
time he had really begun to think about the siege, tidings reached him
that the Turkish auxiliaries were advancing by forced marches. Thereupon
(still faithful to his system) he re-concentrated his scattered forces,
and prepared to march against the Turks, the Hungarian gentry being
ready to a man to follow him. But John Kemeny was against a general
advance, holding that if the Turkish contingent was strong enough to put
his forces to flight, he would have Segesvar in his rear, and thus would
be caught between two fires. He therefore preferred to await his
opponent's attack, and retiring in consequence from the town, pitched
his camp at Nagy Szöllös, whence he looked calmly on while Kucsuk
Pasha's horsemen, amid the bray of clarions, made their entry into
Segesvar.
Apafi had eaten and drunk nothing for three days from sheer anxiety at
the straits into which he had fallen, through no fault of his own, when
word was brought him of the arrival of the auxiliaries. It was late in
the evening when Kucsuk Pasha, after a fatiguing march along
unfrequented mountain paths, entered the town. Apafi rode out to meet
him, and saluted the Turks as his guardian angels. But great indeed was
his astonishment, after mustering the troops twice or thrice, to find
that at the very highest estimate they were only a fifth part of the
forces opposed to him.
"What does your Excellency mean to do with this little band?" he
uneasily asked the Pasha.
"God alone knows, who reads the destiny of man in heaven above,"
returned Kucsuk with laconic fatalism; and that was all that the Prince
could get out of him. That night the Turks pitched their tents in the
market-place, immediately opposite the dwelling of the Prince.
Apafi, after so many sleepless nights, could at last enjoy repose. It
did his heart good to hear beneath his windows the snorting of the
war-horses and the sabre-clattering of the sentries, and he gradually
dozed off in the midst of the comforting hubbub, reflecting, that with
such an army he could at least defend himself for some time, and that
meanwhile a great many things might happen. Long before daybreak,
however, he was awakened by the hammering of planks, the usual signal to
the Turkish cavalry to feed their horses. "They feed their horses very
early in the morning," thought the Prince, and he turned over on to the
other side and again fell asleep. While still half-dreaming he fancied
he heard the songs of the dervishes, songs apt to make even the wakeful
feel drowsy. Then a loud and sudden flourish of trumpets once more
aroused his Highness from his slumbers. "Egad! What are they about in
the middle of the night?" cried he peevishly; got up, looked out of the
window, and saw that the Turks were all sitting motionless on their
horses in the dark. Then came a second flourish, and the whole squadron
started off, the clattering of the horses' hoofs on the paving-stones
and the watch-words of the sentinels resounding far and wide through
the silent night. "This Pasha is a very restless man," thought Apafi.
"Even at night, and after so many fatigues, he grudges his men their
proper repose." And with that he again turned in, and fell into a yet
sweeter sleep, from which he only awoke on the following morning.
The sun stood high in the heavens when Apafi rang for his steward and
factotum, John Cserey.
The first question he put to him was, "What is the Pasha about?"
"He quitted the town last night, and sent back a messenger, who has been
waiting outside there ever since dawn to deliver his message."
"Let him come in at once," cried Apafi, and he began hastily to dress.
Stephen Apafi, Nalaczi, and Daczo entered the Prince's apartments at the
same time as Kucsuk's messenger. They too had been waiting for the last
two hours for the Prince to awake, and were very curious to hear the
Pasha's message.
"Speak quickly!" cried Apafi to the Turk, who bowed to the ground,
folded his arms across his breast, and said--
"Illustrious Prince! my master, Kucsuk Pasha, speaks these words to thee
through the mouth of thy servant: Remain quietly in Segesvar and be of
good cheer. Let the troops that are with thee mount guard upon the
walls. Meantime my master, Kucsuk Pasha, is marching against John
Kemeny, and will fight him wherever he meets him, yea! though he lose
his host to a man, yet will he fight with him to the death."
The Prince was so confounded by these tidings that he had not a word to
say for himself. Kucsuk's forces were scarcely a fifth part of Kemeny's,
and, moreover, they were still exhausted by their forced marches. To
expect a victory under such circumstances was to look for miracles.
"Let us make up our minds for the worst and trust in God," said Stephen
Apafi; and, under the circumstances, this was perhaps the most sensible
thing that could have been said.
So Michael Apafi let things take their own course. If any one had a mind
to guard the walls he was free to do so. So the commanders left the
soldiers to their own devices, and the soldiers did nothing at all. The
fate of the realm lay in God's hands in the fullest sense of the word,
for man had withdrawn his hand from it altogether. One thing, however,
the Prince did. He sent old Cserey up to the top of the church tower
that he might keep a good look-out, and come and tell his master the
moment he saw troops approaching.
* * * * *
John Kemeny had established himself at Nagy Szöllös, which is a few
hours' journey from Segesvar. He had fixed his head-quarters at the
parsonage there, and to this day the little room is pointed out in which
he slept for the last time, as well as the round hillock in the garden,
where stood at that time a pretty little wooden summer-house in which
the Prince began the dinner which he never finished.
The Hungarian gentlemen had a long debate with Wenzinger and the Prince
about the plan of campaign. Some were for taking the town by storm,
others preferred starving it out by a blockade.
Wenzinger shook his head.
"Allow me, gentlemen, to express my opinion also," said the experienced
German. "I am an old soldier. I have knocked about in all manner of
campaigns; I know the value of numbers in war, but also the value of
position, and well understand how to weigh the one against the other. I
have learnt by experience that one hundred men under favourable
conditions are often more than a match for a thousand. I also know how
enthusiasm or indifference can multiply or diminish numbers. I can also
calculate the relative importance of the various kinds of arms; nor is
the military value of patriotism an unknown quantity to me. Now we have
ten thousand men, and there are not more than three thousand opposed to
us. But we must not lose sight of the fact, that the greater part of our
Hungarian forces consists of cavalry, and to storm walls with cavalry is
clearly impossible. Scarcely less impossible is it to persuade the
mounted Hungarians to fight on foot. I would further remark, that
although the Hungarian is a veritable hero when he stands face to face
with a foreign foe, nevertheless, whenever I have seen him called upon
to fight against his own countrymen (and often enough have I had that
opportunity) he becomes as slothful and indifferent as if he were only
awaiting the first pretext for taking to his heels. Then, again, we
possess a troop of Servians, whom I consider very good shots, and if we
only had them safely behind the walls of that town we might buckle to it
against a ten-fold superiority; but outside fortifications these people
are scarcely worth anything: they are strong enough to defend, but not
strong enough to storm a bastion. We ought therefore to demolish the
walls as soon as possible: but then, again, we have no cannon, and would
have to send as far as Temesvar for our field-artillery, and while they
were on their way to us along the vile roads--and of course it is a
further question whether the commandant there would send them at all at
our bidding--Ali Pasha would have time to return with fresh troops, and
we should lose all our labour. I consider, therefore, that we ought not
to remain here any longer. We are incapable of conquering that fortress
either by assault or blockade. We cannot, on the other hand, suppose
that the enemy would be insane enough to be lured into the open field.
The most prudent thing, therefore, that we can do under such
circumstances, is to set out for Hungary without delay, collect
reinforcements and artillery, and then endeavour to force the enemy to
an engagement."
Kemeny, little accustomed to listen to such lengthy discourses, could
scarcely wait till Wenzinger paused, and, as if the whole plan of
campaign deserved not the slightest thought, he now interrupted him with
frivolous impatience.
"Mr. General, leave all that till the afternoon. After dinner we shall
see everything in quite another light."
"No, not after dinner," blustered the German. "No time is to be lost. We
are in the midst of war, where every hour is precious; not at a Diet,
where matters may be debated for years together."
At this sally the Hungarian gentlemen laughed heartily, seized Wenzinger
by the arm, and dragged him off to the banquet, joking all the way.
"There will be lots of time after dinner!" cried they.
"Well, well," said Wenzinger, half in jest and half in anger; "it is a
fine thing, no doubt, to have soldiers who will do everything but obey
your orders!"
Not another word did he speak at table, but he drank all the more.
In the midst of these table-joys, John Uzdi, the commander of the
skirmishers, stepped into the Prince's pavilion with a terrified
countenance, and scarce able to speak for excitement.
"Your Highness! I see great clouds of dust approaching from the
direction of Segesvar!"
The Prince turned his head towards the messenger, and said with comic
phlegm--
"If it gives you any satisfaction to stare at your clouds of dust, pray
go on looking at them as long as you please!"
But Wenzinger sprang from his seat.
"I should like to have a look at them myself," cried he, hastily
ordering his heavy charger to be saddled; "possibly the enemy has come
out to entice us nearer."
The others did not trouble themselves about the matter, but continued to
make merry.
In a few minutes, however, back came Wenzinger, unable to conceal the
secret joy which a professional soldier always feels when his plan is
about to succeed.
"Victory, gentlemen!" cried he. "The enemy is marching against us in
force. If it is not merely a diversion, and he really means business,
the day is ours."
Some of the gentlemen at once rose from their seats and began buckling
on their swords. The Prince, however, remained sitting.
"Are they still a good way off?" he indolently inquired of Wenzinger.
"Scarcely half-an-hour's march!" exclaimed the latter with sparkling
eyes.
"Then let them come a little nearer still, and in the meantime sit down
by our side."
"I'll be damned if I do!" cried the general angrily. "As it is, I have
scarcely time enough to marshal my forces."
"But why marshal them at all? Let them advance upon the enemy _en
masse_, that he may be terrified out of his life at the bare sight of
them."
"Yes, but I don't want to scare them away, I want rather to surround
them. I shall confront them with one-half the host, the rest I shall
distribute as follows: one division shall creep through the maize-fields
and cut off the enemy's retreat to the town; another shall attack him in
flank from above the mill-dam; a third shall remain behind in reserve.
Your Highness will join the reserve with your Court."
"What!" cried Kemeny, deeply offended, "I in the reserve! The proper
place for an Hungarian Prince is always the fore-front of the battle!"
"That was all very well formerly; but in a general engagement, such
precious personages require constant looking after, lest any accident
befall them, and are only in the commander's way, and seriously
interfere with his tactics. If, however, your Highness expressly desires
it, I will surrender my bâton to you at once, and take my place in the
ranks. Here there is only room for one generalissimo!"
"Keep your place and take what measures you please, but pray let me
choose my own position. That need not interfere with you in the least."
And Kemeny, with a few other gentlemen, remained at table.
Wenzinger had scarcely made the necessary preparations when word was
brought to the Prince that the army was in battle array. Then Kemeny
stood up with imperturbable _sangfroid_ and buckled on his sword, but
refused to wear armour.
"Why should I?" cried he. "Do you suppose that the heart beats more
courageously behind a coat of mail?"
So they brought him his most stately charger, whose restive head two
stalwart grooms could only hold with difficulty. The coal-black,
fiery-eyed steed plunged and reared; its nostrils snorted steam; white
frothy flakes fell from its mouth all over its breast; its long waving
tail reached almost to the ground.
Kemeny swung himself into the saddle, drew his sword, and galloped to
the front. Every one was amazed at his skilful horsemanship; he seemed
to have been grafted on to his stallion, so perfectly did all his
movements correspond with its gambols. On reaching the front, the
stately charger fell into a mincing pace, sharply striking the ground
behind it with its prancing hoofs, and nodding its head as if saluting
the host, which broke with one accord into a loud shout of "Eljen!" At
the same instant the Prince's horse stumbled and plunged violently
forward on both knees at once. The silver bit in its mouth snapped in
two, and it was only his extraordinary skill and dexterity which saved
the Prince from flying headlong.
His suite came hastening to his side.
"That is a bad omen, your Highness!" stammered Alexius Bethlen. "Your
Highness should mount another horse."
"'Tis not a bad omen," replied Kemeny, "for my horse has not thrown me."
"Nevertheless, your Highness, it would be well to change your mount.
That horse is frightened, and will do nothing but rear."
"I mean to keep my seat, if only to show that omens have neither meaning
nor terror for me," said Kemeny defiantly; and he ordered the broken bit
to be replaced by another. At the same instant Kucsuk Pasha's trumpets
sounded a charge.
* * * * *
The Turkish cavalry formed a half-moon with the horns turned outwards.
Kucsuk himself rode in the centre.
The Pasha on this occasion wore an unusually splendid costume. His
kaftan was of rich-flowered silk wrought with gold; beneath the kaftan
peeped forth a dolman of cloth of gold; a costly oriental shawl
encircled his loins; his scimitar, buckled on behind, sparkled with
gems; a ger-falcon's plume, fastened by a diamond agraffe, waved from
his turban. His charger, a fiery barb with slender head, long, twisted
mane, and black flying tail, threw back its head proudly and shook its
richly-fringed saddle-cloth. A sort of gold netting surrounded its whole
body, from the fringes of which depended numbers of large, jingling,
golden half-moons.
As soon as Kucsuk Pasha perceived Kemeny's troops, he dismounted, threw
himself with his face to the ground, thrice kissed the earth, thrice
raised himself on his knees, uplifted his face devoutly to heaven, and
called upon the name of Allah. Then he remounted his horse; sent for his
son; tore one of the falcon feathers out of his turban, and sticking it
in the youthful hero's, said--"Go now to the left wing of the host, and
fight as becomes a man of valour! For 'tis better that thou shouldst
fall by the hand of the enemy, and lie dead before me, than that thou
shouldst fly, and this my sword" (here he smote the scimitar by his side
with his fist) "should slay thee!"
Feriz Beg reverentially bowed his head, kissed the hem of his father's
kaftan, and proudly galloped to the post assigned to him, feeling that
every eye was fixed upon the falcon's feather which his father had
fastened to his turban.
The Pasha now rode along the ranks and addressed these words to his
cavalry--
"My brave fellows! the enemy is before you! I say not whether they be
many or few--you can see for yourselves. They are indeed many times more
numerous than we; but trust in Allah, and fight valiantly! It is more
honourable to die here sword in hand than to fly like cowards. We are in
the midst of Transylvania. He who flies will fall by the sword of the
pursuer ere he reaches the frontier, and he who escapes the pursuer will
fall by the bowstring of the Padishah. We have no other choice but
victory or death!"
Then he turned to the Wallachs. Them he addressed with harsh and
wrathful words.
"You dogs, you! I know right well that you are ready to bolt at the
first shot; but know that I have ordered the troops behind you to
instantly cut every one of you down who so much as looks backward." Then
the Pasha, placing himself at the head of his host, waved his naked
sword for the trumpets to blow, and glancing once more along the lines,
saw the Moorish troops who stood behind him, with melon-shaped,
copper-plated helmets, making ready to fire their long muskets.
"What are you doing?" growled the Pasha. "Away with your muskets! The
enemy has more of them than we. We shall only need our swords. Let every
one charge boldly upon the foe, ducking his head down over his
saddle-bow the moment I give the signal, and then gallop forward without
hesitation!"
The host did as it was commanded. The Moors slung their funnel-shaped
muskets over their shoulders, drew their broad scimitars, and trotted
forward in the footsteps of the Pasha.
Kemeny's troops, like a wall of steel confronted them, the musketeers in
the first line, the lanzknechts behind. In the centre stood Wenzinger,
on the right wing John Kemeny. The flanking troops were creeping
stealthily on behind the mill-dam and among the maize-fields in order to
take the foe in the rear.
When the Turkish army had come within gunshot distance of Kemeny's
forces, Kucsuk Pasha suddenly turned round and glanced fiercely back,
right and left, upon his soldiers, who immediately ducked their heads
over their horses' necks, tightly grasped their swords, used their spurs
freely, and dashed like a whirlwind upon their opponents.
"Allah! Allah! il-Allah!" thrice sounded from the lips of the charging
Turks, and simultaneously John Kemeny's musketeers gave the attacking
horsemen a point-blank enfilade, which for a moment enveloped their
ranks in smoke. But in those days musketry fire did little harm; it was
far more noisy than dangerous. So now too only a couple of Turks or so
glided out of their saddles, dragging their horses down with them; the
rest galloped forward with a howl of fury.
Wenzinger, perceiving that his arquebusiers had no time to load again,
immediately ordered his lanzknechts to advance. Now if these troops
could only have kept back the Turkish cavalry till the arquebusiers had
managed to reload, or till the flanking squadrons had come up and fallen
upon the enemy, Kemeny would no doubt have won the battle. But the ranks
of the lanzknechts collapsed at the very first onset, and after (to do
them justice) a really desperate resistance, were mostly cut to pieces,
whereupon the helpless musketeers took to their heels _en masse_, and
threw their whole army into great confusion.
Wenzinger now tried to restore order by commanding the whole line to
fall back, and had his command been properly obeyed, the engagement
might perhaps have had a different issue. But the cavalry, which the
Prince led in person, obeying his proud counter-orders to remain where
they were, were left fighting single-handed against the divisions
opposed to them, when the rest of the army had already changed its
position.
The Pasha immediately left off pursuing the panic-stricken musketeers
and fell with all his might upon Kemeny, who, attacked simultaneously in
front and in flank, altogether lost his head; and as there was neither
time nor space for an orderly retreat, wildly cut his way through the
first opening which presented itself, not perceiving in his confusion
that he was riding down his own retreating infantry, for the cavalry,
galloping frantically into the newly-formed ranks, trod their own people
under-foot, frustrated the last hope of forming a reserve, and threw the
whole army into hopeless disorder. The infantry threw down their arms
and fled in all directions before their own and the enemy's cavalry,
which followed, helter-skelter, on each other's heels, trampling to
death all who came in their way. Neither the skill of the general nor
the self-sacrifice of a handful of heroes was able to restore the
battle. The wild flight of one part of the army had demoralized the
other. The battle was irretrievably lost.
Amidst the general rout the Prince also found himself a fugitive. As he
had stood in the fore-front of the battle during the fight, he naturally
found himself now among the hindmost in the flight, and could scarcely
escape from his pursuers for the press in front. The Turks were
everywhere on the heels of the fugitives, and mercilessly cut down all
whom they could reach. A Turkish youth was following the Prince like his
shadow, and as the boy's steed had very much less to carry, speedily
came up with him. The falcon feather in his turban enables us to
recognize Feriz Beg, Kucsuk Pasha's son.
The face of the youthful hero glowed with excitement, but the face of
the Prince was dark with rage and shame. He frequently looked behind him
and gnashed his teeth. "To fly perforce before a child! Shame, oh,
shame!" Again and again he tried to stop, but his frenzied steed tore
him along with it.
Meanwhile the youngster had come near enough to reach him with his
scimitar. At first the Prince disdained to defend himself against his
puny foe; but the latter, becoming more and more audacious in his
attacks, he at last drew his sword and parried his blows.
"Avaunt, you little bastard!" cried Kemeny, foaming with rage, "for if I
do turn round, I'll deal you a blow that will knock all your baby teeth
down your throat."
But now a bound of his horse brought Feriz alongside of the Prince, and
regarding Kemeny with flashing eyes, he aimed a blow at his neck with
his supple Damascus blade; while Kemeny, with a lowering countenance,
seized his sword with both hands, and dealt a tremendous backward blow
with all his might which was meant to cut his presumptuous young
assailant in two. It was as though a young eagle had brought a flying
panther to bay, and forced him to a life-and-death struggle. At the
moment when both swords sped hissing through the air, Kemeny's horse
again stumbled and fell forward with a broken foot, causing Kemeny's
blow to fall wide, and strike not Feriz but Feriz' horse's head, which
it clove in twain, while Feriz' blow flashed down upon the Prince's
forehead.
The Prince as he sank from his horse looked darkly up into the face of
his youthful opponent. The blood flowed in streams from his frowning
forehead. Once more he gave his horse the spur, but the maimed beast
only reared on its hind legs, fell over with its sinking rider, and both
were instantly trampled under-foot by the enemy's cavalry.
In the wild rout no one noticed the spot where the Prince had fallen. It
was only after many days that his torn and tattered mantle and his
broken sword were offered for sale in the market-place of Segesvar by
Turkish hucksters, purchased by Michael Apafi, now sole Prince of
Transylvania, and subsequently preserved in his museum at Fogaros. Apafi
also ordered search to be made on the battle-field for the corpse of
the fallen Prince in order to give it decent and honourable burial, but
no one could recognize his body among the naked and mutilated slain.
* * * * *
The battle won, Kucsuk by a flourish of trumpets recalled his squadrons
from pursuing the beaten foe. The Turkish horsemen came galloping back
at once, quite contrary to the usual practice of Turkish armies, which
are generally as much demoralized after a victory as the vanquished
themselves. Kucsuk had inured them to the strictest discipline.
Back they came, black with smoke and red with blood, but the bloodiest
of all was Feriz Beg. His mantle was riddled with bullets, and the horse
he rode was the third that he had mounted since the action began, two
had already been killed under him.
Kucsuk, without a word, embraced his son, kissed him on the forehead,
fastened his own Nishan Order on his breast, and exchanged swords with
him, then the highest conceivable distinction.
Ferhad Aga, the leader of the right wing, was brought dead, on a litter
of lances, before the general. His body bore wounds of every shape and
size; he was literally covered with gunshot wounds, sabre-cuts, and
lance-thrusts.
Kucsuk sprang from his horse, bent weeping over the corpse, covered it
with kisses, and swore by Allah that he would not have given this man's
life for the whole of Transylvania.
Nor would he enter the town till Ferhad had been buried. The dervishes
immediately surrounded the dead man, washed him, wrapped him in fragrant
linen, and the Pasha himself sought out for him a sunny spot in the
midst of a little grove. There they buried him with his face turned
towards the east, and with a pennant fluttering on a lance's head over
his grassy grave. And for three days sentinels watched over him, to
prevent the accursed Jins from mutilating the corpse of the dead hero.
CHAPTER VII.
THE PRINCESS.
After the fatal day of Nagy Szöllös, the faithful followers of John
Kemeny fled to Hungary, and transferred their allegiance to Simon
Kemeny, the son of the fallen Prince. But a sinking cause has few
friends, and while the younger Kemeny's party rapidly diminished,
Apafi's as rapidly increased. His victory had assured his position, and
won for him all the great men of the land--the governors of the towns,
the magnates, the commandants of the fortresses--in short, it was a race
who should do him homage first, all the Estates of the Realm recognized
him as Prince.
Only a few fortresses, where Kemeny had placed German garrisons, still
held out, Klausenburg among the number.
Kucsuk Pasha, whose army meanwhile had been reinforced, brought Apafi
beneath the walls of that city, and pitched his tent at Hidelve over
against the old town, then a mere heap of straw huts, and there the new
Prince held his first reception.
The morning had scarcely dawned when Apafi's tent was besieged by a host
of visitors, petitioners, and liegemen. The Prince, enchanted at the
delightful novelty of a position which enabled him to gratify
everybody's desires, could not find it in his heart to say no to
anybody. Nalaczi and Daczo were there before he had finished putting on
his boots, and introduced a whole mob of persons anxious to pay their
respects, who were waiting with smiling faces at the tent door. Apafi
made haste with his toilet in order that none should be kept waiting. He
was anxious to oblige every one.
Amongst the first who elbowed their way in was Count Ladislaus Csaky.
He came to offer his son as a page to the Prince, the self-same son who
had filled and refilled John Kemeny's glass a few weeks before. Apafi
could scarcely find words to express his gratitude for such an offer.
Next came Master Gabriel Haller, who seemed as if he would really never
leave off bowing and scraping, and addressed an eloquent oration to
Apafi, every tenth word of which was a title of honour. Apafi could
scarcely conceal his childish joy at being called your Highness, and
invited Master Gabriel Haller to dinner straight off.
A daïs was then placed in the back part of the tent, which the modest
Prince absolutely refused to mount, till his brother Stephen used gentle
violence, and even then he insisted on rising to receive every suitor,
and accompanied him to the door at the end of each audience.
Petitioners, homagers, and visitors of every description kept coming and
going one by one.
By Apafi's side stood Nalaczi, Daczo, Stephen Apafi, and John Cserey,
whom his Highness urged repeatedly to be seated.
After receiving the oaths of allegiance, on which occasion the
commandants of the fortresses placed the keys of their strongholds in
the Prince's hands, it was the turn of the petitioners to be introduced.
First came Master Martin Pok, the jailer of Fogaros, with the humble
petition that he might be appointed the governor of that fortress,
inasmuch as the former governor had fled to Simon Kemeny.
Apafi promised to bear him in mind.
Next came Master John Szasy, the chief magistrate of Hermannstadt,
complaining, with tears in his eyes, that his fellow-citizens were
persecuting him, and throwing himself on the Prince's protection.
Apafi at once took him under his wing.
Then followed Master Moses Zagoni, who begged the Prince to let him off
a certain balance in his accounts which had been outstanding from
Kemeny's time.
Him too Apafi sent away comforted.
Last of all came a thick-set, sturdy Szekler, in a short sheep-skin
jacket, who called himself the representative of Olahfalva; did homage
to Apafi in the name of his district, and preferred two very peculiar
petitions, to wit: that from henceforth Olahfalva should be declared to
be only _two_ miles from Klausenburg (the real distance between the two
places is, as we all know, more than twenty); and secondly, that it
should be legally enacted that he who had no horse should go on foot.
The Prince laughingly complied with both of these extraordinarily
ludicrous requests, which put him into such a good humour that an
itinerant scholar, Clement by name, a crooked-nosed, long-legged
individual, wrapped from head to foot in a fox-skin mantle, made bold to
approach Apafi, and present him on his knees with a huge parchment roll
which he had been holding in his hand for some time, and which the
Prince, not without extraneous help, now took and unfolded. Inside it he
read the whole genealogical record of the Apafis, painted on a
green-leaved family-tree, whereby his family was brought into connection
with the illustrious Bethlen and Bathory families; traced back to King
Samuel Aba, from him again to Huba, one of the seven original leaders of
the Magyars, and thence ascending still further, first to Attila's
youngest son Csaka, and from him in the female line to the daughter of
the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, but in the male line to Nimrod,
the first recorded earthly king.
This fulsome piece of flattery seemed to somewhat annoy Apafi; but as he
could not quite make up his mind to kick the impertinent poet out of the
tent, he resolved to be quit of him with a handful of ducats, and placed
the genealogical tree behind him by way of a prop.
Nevertheless the Prince's good-humour was not in the least disturbed. He
seemed to feel it his bounden duty to treat every one who approached him
with peculiar graciousness and condescension, and after listening
patiently to the last of his many petitioners, he turned to Messrs.
Nalaczi and Daczo, who stood by his side, and said--
"Is there absolutely nothing I can do for you? How shall I requite the
fidelity with which you have stood by me from the very first?"
Nalaczi and Daczo had long been racking their brains as to what _they_
should ask of the Prince. Their chief anxiety was lest they should ask
too little.
"I leave the reward of my poor services to the benevolence of your
Highness," said Nalaczi: but he thought within himself that the Szeklers
needed another Captain-General in the place of Beldi.
"The little I have been fortunate enough to do for your Highness is, in
my opinion, not even worth mentioning," declared Daczo; but it did
occur to him at the same time that the post of Governor of Klausenburg,
vacant by the flight of Banfi, was just the very thing for him.
Apafi looked at them benignly, and no doubt would have created both
these worthy but not particularly capable gentlemen privy-counsellors at
the very least, when, unfortunately for them, a hubbub outside here
interrupted the conversation, and the body-guards, drawing aside the
curtains of the tent, admitted Kucsuk Pasha.
The Prince sprang from his seat at once, and would have gone to meet
him, had not Stephen Apafi pulled him by the mantle and whispered in his
ear--
"Keep up your dignity in the presence of the Turk. He is only a
subaltern Pasha, while you are the sovereign Prince of Transylvania."
Despite this admonition Apafi did not feel quite at his ease till Kucsuk
had beckoned to him to be seated, and although the Turk remained
standing in the presence of the Prince, there was this difference
between them, that whereas Apafi's face expressed nothing but affability
and condescension, Kucsuk's was all haughtiness and dignity.
"How can I show my gratitude for the labours and perils you have
undergone on my behalf?" asked Apafi with genuine enthusiasm.
"Not to me but to my imperial master are thy thanks due," replied Kucsuk
dryly. "I did but do his will when I set thee on the throne of
Transylvania. With God's help I have scattered thy enemies, only a
fortress here and there still holds out. I shall have done my whole duty
when I have captured them; the rest lies with thee. To-morrow I shall
besiege Klausenburg, and, cost what it may, I shall not rest till the
town is taken. When that has fallen the others will follow of their own
accord."
"Should I not also call out the provincial banderia[17]?" inquired
Apafi.
[Footnote 17: _Banderia._ The mounted gentry of the
county.]
"I need them not," replied Kucsuk; "let them remain at home and look
after their own affairs. My own troops will do everything."
Apafi was about to thank the Pasha for his magnanimity, when suddenly he
became aware that every one was looking towards one of the
side-entrances of the tent, through which some one had just entered
without being announced.
The Prince also looked round in the same direction, and what he then saw
before him made him forget instantly Transylvania, Kucsuk Pasha,
Klausenburg, and everything else, for before him stood his beautiful and
majestic consort, Anna Bornemissa.
It was indeed a queenly apparition.
That commanding countenance, which seemed to exact homage, how affably
yet how proudly it could glance around! In her dress there was no trace
of pomp; but was there any need of gems where such speaking eyes flashed
and sparkled? Did that royal form require velvet or ermine to lend it
majesty?
It was the first time that Apafi had seen her since his departure. She
had risen from her child-bed twice as lovely as before. Renewed
happiness and comfort had invested her features with a sort of
transparent brightness. Her eyes, dimmed no longer by tears of sorrow,
flashed with a purer radiance than before. Her lips, which had long
known nought but joy, smiled still more sweetly. Her figure had gained
in fullness and roundness without losing in symmetry, and the confident,
self-conscious dignity visible in all her features and all her movements
well became her majestic form.
Apafi, forgetting all dignity and decorum when he saw his consort,
sprang from his seat, rushed towards her, seized her hand, drew the
enchanting lady to his breast, just as he used to do when he was a
simple squire, and kissed her mouth and cheeks so heartily that the
assembled Estates of the Realm had auricular demonstration of the fact.
Anna nestled closely to her husband's breast, and her lips tenderly
returned his salutations; but her large, earnest eyes seemed to be
scrutinizing over her husband's shoulder the faces of all who were
present, and her gaze rested for an instant on each one of them.
These connubial caresses seemed likely to have no end so far as Apafi
was concerned--his wife was worth more to him than all Transylvania with
the appurtenances thereof--till Anna disengaged herself from his arms
with a smile, and said merrily--
"You lavish the outpourings of your heart on me alone, but there is some
one else here who claims his share too;" and with that she beckoned to
Dame Sarah, who had followed her mistress into the tent with a beaming
countenance, and now unwrapped before Apafi's eyes a pretty sleeping
babe, whom the good nurse had been dangling about in a piece of silken
tapestry.
Beside himself for joy, Apafi took the child in his arms and kissed its
little round cherub face again and again. The child awaking, allowed
itself to be kissed and hugged without uttering a cry, and snatched with
its plump little be-ribboned arms at papa's beard, which naturally gave
papa indescribable delight.
The gentlemen standing around considered it their bounden duty to
congratulate the Prince on his parental felicity, who, drunk with joy,
exhibited his son to them and said--
"Look how serious he is. He doesn't even cry. What a perfect little man
it is!"
Meanwhile Anna beckoned to Stephen Apafi, and whispered to him--
"I am sure the gentlemen will not take it ill if the Prince's family
concerns and joys withdraw him for a few moments from public affairs."
"Your Highness has taken the words out of my mouth," replied Stephen. "I
was just about to say the same thing to the gentlemen myself;" and
turning towards the courtiers, he begged them to leave the Prince for a
few moments in the bosom of his family, and meanwhile withdraw into the
antechamber.
The gentlemen considered the request only natural, and at once retired,
obsequiously giving precedence as they went to Kucsuk Pasha.
No sooner did Anna find herself alone with her consort, than she took
the child from his arms, gave it back to Sarah, and sent them both away.
Apafi now approached her with fresh demonstrations of tenderness, but
she took him by the hand, gazed earnestly into his eyes, and said--
"It is to the Prince of Transylvania that I have come!"
Apafi was somewhat chilled by her steady look; but she, perceiving it,
nestled closely up to him again, and said kindly--
"I was beginning to suspect that the Prince might have more need of me
than the husband." Then she added with a smile full of irresistible
grace--"I hope you will not misconstrue my good intentions."
Apafi embraced his wife, and made her sit down by his side. The chair of
state was large enough to accommodate them both. It is true that the
pretty wife had to sit half upon her husband's knee, but that certainly
did not inconvenience either of them.
"You are right," said Apafi; "it is well that you are here. When I don't
see you I always feel that I lack something. At any rate you deserve to
be nearest to my heart, and I'll venture to set your judgment against
the judgment of any of the gentlemen surrounding me."
"Who are all these gentlemen?" asked Anna.
"You must know them all by name. The lanky man is Ladislaus Csaky, who
offers me his son as a page."
"He loses no time about it! A very little while ago the lad was John
Kemeny's page."
Apafi began to look glum.
"The man with the large moustaches is Gabriel Haller."
Anna smote her hands together in amazement.
"What! he here too?"
"What have you to find fault with in him?"
"I'll tell you. He has always been the spy of your enemies. He brought
Kemeny the first tidings of your installation, and of Kucsuk Pasha's
arrival at Segesvar."
Apafi's features grew still darker.
"And I have invited the gentleman to dinner!" he murmured between his
teeth.
"And why are Messrs. Nalaczi and Daczo so familiar with you? Do they
want anything?"
"They are my faithful followers, who have stood by my side from the very
first."
"But pray don't on that account make them the highest personages in the
land. Simple, ignorant men in responsible positions are far more
dangerous to a state than open but enlightened foes. Reward them by all
means, but only in proportion to their abilities."
"I'll do so," replied the harassed Prince; and during the remainder of
the interview he tried hard to uphold his conjugal supremacy, but Anna
would not let the subject drop.
"And Master John Szasy, what does he do here? for I saw him too."
"The poor fellow is persecuted," returned Apafi, who began to find the
joke a little tiresome.
"Evil rumours are abroad about that man. People say of him--and they say
it pretty loudly--that he has young Saxon girls abducted for him, and
after sacrificing them to his brutal lusts, removes them out of the way
by poison. The parents of the girls have indicted this man, and he
fancies he will escape exposure by fawning upon you."
Apafi sprang wrathfully from his seat.
"If that be so, I will show Master Szasy the door; he shall find no
shelter beneath my mantle."
"And what brought that honest, tattered Szekler hither?" asked Anna, who
had evidently made up her mind to know everything. "I like not his
crafty face at all. The Szekler is always most dangerous when he puts on
the garb of simplicity."
The Prince was suddenly seized with a paroxysm of mirth, he could
scarcely speak for laughing.
"That was the representative of Olahfalva," said he.
At the mention of this place even Anna could not forbear from smiling.
"The good folks of Olahfalva," continued Apafi, still laughing, "who
carry people to church in sheets and beat watches to death!"
"I fear me the poor people are very much maligned. They are called
simple, but methinks their ways are altogether crooked and crafty."
"But is it not true then that they carry ladders horizontally through
the woods?"
"Yes; but why? You shall hear. Their Captain-General had forbidden them
to waste the woods, but at the same time sent them out to pull down
crows' nests; so to get at the nests they carried the ladders
horizontally through the woods to have an excuse for hewing down every
tree that stood in their way."
"Well explained! But at least you will not deny that in hilly districts
they never plough to the end of their fields for fear that if they go
right to the margin the earth will tilt over with them."
"They do that because the margin is of a rocky consistency which no
ploughshare will penetrate."
"Then what do you say of their custom of choosing to represent them at
the Diet those amongst them upon whom their obsolete, short skin-jackets
sit the best? I'll swear I saw the self-same jacket now worn by the
Olahfalva deputy at the Diet of Klausenburg twelve years ago, only then
it was on some one else's shoulders."
"The good folks think," returned the Princess, "that a deputy to the
Diet need say little or nothing, but that the coat in which he has to
sit for hours ought to be as comfortable as possible."
"You seem to know the reason of everything. But, come now! explain, if
you can, the signification of the promises which this Szekler has got
out of me. He petitioned for two things: first, that the distance
between Olahfalva and Klausenburg should henceforth be declared to be
only two miles."
"Oh! _sancta simplicitas_!" cried Anna. "They have a charter which
permits them to offer their timber for sale at any place within two
miles of their district; they are consequently anxious to have the
Klausenburg market thrown open to them."
"I really believe you are right," returned Apafi, in a tone of
conviction. "I now begin to suspect their second petition, although it
seems to me to have no special connection with their community. They
desire it to be legally enacted that he who has no horse shall
henceforth be obliged to go on foot."
"I have it!" cried Anna, after a moment's reflection. "Olahfalva has
recently been made a post station, and the couriers passing through the
place have therefore the right to demand fresh horses there. Now the
good people begin to find this new obligation onerous, and therefore
want a law passed to compel the couriers to make their pilgrimages
through Olahfalva on foot."
Apafi stamped angrily on the ground.
"The impudent rascal! To presume to jest with me in such a way! Well,
you shall see how I'll make them grin on the other side of their faces.
But is it not about time to re-admit the gentlemen?"
"One word more, Apafi," said Anna gently, placing her velvety arms on
her husband's shoulder. "I observed Kucsuk Pasha among your liegemen; I
presume he came to take his leave?"
Apafi threw back his head much perplexed.
"Not at all! Don't you know that we are here to capture Klausenburg? It
is Kucsuk's business to take it."
"Michael!" cried the Princess, in a tone of tearful supplication. "Do
you mean to say that you will suffer a Turkish garrison in Klausenburg?
Do you forget that the Osmanlis are always loth to relinquish any
Hungarian stronghold that they once get possession of? Do you not
recollect that Klausenburg is the capital of your realm, and those who
dwell within its walls are your own people, your own compatriots, your
own co-religionists? And you would expose them to the horrors of an
assault? The Turks may be your allies, but after all they are heathens
and aliens, whom you should not allow to play havoc with your people.
Did not your heart sink within you when you saw the walls of
Klausenburg? Could you behold those towers, those houses, without
reflecting that there are the homes of your fellow-countrymen and the
churches of your God, into which the besiegers would hurl their
firebrands? Could you look at those ramparts without perceiving crowds
of mothers holding their babes in their arms, and declaring to you that
your own people--an innocent, loyal, honest people--dwell therein? And
you would hold your triumphal entry into the capital of your country
over the mutilated bodies of these women and children?"
Apafi rose from his seat. His forehead was bathed with sweat.
Involuntary remorse was legible on his troubled countenance.
"No, Anna; I don't wish it. How can you think me so heartless? What! I,
who could never endure the tears of a single woman, should remain deaf
to the lamentations of a whole nation? But what am I to do? I meant to
have called out the banderia to invest the town, and so compel the
garrison to surrender; but how shall I set about it with Kucsuk Pasha in
the way? He is determined to storm the town, I know not how to prevent
him."
"Be easy on that score. The commanders of the Turkish troops in
Transylvania have received firmans[18] ordering them to instantly rejoin
the army of the Grand Vizier at Érsekújvár. Kucsuk too has doubtless
received such a firman."
[Footnote 18: _Firman._ A decree issued by the Sultan
and proclaimed by the Grand Vizier.]
"I was not aware of it. That is why he wants to press on the assault, I
suppose?"
"A similar mandate is already on its way to you from the Divan,[19] and
by pretending that this mandate has already reached you, it will be easy
to induce the Pasha in a friendly way to raise the siege of
Klausenburg."
[Footnote 19: _Divan._ The Sultan's council.]
"I will try, Anna; I will try!" cried Apafi, walking up and down the
tent. "I owe it to my people, and I would rather turn my back upon these
walls than force my way through them with fire and sword."
"But you must not turn your back upon them," replied the discreet lady;
"there are ways and means of getting possession of the fortress without
having recourse to fire and sword."
Apafi stood still and looked inquiringly at his wife. She drew him
closer to her and whispered in his ear--
"Before coming to Klausenburg, I secretly instructed the well-disposed
within the town to try and bring the garrison over to our side. This
morning our spies have brought us word that the infantry is ready, at
the first sound of the trumpet from without, to open the gates and go
over to us with bag and baggage. The cavalry by itself will be unable to
offer any resistance."
"My dear!" cried Apafi in astonishment, "you are really a born
princess."
Anna took her husband softly by the arm, led him to the daïs, and made
him sit down.
"The sceptre is no plaything, Apafi," said she earnestly. "Never forget
that posterity will sit in judgment on princes. A ruler's every act and
word may mean the ruin or the salvation of thousands. Think of that in
all you do and say. And now, God be with you. Be firm!"
Anna, with an exalted look, kissed the Prince on the forehead. At that
very moment her eye fell on the parchment roll of the itinerant scholar.
"What plan of campaign is this?" cried she, taking up the parchment.
Apafi would have snatched it from her, but it was too late; Anna had
already unrolled it, and after casting a rapid glance over the
lickspittling pedigree, looked with an expression of overwhelming
reproach at the discomfited Prince, who stood before her with downcast
eyes.
"Did _you_ get any one to compose it?" she softly asked.
"Certainly not," replied Apafi energetically; "a shameless poet brought
it to me."
"Then throw it into the fire," replied his wife, much relieved.
"That is just what I was going to do. I can then get rid of him with a
few ducats."
"A few strokes with a whip would be much more appropriate," exclaimed
Anna wrathfully; but soon her features grew mild again, and steadfastly
regarding her husband she said to him kindly--"Be strong! Be a prince!
Protect the loyal! Forgive the repentant! Despise flatterers!"
With that she curtseyed low, kissed her husband's hand, and had vanished
from the tent before he could return the salute.
Apafi immediately called Cserey and commanded him to re-admit the
gentlemen, who were still waiting in the ante-chamber.
On the countenances of the courtiers could be read, as plainly as if it
were written there, the persuasion that they might now ask for and
expect from the Prince anything they liked, on the presumption that the
blissful antecedent domestic scene had left him in a state of mental
flabbiness which could say no to nobody. Stephen Apafi was alone
sufficiently sober-minded to perceive the change which had come over his
brother's face in the meantime. Apafi's features now wore an expression
of dignity, firmness, and energy worthy of a prince.
"My loyal friends," he cried, in a hard, firm voice, without waiting for
any one to address him. "As concerning the petitions preferred to us, we
would dismiss you with fit and proper answers. We accept your homage
with all due appreciation, and trust you will ever persevere in your
loyalty. You, Ladislaus Csaky, we permit to return home. We will no
longer deprive you of your family joys. As for your son, we will have
him educated abroad at our own cost, till he be suitable for our
service."
Count Ladislaus Csaky, with a very wry face indeed, expressed his
gratitude for the Prince's gracious permission to return home, although
he would willingly have remained at Court all his life with the whole of
his family.
Gabriel Haller the Prince passed over altogether, as if he absolutely
did not see him, but he turned pointedly towards Nalaczi and Daczo, who
made desperate efforts to appear meek and humble.
"Having regard to the zeal and affection which our faithful Stephen
Nalaczi has always testified for our person, we appoint him herewith
first gentleman-in-waiting at our Court. And you, John Daczo, we appoint
commander of Csikszerda."
Both gentlemen made the grimace usual in suitors who have expected much
and got little. Nalaczi smiled, but within he was all wormwood and gall.
Daczo tried to look contented, but he coloured up to the ears. They were
scarcely able to thank the Prince for his goodness.
Meanwhile Master Pok, in order not to be left altogether out of sight,
had elbowed his way to the front, completely covering honest Cserey, who
modestly made way for him.
Apafi beckoned to him, however.
"Why do you keep so much in the background?" said he.
Master Pok, under the impression that the hint was meant for him, drew
still nearer.
"'Tis Master Cserey whom we address," continued the Prince, "or do you
think that we are unable to distinguish our faithful from our feigning
followers? Your fidelity and prudence, Master Cserey, are well known to
us, wherefore we appoint you forthwith governor of our fortress of
Fogaros."
In his consternation Master Pok looked up at the ceiling as if he
expected it to fall on his head.
"Master Martin Pok, on the other hand," pursued the Prince, "we confirm
in his former post. He will continue to be jailer at the same fortress."
Master Martin Pok sobbed aloud. Cserey was about to raise objections,
but the Prince beckoned him to be silent.
Next came Master John Szasy's turn.
"You are accused of grievous crimes, from which we have neither the will
nor the power to absolve you. You will therefore be conveyed to
Hermannstadt with a strong escort, there to clear yourself as best you
can."
John Szasy, with a stupefied air, looked first to the right and then to
the left. He could not understand it at all.
"You, Master Moses Zagoni, we command to present your accounts for
examination to our officers of the Exchequer thereunto appointed."
To hide his own confusion, Zagoni thought he could not do better than
whisper consolation to Szasy.
The deputy of Olahfalva had now to take his turn. It was indeed high
time that something amusing should happen, for while the Prince had thus
been distributing rewards and punishments, the smile had gradually
vanished from every face; nothing short of the discomfiture of the
quaint and crafty boor could now restore the general hilarity.
"What I promised you," said the Prince, scarcely able to repress his
inward merriment, "is yours. If it give you any satisfaction, you may
henceforth regard Olahfalva as only two miles distant from Klausenburg
instead of twenty; let him also who has no horse go on foot as you
desire. But we grant this with the express reservation that you are not
to take any timber to the market of Klausenburg, and that you always
give the couriers the necessary relays of horses."
The Szekler grinned, shook his head, and then looked very hard at the
Prince, as if to find out how Apafi could possibly have got to the
bottom of his artifice.
The wondering, puzzled face of the Olahfalvian was too much for Apafi's
gravity, and he burst into a loud guffaw, in which everybody present
joined him. The Szekler, whose face had hitherto worn a bewildered
smile, suddenly became quite serious, threw back his head defiantly,
cast a furious look around, half stripped off his short jacket, and
exclaimed--
"Harkye, gentlemen! If the Prince chooses to make merry with me, I
suffer it; but I'll trouble you all not to laugh so at my expense."
The Prince beckoned to them to be silent, and diverted their attention
by calling forward the itinerant scholar Clement, who shambled up on his
long, lean legs, as if he were every moment about to fall on his knees.
"We have commanded our treasurer," said the Prince, "to pay to you out
of our privy purse three _marias_[20] for the work which you have handed
to us."
[Footnote 20: _Maria._ An old Hungarian coin worth
about thirty-five kreutzers.]
"Your Highness was pleased to observe--" stammered the confounded poet.
"You heard very well. I said three _marias_. That is about the value of
the writing materials which you have wasted upon this pedigree. Another
time employ your leisure more profitably."
The Prince then signified that the audience was at an end.
The gentlemen quitted the tent with many a deep obeisance. Kucsuk Pasha
alone remained behind.
During the whole of this scene the Pasha had been shaking his head, as
if he had not expected all this from Apafi. He could not help remarking
too that Apafi now needed no one to remind him how to preserve his
princely dignity in the presence of others. Apafi wore an affable air;
but it was the affability of princely condescension.
"We have learnt with regret," he began, turning towards the Pasha, "that
we must shortly lose you, whose valour we so much admire, whose
friendship we so much esteem."
The Pasha looked up with astonishment.
"What means your Highness?"
"In consequence of a firman commanding the Transylvanian generals to
assemble in the camp of the Grand Vizier. We shall, alas! only see you
in our circle for a very short time."
Kucsuk angrily bit his lips.
"How could he have learnt that already?" he muttered.
"We would willingly retain you, for your person is most dear to us; but
we know that the commands of the Padishah require instant submission.
Moreover, lest your devotion to us should draw down upon you the
displeasure of the Sublime Porte, we have taken such measures as will
bring the fortress of Klausenburg to capitulate without having resort to
an assault, thus releasing you from the troublesome obligation of
keeping your army here any longer. As to the confirmation of our
princely dignity, we will take care to settle all that with the Grand
Vizier, presumably at Érsekújvár, whither we also are summoned."
During this speech, Kucsuk had regarded the Prince fixedly and with
folded arms. Even when Apafi had finished speaking, he remained standing
in the same position without uttering a word.
Apafi calmly continued--
"In order however to express our personal gratitude, however feebly, for
your services, we would have you accept from us this little gift more as
a token of our respect than as a reward." And with that the Prince took
from his neck a gold chain set with large brilliants, and hung it round
the Pasha's neck.
Kucsuk still remained immovable. He searchingly scrutinized the Prince,
and wrinkled his brows. Then, all at once, he began to smile, and
shaking his head said slyly--
"It is well, Apafi, it is all excellently well. But I see that thou art
wont to commit thy understanding to the custody of thy wife. _Salem
aleikum!_ Peace be with thee!"
And off went the Pasha, shaking his head all the way.
But Apafi, with a lightened heart, hastened back to his wife.
Master Gabriel Haller waited a very long time at the door of the tent,
till one of the bodyguards came out to inform him that the Prince would
dine that day in his family circle.
Then he too shook his head and departed.
* * * * *
A couple of days later, with drums beating and banners waving, Prince
Michael Apafi made his triumphal entry into Klausenburg.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE PERI.
Once more we are in Hungary, among the Homolka Mountains, in one of
those parts of the land which no one has ever thought of colonizing. For
fifty miles round there is not a village to be seen; not a single
passable road traverses the whole mountain range. The very footpaths
break abruptly off amongst the rocky labyrinths, terminating either in a
leaf-covered waterfall, or at the forsaken hut of a charcoal-burner, the
carbonized, sooty environment of which suffers nothing green to grow.
The very skirts of this wilderness are uninhabited. One can wander for
hours among the oaks and beeches, towering up one above the other,
without hearing any other sound but one's own footsteps; not a blade of
grass, not a flower, not a shrub can thrive anywhere here. Beneath the
uncleared trees rustle the fallen yellow leaves, peeping up from the
midst of which we perceive the speckled caps of oddly-shaped fungi
clinging in clusters to the mossy tree stems.
Only where the stream dashes down from the mountains, forcing its way
through the valley, does the greensward appear. There, among the
luxuriant grasses, lie the fearless stags; wild bees build their
basket-shaped nests in the hollow trees on the margin of the stream, and
sweep buzzing round the Alpine flowers which dance on the surface of the
water.
That stream is the Rima.
In the dim, dismal distance still higher mountains appear, from which
the stream plunges down in a snow-white torrent. The morning mists
exaggerate the magic remoteness of the scene, and when at last you have
reached the extremest point of that remoteness, it is only to see before
you a still more awful expanse, still more desolate mountain ranges,
forming as it were an immense and uninterrupted ladder up to heaven.
The Rima burrows in every direction among these primeval mountains. She
alone is bold enough to force her way through this wild rocky labyrinth.
Sometimes she plunges down from the granite terraces with a
far-resounding din, dissolving into a white, cloudy spray, in which the
sunbeams paint an eternal rainbow, which spans the velvet-green margins
of the abyss like a fairy bridge. A moss-clad rock projects from the
midst of the waterfall, dividing it into two, and from the moss-clad
rock wild roses look over into the dizzying, tumbling rapids below. Far
away down, the vagrant stream is hemmed in between basalt rocks; the
twofold echo changes its monotonous, muffled roar into melancholy music;
its transparent, crystal waters appear black from the colour of their
stony bed, wherein rosy trout and sprightly water-snakes, like silver
ribbons, disport themselves; then, escaping from its brief constraint,
it dashes onwards from crag to crag, angrily scourging a huge mass of
rock which once, in flood-time, it swept into its bed from a distance of
many miles, and which, after the next thaw or rainfall, it will hurl a
thousand fathoms deeper into the rock-environed valley.
Higher and higher we mount. The oaks and beeches fall behind us; the
pines and firs begin. The horizon opens out ever wider and wider. The
transparent mists which have hitherto veiled the heights are left behind
in the depths. The little green patches of valley are scarcely visible
through the opal atmosphere, and the hilly woodlands have dwindled into
dark specks; only their outlines, gold and lilac in the rays of the
rising sun, are still distinguishable.
And before us the mountains still rise higher and higher. One feels
tempted to scale these fresh giants also, in order to find out whether
there is really any end to them. Now too even the Rima has forsaken us.
Deep down below, we perceive a round, dark-blue lakelet, enclosed on all
sides by steep rocks, on the mirror-like surface of which white swans
are bathing beneath the shadows of the pines dependent over the water's
edge. In the midst of this lakelet, the source of the Rima tosses and
tumbles, casting its bubbling crystal fathoms high, and keeping the
lakelet in perpetual ebullition, as if some spirit were trying to raise
up the whole lake with his head.
And yet another mountain range starts up before our eyes, covered with
thick fir-woods, though nothing else will grow on the steep ridge, which
is covered along its whole length by masses of rock piled one on the top
of the other. Nowhere does a single green speck meet the eye.
Having scaled these heights also, we naturally fancy that at last we
have reached the highest point, when suddenly, high above the dark fir
forests, a white giant emerges, and before the eyes of the wearied
mountaineer rise the lofty distant peaks of the Silver Alps,
representing the unattainable with their towering, snowy pyramids.
Here we pause.
All along the mountain ridge, standing out the more distinctly for the
great distance, meanders a footpath, disappearing among the pine forests
at one point and re-emerging at another, thereby showing that some one
must dwell here in the wilderness, a circumstance the more startling as,
up to this point, the region has seemed altogether uninhabited, while
beyond it shimmer the still more inhospitable snowy mountains.
From the top of this peak one sees hundreds and hundreds of mountains
and valleys exactly resembling one another. The eye grows weary of
regarding them, and so long as the sun's rays strike obliquely over the
region, suffusing it with a golden mist, one can barely distinguish the
separate parts of the oppressively sublime panorama.
Gradually, however, our attention is attracted towards a deep, rocky
gorge, surrounded by greyish-blue mountains, which seem likely at any
moment to topple over. In the midst of this gorge an enormous and
completely isolated rocky pillar stands upright, looking for all the
world as if it had just fallen from the skies. A careless glance might
easily pass over this rocky mass without seeing anything remarkable
about it; but a more attentive observer would discover a narrow wooden
bridge planted on fir-wood piles, and apparently connecting the rocky
block with the surrounding mountain summits. And gradually we perceive
that it was not Nature's hand which made this rocky scaffolding so high.
Those monochromatic rocks, piled one atop the other, forming a wall all
round, and seeming to prolong the mountain range, are the work of human
hands. It is a massive rocky bastion, almost as high as the hill which
forms its base, and as the walls are everywhere carried right out to the
verge of the steep, naked mountain side, they look as if they have grown
out of it, and as if the creeping plants which cling to the rocky walls
are only there to bind them more closely together.
In the year 1664, the eye which looked down from this point upon the
bare bastions could have perceived within them a dwelling fresh from
fairy-land. Corsar Beg, the terror of the district, dwelt in this
stronghold, and at his command, hedges of roses bloomed on the bastions,
groves of orange and pomegranate trees sprang up around the courtyard,
and everywhere could be seen those gorgeous structures which oriental
magnificence builds for transient pleasure. Spacious rotundas with
sky-blue, enamelled cupolas, sparkling in the sun; variegated turrets
rising from the bastions; balconies adorned with arabesques and covered
with porcelain vases; slim, snow-white minarets encircled by fragrant
creepers; trellised kiosks with their gilded columns; everything
constructed of the most delicate materials, as if it were meant to be a
toy castle; nothing but gilded wood and painted glass, enamelled tiles
and variegated tapestry. Bright banners and pennants flutter down from
the copper roofs, and golden half-moons sparkle on every gable-ridge.
All the kiosks, rotundas, and minarets are bright with banners and
half-moons. 'Tis a fairy palace ready to take flight.
But the bastions which encircle this frail fairy palace are impregnable.
On every side nothing but inaccessible rocks, where, if once he reach
them, the pursued can defend himself against odds a hundredfold. The
Comparadschis stand, day and night, with burning matches behind the
cannons which Corsar Beg has had cast for himself within the fortress,
for there is no road for ordnance in the whole region. Two of the
cannons are pointed at the bridge, to blow it into the air in case of an
assault.
From this stronghold Corsar Beg sallies forth, pillaging the land and
massacring the defenceless people; and if he lights upon any pursuing
host, he instantly turns tail with his Spahis and Bedouins; and whilst
he flies to his stronghold along mountain paths, on mules laden with
booty, his Timariots, who cover his retreat, throw barricades up on the
narrow roads, and stone to death all who venture to follow them into the
dark gorges. Sometimes, however, he permits the pursuers to come right
up to the fortress walls, and while they are popping away at the rocky
bastions with the little half-pound mortars which they have dragged up
thither after incalculable exertions, and think that now they will
starve him out at last, he plays a practical joke upon them by somehow
or other (perhaps through subterranean ways), making a sortie from his
stronghold, and robbing and burning behind the backs of the besiegers.
Every attempt to capture, surprise, or blockade him has been in vain.
The inhabitants of the surrounding villages have begun to migrate into
more distant regions for fear of their terrible neighbour.
After the battle of St. Gothard, in which the Turkish general lost the
fight and twelve thousand men against the Imperial and Hungarian forces,
a twenty years' armistice was concluded between the Porte, the Emperor,
and the Prince of Transylvania, which left the Turks in possession of
all the fortresses which they had built or captured in Hungary. The
lords of these fortresses now continued the war on their own account,
and pillaged and destroyed whenever and wherever they had a chance. The
Sultan was too far off to interfere in each individual case. All he
could do was to authorize the complainants to capture the peace-breakers
if they could, and deal with them as they chose.
* * * * *
In the twilight hour of a sultry summer evening, when the heat,
compressed among the rocks during the day, made the atmosphere so heavy
and stifling that sound only travelled with difficulty, we see two
shapes hastening towards the same point from different directions. One
is a man in Hungarian costume, with a low forehead and sharp, squinting
eyes, whose oblique gaze seems expressly made to disconcert whomsoever
he looks upon. The other is an old Turkish woman, with a warty chin
covered with sprouting bristles. The sleeves of her long striped kaftan
hang slovenly down, and her dirty turban gives you the impression that
she has slept in it for weeks together.
The trysting-place which the two shapes are cautiously making for is a
cavern covered with bushes. Both shapes glide, at the same time, into
the cavern, from the dark depths of which they can see the fortress
without being seen themselves. The old woman, with a hideous smile,
whispers something in the man's ear.
"Are you quite sure?" inquired the squinter, with a searching look.
"So certain that I make bold to claim one-half of the promised reward in
advance."
"That I can quite understand," replied the man with an insulting smile;
"but I will make bold not to pay it. I prefer sticking to my principle
of paying as I go along, sentence by sentence."
"Ask then!" murmured the hag greedily.
"When does the Beg return? I lay five ducats on that question."
"The answer to it costs ten. That is my lowest price."
"There's your money then! Now speak!"
The woman counted the gold pieces, put them in her bosom, and replied--
"The Beg comes home this evening."
"Where is the subterranean way by which he arrives?"
"The answer to that costs one hundred ducats."
"There you are! Don't count them, but answer me!"
The woman took the money, pointed to the yawning chasm behind them, and
said--
"We are on the very spot."
The man looked around him with some surprise, then, jingling the purse
from which he had been doling out the ducats in the old woman's ear, he
said--
"All in this purse is yours if our plan succeeds, but if you betray us,
this dagger will surely reach you. I'd hunt you down even if you took
refuge in hell itself!"
The hag grinned.
"No threats, please! I know something which will not only make you hand
over that purse of gold to me instantly, but will also fill you with
such insane joy that you'll be ready to cover me with kisses. I have
about me a letter which, if once your master reads, he would cover me
with gold from head to foot."
"Who wrote it?"
"That is a very dear question. If you paid for the answer down, I'm
afraid you would not have enough money left to carry you home."
"I want to know who wrote that letter. I'm not going to buy a pig in a
poke."
"Then farewell! If you want to know anything more, you must pay for it."
And she prepared to go.
"Stop! Give me that letter, or I'll kill you."
"No, you won't! One shriek from me and you are lost."
"Where's the letter?"
"You surely don't think me fool enough to tell you! I don't carry it on
my person, so you need not look for it!"
The man angrily threw the purse towards her, whereupon she tripped to
the entrance of the cavern, fetched from thence her crutch and unscrewed
its handle, and drew forth from the hollow of the stick a crumpled
silken roll, which the man unravelled and began to read, and as he read
his face began to tremble for joy, disbelief, and surprise.
"If all this really happens, what you have now received is a mere
earnest of what you will receive hereafter."
"Didn't I tell you so?" returned the beldame complacently. "Didn't I say
that you'd gladly pay me in advance at least one-half of the sum
stipulated?"
"Now, take heed that nothing is observed!"
"Pst! Go round by the stream, the usual path is to-day infested by
marauding parties."
With these words the two shapes glided hastily out of the cavern, and
vanished in different directions among the thickets of the wood.
* * * * *
And now begone, thou inhospitable outer world! thou oppressive mountain
panorama! thou desolate horizon!
Appear, ye fairy realms! ye earthly counterfeits of the paradise of
dreams! Permit us one glance into the sanctuary of mysterious joys, of
stifled kisses, of glowing sighs, where Love and Love's satellites alone
do dwell and live!
We see before us a gorgeous circular saloon. Its spacious walls are made
of mirrors, the perpetual reflection of which lends a peculiar lustre to
every object, nowhere suffering a shadow to fall. The sky-blue cupola of
the domed ceiling is supported by slender, dark-red porphyry columns,
half concealed by clusters of exotic flowers, which, heaped profusely
together in rose-coloured porcelain vases, scatter the gold-dust of
their velvet blossoms on the floor. The floor itself is covered with
silk carpets--only here and there does the mosaic pavement shimmer
forth. In the midst of the room, in a basin of rose-coloured marble,
bubbles a crystal-clear fountain, from the centre of which springs a jet
glistening with all the hues of the rainbow, and falling back in showers
of liquid pearls. The water of this fountain is introduced into the
fortress through a secret passage by hidden pipes. All along the walls
extend rows of velvet divans with cylindrical, flowered cashmere
cushions; and on every side of us are fairies, laughing young girls
dancing on the carpets, romping on the divans, and splashing one another
with the water of the fountain. One odalisk swings a cymbal above her
head, and dances with audacious leaps and bounds among the rest, who,
winding their hands together, weave a magic circle around her. Three
Nubian eunuchs accompany the dancers, singing love-lorn lays to the
music of their simple pipes.
The veils of these fairy forms flutter left and right, revealing faces
whose youthful charms no eye of man has ever gazed upon. The patter of
their tiny feet is scarcely audible on the soft carpets. They seem to
fly. Their light muslin robes ill conceal their youthful forms, and
their tresses, escaping from their turbans, writhe down their snow-white
shoulders like tame serpents.
A black slave is playing with the little gold fish that dart about in
the basin of the fountain, and laughs aloud whenever any of the nimble
little animals wriggle out of her hands. Her white, embroidered robe is
held together by a golden girdle, and as she sits there on the rosy
marble, the hemispheres of her ebony-black bosom and her plump round
arms glisten in the sunbeams. The glow of youth shines through her dark
features, and her coral lips, radiant with mirth and joy, allow us a
glimpse at rows of the purest pearly teeth, as, with childish glee, she
laughs at her own simple sport.
At the end of this oval saloon, raised a few feet above the floor,
stands a purple ottoman. The rosy-coloured damask curtains, which form a
baldachin over it, are tied to the branches of enormous jasmine trees by
heavy golden tassels. Oriental butterflies, with ultramarine wings,
flutter round about the silvery jasmine blossoms; and at the head of the
ottoman, on a perch in a golden cage, two little inseparable paroquets,
with emerald wings and carmine heads, nestle close together and kiss
each other perpetually.
Stretched out to her full length upon the ottoman lies Corsar Beg's
favourite odalisk[21] Azrael. Beneath her snow-white elbows, left bare
by the loose-falling, laced sleeves of her ample kaftan, lies a living
panther, like a bright speckled cushion, licking his glossy skin, and
playing like a young kitten with his mistress's jasper-black locks which
descend upon his head.
[Footnote 21: _Odalisk_, from Turkish Odalyk =
chamber-maid. Applied particularly to the chief
concubines of the Sultan.]
The young lady has well chosen her companion. She too is as slender and
as supple as he; her limbs are just as flexible as his; her slight
figure has the same undulating motion, and in her languid eyes burns
just the same savage, half-quenched fire which we see in the eyes of the
half-tamed beast of prey. She lies supine on the ottoman. The amber
mouthpiece of her fragrant narghily droops from her listless hand. Close
by, on a little ivory table, spiced sherbet exhales from a golden bowl.
There too, on Japanese dishes, lie heaps of luscious fruit--golden,
warty melons; pine-apples; the red fruit of the palm; fragrant clusters
of grapes--and, dripping down upon a little silver platter, snow-white
comb-honey, gathered by the bees in the days of the acacia's bloom.
Azrael bestows not a glance on the luscious fruits. When, from time to
time, she raises her languid eyes, half hidden by their long silken
lashes, one is almost thunderstruck: such burning glances are only to be
found beneath southern skies, whose summer is as glowing, as
languishing, as parching as the eyes of this girl. An eternal desire
burns in those eyes, unspeakable, unappeasable, which enjoyment feeds
without satisfying. If you gave her a world she would instantly demand
another. Even when every sense is sated with bliss and rapture, her
heart remains empty, and yearns after the unattainable. Those who love
her, she hates; those who hate her, she loves. Die for her, and she will
mock you; kill her, and she will adore you.
Her oval face is as pale as though the burning rays of her eyes had
burnt up all its roses; but when she closes her eyes, and her bosom
heaves convulsively beneath the fire of her secret thoughts, the bright
crimson blood suffuses her cheeks once more.
And how her lips tremble! She is in a brown study. She speaks to no one.
Dancing and singing, the girls of the harem circle round her. A little
negro boy kneels before her with a silver mirror. Half-naked female
slaves shower down rose-leaves upon her, and fan her with peacock's
feathers. Azrael sees them and hears them not. She looks into the
mirror, and speaks to herself, as if she would read her own thoughts
from her own features; her lips tremble, smile, and pout defiance; her
eye entices, languishes, weeps, or flashes rejection; at one moment she
transports you into the seventh heaven of delight, at the next she
dashes you to the earth. And now some cruel thought, some demoniacal
idea has got hold of her. She retracts her upper lip, exposing her
tightly-clenched teeth; her contracted eyebrows draw a trembling furrow
across her snow-white forehead; the pupils of her eye disappear,
leaving only the upturned whites visible; the beauty lines round the
corners of her mouth grow crooked, and give the expression of a Fury to
the beautiful countenance; her curling tresses, like writhing snakes,
twist down on both sides of her. Her tremulous fingers, involuntarily
and spasmodically, clutch at the smooth neck of the panther, and the
tortured beast roars aloud for pain.
The favourite shrinks back from her own countenance. She thrusts aside
the little negro, mirror and all; wraps her starry veil around her;
turns upon her side with her tiny scarlet-slippered feet beneath her;
presses her supple body against the panther's neck, and leaning upon her
elbows, glances around with such a savage, menacing look, that every one
on whom it falls, not even excepting the wild beast, shrinks back with
fear.
But she cannot keep still a moment. A tormenting weariness compels her
every moment to shift her position. Now she reclines on her divan, and
raising her arms aloft, throws back her head and neck; all her limbs
writhe like the folds of a serpent; in her eyes sparkle the tears of
smothered desires.
None dare ask her, "What ailest thee?" Azrael is so capricious. Perhaps
the questioner might please her, and she would command her to
straightway leap down before her eyes from the highest pinnacle of the
Corsar's castle into the abyss below. It is therefore neither wise nor
safe to try to please Azrael.
But lo! a gold-trellised door opens, and Azrael's tearful eyes sparkle
with joy when she perceives who it is that enters. It is the old woman
with the warty chin, whom we have already met at the cavern's mouth. A
ghastly, hideous duenna! Turkish women age prematurely. Ten years ago
Babaye was Corsar Beg's favourite mistress, now she is Azrael's
favourite slave.
The hag sits down at Azrael's feet. She alone has the privilege of
sitting down before Azrael.
"Are we weary then?" said the beldame to the beautiful odalisk, with a
confidential leer, displaying a row of jagged fangs black from
sugar-sucking and betel-chewing. "We find no joy in anything, eh? What!
have not the Bayaderes[22] danced amidst a circle of burning tapers? Or
has that also lost its charm? Are the Persian silks already shabby and
threadbare? Is there no longer any flavour in the honeycomb or any
perfume in the pine-apple? Have the pearls of Ceylon lost their lustre?
Do the songs of the Italian eunuchs vex and weary? And has the mirror
nothing beautiful to show? Wherefore is the Sun of suns so moody and so
impatient? Why should a cloud obscure the heaven of Damanhour? Shall I
delight her of the alabaster forehead with a tale? Shall I tell the
story of the captive lion which Medzsnun, the immortal poet, has
written?"
[Footnote 22: _Bayaderes._ Indian singing and dancing
girls. A Portuguese word.]
Azrael cast down her languid eyelids by way of assent.
"Once upon a time they captured a lion in the palm forests of
Bilidulgherid. A rich and powerful Dey bought the beast for a thousand
gold pieces. The Dey was a mighty man. At his command they built for the
lion a cage of gold so large that palm-trees could stand upright
therein. The ceiling of the cage was inlaid with lapis-lazuli. They
brought to it, from the distant mountains, a spring of living water, and
the floor was decked with purple carpets. But the lion was sad and
silent. All day it lay there sullen and morose. Only when the sun had
set would it arise with an angry roar, shake the door of its cage, and
terrify the silence of the night. The Dey asked the lion, 'What dost
thou lack, my beautiful beast? Thy house is of gold. Thou dost eat with
me out of the same dish, and thy drink is the crystal spring! What more
dost thou desire? Wouldst thou bathe in ambergris? Or dost thou desire
for supper the hearts of my favourite odalisks?' The lion roared and
made answer, 'My cage, though it be of gold, is still a cage; these
palm-trees are not the groves of Nubia, and this basin is not the
springs of the desert of Berzendar. I want neither thy perfumes nor thy
spices, nor the throbbing hearts of thy slaves. Give me back the free
air of the desert, there will I speedily find again my good-humour!'"
Babaye was silent. The odalisk, with a tremulous sigh, bowed down her
head upon her aching bosom, and beckoned to the duenna to tell her yet
another tale.
"Wouldst thou hear the story of the fairy and the mortal maiden? Once
upon a time the fairy of the rainbow perceived a lovely maiden, enticed
her away with sweet words, and took her over the bridge of the seven
colours into the third heaven. There, everything was more beautiful than
it is on earth--the flower a languid diamond; the sigh of the zephyr a
melodious song; the pillars of the palaces nought but crystal and gems.
There every sense experienced a threefold greater bliss than here below.
The fairy treated the maiden like the apple of her eye--fairies know the
secret of loving tenderly--and yet the girl was sad. She grew weary in
heaven, and whenever the fairy went away to suck up water for the sky
from the ocean, she saw how the girl bent over the rainbow-bridge, and
looked longingly down upon the cloudy earth. 'What lackest thou?' she
asked the maiden. 'Wherefore dost thou look down so upon the earth?
Speak! What dost thou want? Command me, and I'll fetch it for
thee!'--'Stars are falling down from heaven,' replied the girl, 'and
they fall upon the earth. Give me of them, and I will make a pearly
coronet for my hair!' And the fairy went and brought the stars. Again
the maiden looked down sadly upon the earth. Again the fairy asked her,
'What dost thou lack? Is there aught on earth that thy soul desirest?'
The maiden answered, 'There below dance slim damsels, and look up
smilingly at me! Wherefore are they happier than I? Would that I had
their heads to play at ball with!' And the fairy brought the heads of
the damsels for the maiden to play at ball with."
Azrael looked at the hag with contracted eyebrows, half raised herself
upon her elbows, and sought in her golden girdle for the malachite
handle of her little dagger.
"Once more the maiden looked down upon the earth," resumed Babaye,
smiling. "'Is aught else to be found there that is worth a wish?' asked
the fairy in despair. 'Below there, youthful heroes are walking to and
fro,' returned the maiden, 'and they are all so sweet and so lovely.
Thou art a fairy, 'tis true, but thou art alone in heaven. Thou canst
not give me fresh love. Let me go back again to earth.'"
Azrael sprang from the ottoman with glowing cheeks, and seized the
beldame by the shoulder. Her bosom heaved tumultuously; a threatening
scarlet flamed upon her burning face. All the muscles of her snow-white
arms seemed to quiver.
Babaye looked up at her with a grin.
"Come into thy bathing-chamber," said she to the agitated odalisk. "The
agate basin exhales the perfumes of spikenard and ambergris. Whilst thou
art there alone, I will entertain thee. I know still more beautiful
tales which shall rejoice thy heart."
Azrael, all tremulous, drew her veil around her neck, and with nervous
irritability beckoned to the girls to be gone. They escaped through the
side-door in terrified haste; nor were they fearful without good cause,
for as soon as Azrael had withdrawn, the deserted panther, freed from
the thrall of his mistress, stretched himself to his full length, lolled
out his red tongue as far as it would go, protruded his sharp claws,
lowered his head with a menacing growl, sprang at a single bound into
the middle of the room, careered twice or thrice round the walls,
savagely howling and snuffing at every door behind which he scented the
vanished slaves, scratched at the threshold with bloodthirsty rage, and
whined peevishly because he could not get at them. Then he crouched down
by the water-basin, rested his fore-paws thereon, lapped up the
crystal-clear stream with his long red tongue, then, rolling himself
into a ball on the soft carpet, seized his long speckled tail between
his hind legs and played with it like a cat. Then he stood up again,
looked around with cunning, malignant eyes, and perceiving a large white
cockatoo in a bronze cage, wriggled towards it on his belly, and watched
it for a long time with lowered head and restless tail. Suddenly, with
one bound, he sprang upon it, and seized the bar of the cage with his
claws. The terrified cockatoo, loudly screeching, struck at his
assailant with his crooked bill; and the panther, who could neither
overthrow the cage nor destroy it, for it was nailed fast to the ground,
leaped over it again and again, roaring furiously, and then cowered down
before it, lashing the ground on both sides of him with his tail, and
gaping from time to time at the terrified bird with his wide
bloodthirsty jaws, whilst the cockatoo screeched, whistled, fluttered
about the cage, and hacked away at his inaccessible perch.
* * * * *
Along the hollow, labyrinthine way which meanders into the Corsar's
castle, the trampling of a troop of horsemen is faintly audible. The
clash of arms resounds from the depths of the wood long before we can
discern who are approaching. Now they have climbed to the mountain
summit where the road runs along the rocky ridge. It is Corsar Beg
himself with his robber band. The booty-laden mules lead the way. The
treasures of pillaged churches gleam forth from the leathern sacks piled
one on the top of the other. In the centre rides the Beg himself, with
his motley body-guard recruited from every kind of Turkish
cavalry--silk-clad Spahis with long lances, bare-armed Baskirs with bows
and arrows, Bedouins in snow-white mantles with long, brass-tipped
muskets. The Beg is a man in the prime of life. His brown, almost black
countenance makes his slight beard and moustaches nearly invisible. His
lips and eyes are large and swollen. His projecting cheek-bones and
broad chin give him a truculent, ferocious air, with which his massive
shoulders and enormous muscular development well agree. His clothing is
tastelessly overladen with gems. A string of pearls goes round his
turban. Large gold rings hang glistening down from his ears. His dolman
is embroidered with a flower-pattern of precious stones, and everything
about his horse, from its hoofs to its snaffle, is of pure gold. His
round shield is made of burnished silver, and the head of his
morning-star consists of a single cornelian.
His troop follows him in silence. Many of the horsemen carry behind them
half-swooning Christian girls on whom they do not bestow a glance. The
garments of all these freebooters are stained with blood; some of them
have not even taken the trouble to wipe away the blood-stains from their
faces.
The mules, whipped by the fellahs, trot noiselessly towards the
fortress; the host ambles after them along the narrow path. The Timariot
infantry straggle behind, and quarrel among themselves about the booty
which they carry on their shoulders. No one pursues them.
* * * * *
The large oval room is empty. The women of the harem have withdrawn into
their own apartments. Azrael is alone.
On quitting her perfumed bath, she has a hammock slung over the
fountain, reclines therein, rocks herself luxuriously to and fro, and
lets her glowing, snow-white limbs be splashed by the water-jet. She
folds her arms across her bosom, and, with a self-complacent smile,
watches the diamond jet break against her lithe body as the swaying
hammock cuts across it with its charming burden.
The red curtains are let down to keep out the rays of sunset, but a
rose-coloured light pervades the room, suffusing every object with a
soft and magic hue. The odalisk appears like a rosy water-nymph swinging
on a bright lotus-leaf over a fountain of liquid rubies.
The atmosphere of the room is impregnated with a bewitching,
love-inspiring perfume. Not a sound is to be heard save the pattering of
the water-drops as they fall back into the basin.
All at once the familiar winding of a horn is heard outside. The
prancing and neighing of horses in the courtyard scares away the
silence. Above the din rises the word of command of a well-known voice.
Azrael smiles, and rocks herself still more swiftly in her hammock. A
fatal enticement lurks in her eyes as she looks towards the
golden-trellised door, and throws back her head.
A minute later, and we hear hasty steps approaching. Impelled by love,
Corsar Beg is hastening towards his earthly paradise. The turning of a
key is audible in the golden door. Azrael laughs aloud, and rocks
herself still more swiftly in her bright-winged hammock.
* * * * *
The shadows of night have descended. Every living thing sleeps soundly.
Love alone is wakeful.
"Oh, I fear me! I fear me!" whispers Azrael, clinging still more closely
to the breast of the wild Moorish horseman.
"Why dost thou tremble? I am here," and he embraces her slim waist.
"Hamaliel hath brought me evil dreams," returns the odalisk. "I dreamt
that the Giaours stormed thy castle in the night-time and murdered thee.
I would have hurled myself down from the battlements, but I could not
because I was a captive. A Christian held me in his arms! Mashallah! it
was frightful!"
"Fear not!" said the Corsar. "The Koran says that only birds can fly,
and none can get into this castle without wings. But even if we were
surprised thou hast no cause to fear falling into the hands of the
Infidel, or being defiled by the touch of the Giaour, for under the
ottoman on which we now lie a lunt is laid which goes right down into
the powder-chamber. If all were lost, thou hast but to touch that lunt
with this night-lamp, and the whole castle with us and our foes would
fly into the air."
"Oh, what a consoling thought!" sighs Azrael, softly pressing her lips
to the Corsar's cheeks, and seeming to slumber once more.
The night-lamp flickers feebly on its tripod, multiplying its own
shadow. The watchers snore before the doors.
Suddenly Azrael springs screaming from her couch, dragging the Beg along
with her.
"La illah, il allah! Dost thou not hear the noise of the Jins?" she
cries, trembling in every limb.
The Beg stares around him in terror. A tempest is raging outside. The
weathercocks creak and rattle. The wind tears the tiles from the summits
of the minarets, and hurls them on to the cupolas of the kiosk. The
lightning flashes, and the thunder teaches the rocks to tremble.
"Dost thou hear how they howl, those invisible beings, and rattle at the
barred and bolted windows with a mighty hand?"
"By the shadow of Allah! I hear them right well," murmurs the trembling
freebooter, with wildly staring eyes.
"Mercy! mercy! Avaunt, ye evil spirits!" cries Azrael, sinking down upon
the floor with dishevelled tresses, and stretching wide her naked arms.
"Ye shall be whipped with sunbeams and the darkness shall swallow you!
Go hence to the Giaours and torture them! May ye break your wings on the
horns of our half-moons, as ye whirl past them in your hosts!--Ha, how
their eyes flash! Shadow of Allah, conceal us, lest they look upon us
with their fiery eyes!"
The big, strong man, all trembling, lies on his face beside Azrael, and
hides himself beneath her mantle and her long flowing tresses. His
superstitious terror has stolen every feeling of manliness from his
breast; he quakes like a child.
"Dost hear! dost hear how they murmur! Repeat rapidly and aloud the
prayer of Naama, and stop thy ears that thou mayst not hear what they
say!"
At that moment a terrible gust broke one of the panes of glass, and the
free invading air began to move the heavy curtains to and fro, and make
the lamp flicker.
"Ha! Dost thou see him?" cried Azrael. "Pst! Look not thither! Open not
thine eyes! Hide thy face! Duck down by me! Cover thee with my mantle!
It is Asasiel, the Angel of Death! Dost thou not feel his cold sigh upon
thy cheek? Pst! Be covered! Perchance he will not see thee!"
Corsar Beg clung convulsively to Azrael's garment, and covered his face
with his hands.
"What wouldst thou?" cried Azrael, as if addressing an invisible spirit.
"Black shadow, with blue sparkling eyes of fire, for whom dost thou
come? There is none here but I. Corsar Beg has not come home! Come
later! Come an hour hence! Avaunt, avaunt, black being! May Allah crush
thy head in the dust! Come an hour hence, and be for ever accursed!"
Corsar dared not open his eyes. Azrael bent half over him, to shield him
from the eyes of the Angel of Death.
"Avaunt! avaunt!"
At that moment the lightning struck one of the bastions, and shook the
mountain to its very base. The crackling roar of the thunder, like an
infernal trumpet-blast, went clanging up to heaven.
"Ah!" cried Azrael, and she sank down upon the Corsar, encircled his
body with her arms, and so remained till the rumbling of the thunder had
died away, and a gentle shower began to patter down upon the copper
roof. Then the tempest gradually passed away, sighing and moaning around
the windows, and finally dying away among the distant forests.
Azrael softly raised her head and looked around.
"He is gone," she whispered, in a scarcely audible tone. "He said he
would return in an hour. Corsar, thou hast yet another hour to live."
"An hour!" repeated Corsar faintly. "Alas! Azrael, where canst thou
conceal me?"
"It cannot be. Asasiel is inexorable. Another hour, and he will take
thee away."
"Bargain with him. If he must have the dead, I will behead a hundred of
my slaves. Promise him blood, treasure, prayers, and burning villages.
All, all he shall have, only let him give me back my life!"
"Too late. In my dreams I saw thy sword break in twain. Thy days are
numbered. Nay, thou hast but one chance left, but one way of thwarting
the Angel of Blood: if only one among the dead will change names with
thee, so that Asasiel may carry him off instead of thee."
"Oh yes! oh yes!" stammered the strong man, beside himself for fear.
"Oh, seek me out some such dead man who will change names with me. Thou
dost know the incantations. Go! call up one from the grave! Promise him
anything, everything, whoever he may be--a fellah, a rajah, it matters
not. I'll give him my name and take his. Go!"
"Nay, but thou must go also. Gird on thy kaftan quickly. Leave thy
weapons here. Spirits fear not sharp steel. We will descend into the
churchyard beneath the fortress walls; kindle ambergris and borax on a
tripod; hurl the magic wand into the nearest grave, and so compel the
dwellers therein to appear before thee. When the spirit appears he will
stand motionless, but thou must advance towards him, and cry thrice in
a loud voice--'Die for me!' whereupon the spirit will vanish, and
Asasiel will cease from troubling thee."
"But thou too wilt be close at hand?" stammered the Corsar, grasping
tightly the arm of the odalisk, as if he feared that Death would
instantly seize him if he let her go.
"Yes, I will be by thy side. But hasten. An hour is but a brief
respite."
Corsar quickly threw his upper garment around him, and recited in broken
sentences the beginning of a prayer, the end of which he could not
recollect.
"Wake none of the watch," said Azrael cautiously. "The power of the
spell might be broken if we met any living soul who should say a prayer
contrary to ours. We will saddle the horses ourselves and descend by
secret paths. Speak not a word by the way, nor cast a glance behind
thee."
The Beg was ready. He was just putting on his fur-lined kaftan, for his
limbs felt frozen, when the odalisk called to the panther, which was
reposing on the carpet.
"Oglan,[23] thou shalt go with us and keep watch, and if we fall in with
a wild beast, thou shalt defend us."
[Footnote 23: _Oglan_, the Turkish for boy.]
As if he understood the words of his mistress, the panther rose up on
his hind legs and placed his fore-paws on her arm, while the trembling
man clung to her on the other side.
* * * * *
The Turkish cemetery beneath the walls of the fortress is planted with
cypress trees. The turbaned graves, with their coffin-like slabs, peer
forth, ghastly white, from among the dark weeping-willows. The sound of
the approaching footsteps startles away a grey wolf from among the
tombs, the sole inhabitant of that desolation. Since the last shower the
clouds have dispersed, and here and there the dark-blue sky looks
through with its diamond stars. Raindrops trickle down from the leaves
of the trees.
From time to time the rumbling of the storm is still heard faintly in
the distance. Sheet-lightning flickers above the mountain crests,
painting everything white for an instant. The lightning, like the night,
can only give one colour to this region--the one paints it white, the
other black.
The nightly shapes reach the churchyard by the secret path and dismount
among the graves. Azrael places the reins of both horses in Oglan's
jaws, and the shrewd beast remains sitting there on his haunches,
holding both the snorting horses as firmly as if they were fastened to a
stake.
The Moorish horseman and the odalisk ascend a high funereal mound, the
tombstone of which is barely visible through the dependent branches of a
weeping willow.
"Something more than a slave must rest beneath that stone," whispered
Azrael to the quaking horseman; and placing her magic tripod on the
tomb, she ignited with a phosphorous pellet the powdered ambergris and
borax, which flickered up and cast a whitish glare all around the grave.
There was a slight rustle in the distance. The Corsar's horse neighed
uneasily.
"What was that?" asked the Corsar.
"The Jins," replied Azrael; "look not behind thee."
With that she raised her magic staff, and pronounced in unintelligible
words the exorcism over the grave.
"Thou restless spirit, appear at my bidding. Wherever thou art, beneath
the dark tree of Hell, or in the garden of the Houris; whether thou dost
pine in chains of fire or dost recline on beds of roses, obey my voice,
fly through the air, dissipate the darkness, and appear before me in the
mortal shape thou didst wear on earth. Appear!"
With these words she struck with her staff upon the stone slab, and
immediately a lofty shape in a white winding-sheet rose up from behind
the tomb.
"Now advance three steps forward and speak to it," cried Azrael to the
confounded Moor.
With tottering footsteps Corsar Beg approached the shape, and cried with
a hoarse, trembling voice--
"My name is Corsar Beg. Who then art thou, accursed spirit?"
"I am Balassa," replied the shape with a sonorous voice; and casting
aside the white winding-sheet, a powerfully-built, fair-complexioned man
appeared with a drawn sword in his hand. "Corsar Beg, you are my
prisoner," cried he to the Turk, who stood there in his bewilderment as
if turned to stone.
The next moment the Beg put his hand to his side, and not finding his
sword there, rushed back with a howl of fury to his horse, threw himself
like lightning into the saddle, and struck his sharp spurs into the
flanks of his steed. But Oglan held the reins firmly between his teeth,
and when the horse tried to start off, the panther planted his front
paws firmly into the ground, and forced it back again.
"To hell with thee, accursed monster!" roared the Beg, foaming with
rage, and striking at the panther with his fist; but the beast tugged
the halter first to the right and then to left, and stopped the horse in
its flight; terrified it with his leaps and bounds, and forced it to go
round and round.
"Speak to this monster, Azrael!" cried the Beg. He turned round to look
for his favourite, and he beheld her nestling lovingly in Balassa's
bosom, with her snow-white arms encircling the young Hungarian's neck.
At the same instant the woods all around teemed with life; the ambushed
Hungarian soldiers rushed forth and tore the Beg from his horse, who,
even when forced to the ground, tried to defend himself with stones.
"Be accursed!" gasped the vanquished freebooter.
The attacking squadrons marched before his very eyes through the secret
passage into the fortress, and an hour later he could see, by the light
of his burning palace, his favourite Azrael mounting up behind Balassa,
and disdaining to bestow so much as a glance at the discomfited Beg.
CHAPTER IX.
THE PRINCE AND HIS MINISTER.
Several years have elapsed since Apafi became a Prince. We have reached
that period when the unexpected death of Nicolas Zrinyi dissolved the
faction of the malcontent Hungarians, compelling most of them to
emigrate into Transylvania, which land, owing to the ceaseless
antagonism of the German Emperor and the Turkish Sultan, was allowed to
enjoy an independent government. It paid indeed a tribute to the Sublime
Porte; but it adopted what measures it chose in its own Diet, and if the
Tartars occasionally reduced a few villages to ashes, that was only
another proof that they no longer regarded the land as their own
property. All the strongholds were in the hands of the Prince. He could
keep as many soldiers as his purse would pay for, wage war with
whomsoever he could cope, and hoodwink the Turks whenever it pleased him
so to do. The Turk had nothing to find fault with, either in the
constitution of the land, its peculiar privileges, its patriarchal
aristocracy, its Latin language, and its Hungarian dolman; or, again, in
its manifold religions and its three distinct[24] and self-governing
nationalities. All these things did not trouble him in the least. At
most he pitied the poor gentlemen who made such a muddle of affairs of
state; but he never made the slightest attempt to initiate them into his
own much simpler political system.
[Footnote 24: _Viz._ the Saxons, the Szeklers, and the
Magyars. The Wallachs simply cultivated the soil.]
* * * * *
Meanwhile, great changes had taken place at Ebesfalva. The dwelling of
the Prince no longer consisted of a simple manor-house. On a
neighbouring hill he had had a castle built with lofty, square towers,
from the corners of which rose still loftier turrets. The entrance was
guarded by two proudly rampant stone lions. On the façade, in bold
relief, was carved the inscription: _Fata viam inveniunt_. A vestibule,
connecting one wing of the castle with the other, and surrounded by a
richly-gilded and ornamented trellis-work, runs along the front of the
castle on huge, classically-carved stone pillars. The windows are all in
the Perpendicular style, with old-fashioned ornaments, and you reach the
inner courtyard by a subterranean corridor.
In this courtyard, instead of ploughs and wagons, our eye falls upon
arquebusses and culverins. Instead of peasants, we see body-guards, in
yellow dolmans and scarlet hose, swaggering before the doors. To reach
the Prince's cabinet, one must traverse long corridors and re-echoing
saloons, in which pages, footmen, and gentlemen of the bedchamber
announce the newcomer from door to door, and when one has finally
reached the reception-chamber, it is only to see, after all, not the
Prince, but the Prince's chief councillor, Master Michael Teleki, the
same bald-headed man whom we first met at Csakatorny, at that memorable
hunt where Nicolas Zrinyi met his death. At that time the worthy
gentleman was only one of Prince George Rakoczy's disgraced ex-captains;
but since then a kind Providence has taken him by the hand, and he is
now Captain-General of Kövar, and the Prince's omnipotent prime
minister. His mother was the Princess's sister, and his aunt, whom he
always calls sister (women seldom take offence at such mistakes),
introduced him to her consort. Once near the Prince, Teleki needed no
one's good word. His comprehensive intellect, vast knowledge, and
statesmanlike dexterity made him indispensable to the Prince, who loved
to bury himself among his books and his antiquities, and felt aggrieved
when anything tore him away from his family circle or his favourite
studies.
To-day, too, his reception-room is crammed to suffocation by gentlemen
who seek an audience of his Highness. They are the fugitive Hungarians,
of whom the Prince seems to stand in peculiar horror. These restless,
bellicose, dark-browed people are an abomination to the easy-going,
contemplative Prince. So he shuts himself up in his study, and the only
person admitted to his presence is the learned and reverend John
Passai, Professor at Nagy-Enyed, beloved by the Prince on account of
his profound scholarship.
Apafi's private room is more like the study of a scholar than the
cabinet of a ruler. All around stands filled with books in gilded
bindings hide the walls, and in every corner lie heaps of plans and
charts. In the very circumscribed intervening spaces stand consoles with
clocks upon them, which the Prince always winds up himself; and the
chairs and sofas are so overladen with books for immediate use, that
whenever the Prince has a confidential visitor, he hardly knows where to
bestow him. Nay, sometimes the stone floor itself is so bestrewn with
outspread maps, dusty MSS., and open folios, that Teleki, when he
enters, has to walk as circumspectly as one who picks his way
circuitously through mud and mire.
The two gentlemen are at the present moment standing before the table,
which is covered with all sorts of ancient coins. Apafi wears a short
grey coat with loose sleeves, which is fastened round his loins by a
silken cord. His headgear consists of a round skin cap. Passai is
buttoned up in a dark-green, fur-lined mente, which reaches from his
chin to his heels. His thick white hair is shoved back and held together
by a large circular comb. His face, despite the wrinkles which cover it,
is fresh and ruddy, and his teeth are as perfect as those of a youth.
Apafi is attentively regarding a gold piece, which he poises between his
fingers and holds against the light. Passai stands hat in hand before
the Prince like a log, with his wrinkled countenance fixed intently on
his Highness.
Apafi petulantly turns and twists the coin in all directions.
"These are not Roman letters," he angrily murmurs; "neither are they
Greek nor Cyrillic, and least of all Hunnish symbols. Where was it
found?" he asked, turning to Passai.
"In Vasarhely, as the Wallachs were removing the ruins of the old
temple."
"Deuce take them! They might have been better employed."
"It was a very ancient ruin, what they call a Roman temple."
"But it cannot have been a Roman temple, for this is not a Roman coin."
"That's my opinion too; but the Wallachs have a way of regarding all
the ruins in Transylvania as Roman monuments."
"But why did they take it to pieces?"
"The villagers wanted to make lime of the statues."
"The impious wretches!" cried Apafi indignantly, "to turn such precious
masterpieces of art into lime. And you have not striven to save at least
a part of it from destruction?"
"I bought the lid of a sarcophagus adorned with sculptures, and a sphinx
in a perfect state of preservation; but the Wallach who was charged with
their removal was too lazy to have them lifted up as they stood, so he
broke up the statues into five or six pieces, so that he might have less
trouble in loading his cart."
"That man deserves to be impaled. I will issue a decree that no one
shall henceforth lay a hand upon such antiquities."
"I am afraid your Highness will arrive too late, for when the people
found that I was paying for these stones, the belief spread among them
that I was seeking for diamonds and carbuncles therein, so they smashed
the whole mass into such tiny morsels that they could now be offered for
sale as sand."
"Have you spoken to that nobleman of Deva about the mosaic?"
"He won't part with it at any price. He said that none of his ancestors
had ever carried their property to market. If only he would remove it
from the place where he found it, it would be something. But he won't
even do that, and now the cow-house stands over it, and the oxen make
their beds on the prostrate figures of Venus and Cupid."
"I should very much like to confiscate that man's property, and so come
into possession of that priceless curiosity," cried Apafi, with a
scholar's zeal, and again he busied himself with the investigation of
the enigmatical letters.
At that moment Teleki entered the room with a busy, important look, and
drawing from his silken pocket a MS. roll, placed it open in Apafi's
hand. The Prince made as though he were reading the document
attentively, and wrinkled his brows. Suddenly he looked up and exclaimed
joyfully--
"They are Dacian letters!"
"What!" cried Teleki, opening his eyes wide in his astonishment. He was
at a loss to explain how the Prince could have found Dacian letters in
the Latin MS. which he had just put into his hands.
"Yes; there can be no doubt about it," continued the Prince. "I
recollect reading somewhere--in Dion Cassius, I think--that the Romans,
after the fall of Decebalus,[25] had commemorative medallions struck off
with Dacian inscriptions, and the figure of a decapitated man on the
reverse. Don't you see the emblem?"
[Footnote 25: _Decebalus_. King of Dacia during the
reigns of Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan.]
"But your Highness," interrupted Teleki impatiently, "the memorial which
I have handed to you----"
And now for the first time Apafi perceived that a parchment was in his
hand awaiting perusal. He returned it sulkily to Teleki.
"I have already told you that I can speak to no one to-day. In a month
the session of the Diet will begin, and then the Hungarian gentlemen can
ventilate their affairs to their hearts' content."
"I cry your Highness' pardon!" replied Teleki caustically; "this
document is not from the Hungarian lords, but from his Excellency the
Tartar Khan."
"And what does he want?" cried Apafi, throwing a glance upon the
parchment, but when he perceived how long it was he laid it aside. "I
will be brief with him. Who brought the letter?"
"An emir."
Apafi immediately threw his attila over his shoulders, girded on his
sword, and stepped into the reception-room.
"Good-day! good-day!" he cried hastily to those assembled there. He
wished to cut short their long ceremonious greetings, and looked about
among them with inquiring eyes.
"Where is the emir?"
The Tartar envoy at once stepped forward. He was a truculent, swarthy
fellow, with small sparkling eyes. A heron's plume as long as the shaft
of a lance waved from his large turban. He wore a red, richly-fringed
jacket, and the gold inlaid hilt of his scimitar peeped forth from his
broad girdle. Defiantly he placed himself in front of the Prince and
stuck out his chest.
"_Salem alek!_ What do you want?" asked Apafi curtly.
The emir measured the Prince from head to foot twice or thrice with his
piercing eyes, threw back his head, and said--
"My master, the gracious Kuban Khan, bids me say to thee, O Prince of
the Giaours, that thou art a perjured, false, and faithless man. Thou
didst swear by thy honour that we should be good neighbours, and how
hast thou kept thy word? It chanced last year that we traversed the
Saxon[26] land, and visited those towns whose names no true believer can
pronounce, to collect the usual yearly tribute. They were ever good
payers, but some among them chancing to lag behind with their
contributions were, by the order of the most gracious Khan, instantly
reduced to ashes that they might learn to behave better another time.
And perchance thou dost fancy that they amended their evil ways? Not at
all. For when we visited them again this year, we found the charred and
naked walls as we had left them the year before: the unbelieving dogs
had traitorously fled away. Wherefore my gracious master, the mighty
Kuban Khan, bids me ask thee what manner of prince thou art that dost
suffer these unbelieving dogs to so forsake their towns and make fools
of us. When we came at other times, the hay was housed, the corn
thrashed, the cattle stalled--and this time we find nought but weeds,
and therein hares and other unclean beasts which ye unbelievers delight
to eat, and none of the towns built up again, so that we could take no
vengeance. Look to it, then, if thou wouldst not draw down upon thy head
the wrath of the mighty Khan, look to it that thou commandest this
runaway people to return to its towns that we may reckon with them; and
in the meantime bid the remaining Saxon towns, which have faithlessly
environed their houses with impregnable walls, that they open their
gates to us, otherwise we will visit thee in Klausenburg itself with
fire and sword, and will not leave thee one stone upon another."
[Footnote 26: _Saxons_. Geza II. (1141-1161) planted in
Transylvania a German colony to clear the forests and
till the lands. These so-called Saxons have survived to
the present day, and reside chiefly at Hermannstadt.]
Apafi, during the course of this speech, had frequently laid his hand on
his sword, but he evidently thought better of it, for it was with the
utmost tranquillity that he thus replied--
"Go back! Greet thy master, and say that we will give him satisfaction."
With that he turned his back upon the envoy, and would have returned to
his cabinet had not Teleki barred the way.
"That is not enough, your Highness. Once for all we must make it
impossible for any dog-headed Tartar to speak such brave words before
the throne of the Prince of Transylvania."
"Speak to him then yourself!"
Teleki thereupon, with an earnest, dignified mien, stepped up to the
emir, stared him out of countenance, and said with a firm voice--
"Thy master is doubtless the ruler of Tartary, but is not my master the
Prince of Transylvania? And is not the sublime Sultan the protector of
us both? Know then that the sublime Sultan did not make thy master Khan
of Tartary that he might dwell in Transylvania, nor has he set my master
on the throne of Transylvania to endure the insolence of thy master! Go
back then to thine own land, and come not hither again to wonder why a
town which is burnt down one year is not built up again the next. We
will take good care that all such places are rebuilt, but we will also
see that the bastions are high enough to keep thee out, and shouldst
thou desire to visit us at Klausenburg next year, we will also take care
that thou shalt not have thy journey for nothing, and will provide guns
in abundance to salute thee at a respectful distance."
All this Teleki said to the emir with a perfectly serious countenance.
The emir snorted with fury. His eyes grew bloodshot. His hand played
with the hilt of his scimitar, and he stammered with pallid lips--
"If any of my master's servants spoke thus in his presence, he would
immediately have his head struck off."
But Apafi tapped Teleki on the shoulder, and murmured as he stroked his
beard--
"It is well, Master Michael Teleki! You have spoken like a man."
The emir turned furiously upon his heel, and, shaking the dust from his
feet, left the room.
This scene put Apafi in a good humour, especially with Teleki. The
minister could read this change of mood in his master's face, and
hastened to make use of it. Taking one of the many suitors by the hand,
he presented him to Apafi with these words--
"My future son-in-law, your Highness."
Apafi would probably have escaped from a presentation made in any other
way; but made in this form he could not possibly avoid it. He was
compelled to cast a glance upon the young man.
The person so presented was a tall, handsome stripling with blooming red
cheeks and no trace, as yet, of a beard. In his femininely beautiful
features, it was pride alone which revealed the man.
The youth pleased Apafi.
"What is your son-in-law's name?" he asked Teleki.
With a peculiar smile Teleki said--
"Emerich, Stephen Tököly's son."
On hearing this name, Apafi suddenly became very grave, and said to the
young man--
"Your father was a good friend to me"--and yet he did not extend his
hand to the son.
"I know it," replied the youth, "and for that reason I have come to your
Highness."
"But your late father--God rest him!--was an unruly spirit. It is well
that you have not followed in his footsteps. He was never happy unless
he was fighting. The thunder of artillery was a vital necessity to him,
and the last hours of his life were spent at a siege. Well for you that
you do not imitate him! You seem to me a very steady, quiet sort of
young man."
"Oh! such praise as that I'm sure I don't deserve," replied Tököly
proudly; "I also was at the siege you speak of, and defended the
fortress till my father died."
Apafi did not like to be interrupted in this way, but, meaning to show
his sympathy, he added, after a pause--
"And how then did you manage to escape, my son?"
Emerich blushed deeply and would not answer; but Teleki, by way of
correcting his young kinsman's intemperate zeal, answered
apologetically--
"The fact is, he was then very young, so they disguised him in woman's
clothes, and he was thus able to elude the vigilance of the besiegers."
Apafi immediately recovered his good-humour. He playfully stroked the
youth's blood-red cheeks, and signified to Teleki that he might now
introduce the other gentlemen also.
They were all fugitives from Hungary, and the Prince did his best to
appear gracious towards them; but, in the meantime, one of the court
ushers entered and announced with a loud voice--
"His Excellency Monsieur l'Abbé Reverend, the French Envoy, desires an
audience."
This announcement again filled Apafi with embarrassment. He drew Teleki
aside and whispered in his ear--
"I will not, I cannot receive him. Go out and speak to him yourself, and
explain how matters stand." And with that he hastily quitted the
reception-room, delighted at having this time shifted the difficulty on
to Teleki's shoulders; but he remained listening at the door to find out
whether there would be any violent explosion behind his back.
And an explosion there certainly was, though not of a particularly
terrifying character.
The Prince heard Teleki burst into a jovial peal of laughter, whereupon
all the gentlemen present with one accord followed his example, just as
if they were taking part in some intensely amusing diversion.
"It must indeed be a very peculiar phenomenon which extorts such
extravagant merriment from these sour-faced gentry," thought Apafi, and
he half opened the door--he could not quite open it, because learned
Master Passai, ordinarily a miracle of gravity, had so given himself up
to mirth that he was forced to lean back against the Prince's cabinet.
"Let me come in, Master Passai!" cried the inquisitive Prince, and
succeeding shortly afterwards in opening the door, the cause of the
general mirth was immediately obvious to him.
The Abbé Reverend stood in the centre of the room in full Hungarian
costume. A more comical figure was scarcely conceivable.
The worthy gentleman, who rejoiced in the possession of a really
redoubtable corporation, standing there, clean shaven and benignly
smiling, presented an amiably ludicrous figure, of which only an
Hungarian, or one who knows what a severe criterion of the human figure
the tight-fitting Magyar costume really is, can form any idea. Add to
this that the worthy Frenchman, in his stiff hose and spurred
jack-boots, moved about as gingerly as if he feared every moment to fall
on his nose. He had also forgotten to buckle on his girdle, which lent a
peculiar quaintness to his general get-up, and his long bag-wig, in
which he looked like a lion, was surmounted by a tiny round cap from
which waved a gigantic heron plume.
Apafi did not see why he too should not smile when the others laughed.
Monsieur Reverend, with that facility peculiar to Frenchmen of coupling
gaiety with solemnity, tripped at once up to the Prince and said--
"Your Highness's persistent refusal to receive me made me assume that
perchance I did not present myself becomingly attired, and my present
good-fortune demonstrates the correctness of my assumption, for the
moment I present myself in Magyar costume I am lucky enough to behold
you."
"Parbleu, Monsieur!" returned Apafi, repressing his merriment with
difficulty, "I am always glad to see you on condition that politics are
banished from our discourse. But you have not fastened on your scarf,
and without the scarf a person in the Magyar dress looks for all the
world like a Frenchman who has forgotten to put on his breeches."
With these words the Prince produced a scarf adorned with gems, and tied
it with his own hands round the respectable waist of Monsieur Reverend.
"And what's this? Who taught you to stuff your pocket-handkerchief into
your trousers pocket? Only heydukes do that. What the deuce! A nobleman
always keeps his pocket-handkerchief in his kalpag. So! Hem! What a
beautiful pocket-handkerchief you've got!"
"Splendid, is it not?"
"Indeed it is! A garland pattern in silk thread, with gold and silver
embroideries at the corners. Only Paris can produce the like of this."
"And yet it was manufactured in Transylvania."
"You don't say so?"
"Yes; and what is more, in this very place, in Ebesfalva."
Apafi looked at Monsieur Reverend with amazement.
"And I not to know the artistic hands which work such beautiful things!"
"But your Highness does know them. The name of the fair artist will be
found embroidered in gorgeous Gothic letters on the hem of the
handkerchief."
Apafi carefully examined all the corners of the handkerchief one after
the other. Each had a different device embroidered on it--here a wreath
of oak-leaves, there a trophy, in the third a Turkish scimitar, an
Hungarian sabre, and a French sword bound together by a ribbon. At last
he came to the fourth corner, where, beneath a princely coronet, was
embroidered the word _Apafiné_.[27]
[Footnote 27: _Apafiné_ = Lady Apafi. The "né" is a
feminine suffix.]
The Prince read the name aloud. All who stood around looked at Apafi's
face with fearful suspense, as if they expected an explosion of wrath.
To every one's surprise, however, the Prince only smiled, stuck the
pocket-handkerchief into Monsieur Reverend's kalpag, cocked it rakishly
on the ambassador's head, and said to him with peculiar _bonhomie_--
"So you have succeeded in seducing my wife, eh?"
Reverend laughed awkwardly at what was a rather ambiguous jest so far as
he was concerned.
"Me, however, you shall not seduce," added Apafi, smiling.
Reverend bowed deeply; then, throwing back his head, he observed
archly--
"That will be brought about also, I hope, though by mightier than I."
At that moment the door opened and a servant announced--"Her Highness,
Dame Anna of Bornemissa, his Highness's consort, desires an audience of
the Prince."
Apafi looked at Teleki.
"This is all your doing."
Teleki calmly replied--"It is, your Highness."
"You have besieged us in form?"
"I do not deny it, your Highness."
"It was you who brought the ambassador to the Princess?"
"Such is indeed the case, your Highness."
"And it was you who then advised him to present himself in this
masquerade in order to lure me hither more easily?"
"I did it all, your Highness."
"Then you have done a very foolish thing, Master Michael Teleki."
"That remains to be seen, your Highness," replied the minister proudly,
conscious of his own intellectual superiority.
Meanwhile Dame Apafi had entered the room; her princely robes well
became her princely aspect. All the gentlemen present hastened forward
to do her homage. But Apafi also advanced quickly towards her, put his
arm through hers, and with marked tenderness endeavoured to lead her
into his cabinet.
"No; let us remain here," cried the Princess; "there will be plenty of
time later on to look at your Dutch clocks. Far more serious matters
claim our attention first. These gentlemen from Hungary desire an
audience."
Apafi exploded at once.
"I know beforehand what they want, and I have declared once for all that
I will hear no more of the matter."
"But you will surely listen to me. I too am an Hungarian woman, and in
the name of my fatherland I implore the Prince of Transylvania for help.
None shall say that I rule the Prince in secret. Look now, I advance
openly before his throne, and I beg of him protection for Hungary, whose
sons are called strangers in Transylvania, though I, her daughter, am
the Princess."
From Apafi's looks it was clear that he would much rather have listened
to the Hungarian gentlemen than to his own consort. But he was caught in
a trap. She stood before him as a petitioner. There was no escape.
Teleki bade the pages in waiting at the door admit no one else. Apafi,
with a gesture of impatience, sat down in an arm-chair, and resigned
himself to listen to his consort; but Anna had scarcely commenced to
speak, when the rattling of a coach was heard in the courtyard, and
shortly afterwards heavy footsteps resounded in the corridors, and a
stern, dictatorial voice, with which every one appeared to be familiar,
asked if the Prince was in. The pages said No, and tried to stop the
intruder, but exclaiming, "Out of my way, you brats!" he burst open the
door and forced his way into the room. It was none other than Denis
Banfi.
He had just descended from his carriage. His cheeks were much redder
than usual, and his eyes sparkled. He went straight towards the Prince
and cried, without the slightest preamble--
"Do not listen to these gentlemen, your Highness! Do not listen to a
single word."
The Prince smiled and greeted Banfi.
"God preserve you, my cousin," said he.
"Pardon me, your Highness, if in my great haste I neglected to salute
you; but when I heard that the Hungarian gentlemen were here in
audience, I was quite beside myself with rage. What do you want?"
continued he, turning towards the Hungarians; "not satisfied, I suppose,
with ruining your own country with your unruliness, you must needs come
hither to disturb us likewise?"
"You speak of us," remarked Teleki, with quiet sarcasm, "as if we
belonged to some outlandish Tartar stock, and as if we had been cast
hither from heaven only knows what sort of savage, distant land."
"On the contrary, I know you only too well, ye Hungarian lords. I speak
of you as men whose turbulence has, time out of mind, been ruinous to
Transylvania. The people of Hungary are idiots one and all."
"I beg you not to lose sight of the fact that I too am one of them,"
said the Princess.
"I know it; and it is with anything but satisfaction that I see the will
of your Highness predominant here."
Dame Apafi, with an expression of wounded dignity, turned towards her
brother-in-law.
"Whatever you may say, I will not cease to be your good kinswoman and
well-wisher," and with these words she quitted the room.
"You might at least have addressed the Prince more becomingly," remarked
Teleki, sharply.
"Have I then spoken one word to the Prince?" asked Banfi, shrugging his
shoulders. "How can I even reach his Highness when you are always
standing in the way? I am and always will be the enemy of those who have
no right whatever to stand on the steps of the throne, and you are one
of them, Master Michael Teleki. Oh, don't imagine that the reasons which
make you so enthusiastic in the Hungarian cause are hidden from me. You
are not content with being the first in Transylvania after the Prince;
you would fain become Palatine of Hungary[28] as well. Ha! ha! how you
all befool one another. The French promise aid to the Hungarians; the
Hungarians promise Teleki the dignity of Palatine; Teleki promises Apafi
a kingly crown, and ye lie, the whole lot of you; ye deceive and are
deceived."
[Footnote 28: _Palatine_ (Hungarian: "_Nador_"). The
Palatine was the highest dignitary in Hungary after the
King. The dignity was instituted soon after the year
1000, but since 1848 has been found incompatible with
modern parliamentary government.]
"Sir," replied Teleki, bitterly, "is that the way to speak to guests, to
exiled, unhappy fellow-countrymen?"
"Don't teach me how to be generous," retorted Banfi, proudly. "At my
house the poor and the persecuted have ever found an asylum, and if
these fugitive gentlemen wish us to share house and home with them, I'm
ready to do so. Here's my hand upon it. But just as I should be out of
my senses to burn my own house down, so now too I protest against the
conflagration of my country; and if you do not cease from troubling a
peaceful land, I'll leave no stone unturned till I have driven you all
out."
"We ought not to be surprised at this tone, my friends," said Teleki,
with bitter scorn, turning towards the Hungarians. "His Excellency here
has been so very recently amnestied by the Prince, that he imagines he
is still at war with us."
Apafi, who had been sitting on burning coals, now interposed.
"Cease this bickering. We dismiss you all. You see that sundry of our
councillors are against the matter, and without their consent I can do
nothing."
"Then," cried Teleki, with solemn emphasis, "we appeal to the Diet."
"I too will be there," said Banfi.
The Prince, very much offended, withdrew to his cabinet. The Hungarian
nobles, much excited, went out by the other door. Teleki remained
behind. Banfi, adjusting his marten-skin cap, haughtily measured his
opponent from head to foot, and exclaimed ironically as he went out--"I
leave my reputation behind me!" Teleki returned his gaze with the most
nonchalant sangfroid.
When every one had disappeared, Teleki whispered some words to a page,
who went out and returned in a few moments with a florid, curly-headed
young man. Methinks we have seen this youth somewhere or other before,
though only for an instant which we cannot call to mind. A beggar's sack
hangs down over his ragged clothing, his hand holds a knobby stick.
"So you permit me at last to approach the Prince?" said he, in a
somewhat dictatorial tone.
"Sit down here by the door," replied the minister; "the Prince goes to
dinner shortly, and will pass by this way. You can then speak to him."
The young man with the beggar's sack sat for a long time at the Prince's
door, till Apafi came out of his room on his way to dinner. The beggar
with the knapsack planted himself right in his Highness's way.
"Who are you?" asked the Prince, much surprised.
"I am that renowned warrior, Emerich Balassa, who once was one of the
chief men of Hungary, and now stands before your Highness with the
beggar's staff."
"You were involved, I understand, in that conspiracy against us?" said
Apafi, disagreeably flurried.
"That I was not, your Highness. If you would deign to listen to my tale,
then----"
"Speak!"
"There was once in Hungary a famous Turkish freebooter, named Corsar
Beg, who for a long time ravaged the mountain regions. The banded might
of six counties was insufficient to besiege him in his fortress. This
man I captured by subtlety. By promises and flatteries I won over his
favourite slave, who enticed him out of his stronghold by night and
alone. I, duly advertised thereof, fell upon him with horsemen ambushed
in the woods, and took captive both him and his slave, who is the most
beautiful and the most abandoned of her sex in the whole world."
"I have heard of you, Master Balassa. It was a daring deed."
"Listen further, your Highness. No sooner had the news of my capture
spread abroad, than the Palatine of Hungary, very emphatically, insisted
upon my handing over the prisoners to him. The Turks had already offered
me a ransom of sixteen thousand ducats for the pair, but I would not
part with the girl at any price. I therefore sent word to the Palatine
that if he wanted a Beg of his own he must catch one, for I had not
captured mine on his account."
Apafi laughed heartily. "That was one for him!"
"Thereupon the Palatine waxed wroth, and by the Emperor's command sent
out troops against me to rob me of my captives. Now just at this very
time, your Highness's brother-in-law, Denis Banfi, had taken refuge in
my castle, and to him I entrusted the slave, of whom I was madly
enamoured. He was to fly with her to my castle of Ecsed, and as I saw
that the Palatine was bent upon securing Corsar Beg for himself in order
to cut off his head at Buda as a warning to all malefactors, I gave the
Turk poison, which he, to escape the scaffold, thankfully accepted.
When, therefore, the troops of the Palatine arrived at my house, all
that they found there was the cold corpse, which the Turks afterwards
purchased from me for a thousand ducats."
"The Palatine was naturally very angry, I suppose?" remarked Apafi.
"'Twas I who had cause to be angry, for all through him I lost fifteen
thousand ducats, and yet he succeeded in obtaining an order for my
apprehension from the Emperor. I scented the danger in time, and got
together my valuables in order to fly into Transylvania, and remain
there till the affair had blown over. First of all, then, I hastened to
my castle at Ecsed, whither, as I have said, I had sent Banfi on
beforehand with the Turkish slave. While still on the way, I learnt that
Banfi had been restored by your Highness's amnesty to his former
position. I rejoiced greatly thereat, supposing that I now had in him a
powerful protector. Nevertheless, on reaching Ecsed, I found no sign or
trace of the girl. My castellan there informed me that Banfi had carried
her off with him, and left a letter behind for me, which contained the
following words--'Learn from this, my friend, that there are three
things you should never entrust to another--your horse, your watch, and
your mistress!'"
"What!" cried Apafi; "is this really true?"
"Pray let your Highness look at his own writing," and he drew the letter
in question out of his leather knapsack. "He is said to have concealed
the girl somewhere in his forests at Banfi-Hunyad."
Apafi turned scarlet with rage.
"'Tis monstrous!" cried he. "This fellow possesses a virtuous and lovely
wife of his own--my consort's own sister--and yet he can so far forget
his duty as a husband! I'll not put up with it!"
"Pardon me, your Highness; I have nothing more to do with Banfi now. My
complaint is against one Kapi, who had the usufruct of my Transylvanian
property. Not wishing, then, to have anything more to do with Banfi, I
took up my quarters with Kapi at Aranyosi Castle. Your Highness, the
pomp which that man displays exceeds anything that I have ever seen, and
I have seen many princely and palatinal courts in my day. His wife never
uses her feet at all. Even if she wants to get to the door, she is
carried thither in a gilded sedan-chair, and she never wears a dress
more than once!"
"But what have I to do with the frippery of Dame Kapi?"
"I'm coming to that. Her love of display costs money, and has compelled
her husband to resort to fraudulent practices. And besides, such
extravagance concerns your Highness also, as tending to emphasize the
contrast already apparent between the frugal simplicity of your
Highness's court and the dazzling pomp of these petty kings--a contrast
which has already made a pretty deep impression upon our foreign
visitors. Thus, quite recently, the Bavarian minister, who had come from
a banquet at Ebesfalva to Aranyosi, remarked in a flattering tone to
Dame Kapi, in my hearing, that she was the real Princess of
Transylvania."
"He said that, did he?" cried the Prince, becoming much interested. "Go
on with your narrative. So he said that Kapi's wife was the real
Princess, eh?"
"Yet strip from off her her costly pearls and diamonds, and you will see
that in regard to beauty and majesty she is not fit to lace the shoes of
her Highness the Princess Apafi."
"Go on! go on!"
"Well, one fine day this same Kapi came to me, and told me that your
Highness had been commanded by the Palatine to arrest and deliver me
over to him."
"I receive a command! I know absolutely nothing about it."
"Unfortunately I believed his words, and imagining myself caught between
two fires, I made over my Transylvanian property to Kapi to save it from
confiscation, he at the same time delivering to me an undertaking to
re-transfer the estates as soon as possible. Meanwhile I resolved to fly
to Poland, and stay there till the storm blew over. Kapi gave me two
guides, who were to conduct me through the mountain-passes to the
frontier; but at the same time he secretly informed the frontier
sentinels that I was a spy sent by the Emperor to explore Transylvania,
and was now desirous of returning unobserved. So the rogues waylaid me,
robbed me of all my money and papers, and dragged me to Fehervar, where
my innocence came to light, but my money and papers were of course
hopelessly lost. And now this Kapi actually maintains that I sold him
all my property, and I've nothing in the world but this leather knapsack
round my neck, with which I must now beg my way about."
"Be of good cheer. I will give you the most exemplary satisfaction,"
returned the enraged Prince.
"It is a matter which also concerns your Highness's own dignity,"
replied Balassa. "These great lords behave in as high-handed a fashion
as if they had absolutely no superior."
"Be easy. I will very soon show them who is the real Prince of
Transylvania."
Apafi, full of indignation, then left the audience-chamber.
A storm was gathering over the heads of two great men who stood in
Teleki's way.
BOOK II.
THE DEVIL'S GARDEN.
CHAPTER I.
THE PATROL.
Clement the Clerk stuck his pen behind his ear and recited to himself
the elegant verses which he had just composed, two hundred strophes in
all, almost every line of which ended in _fuerat_, with a sporadic
_fuisset_ in between.
Michael Apafi used regularly to repent whenever he had offended any one,
and he therefore could not rest till he had compensated the itinerant
scholar Clement for the snub he had administered to him, and this he did
by making the unsophisticated poet his----Patrol-officer.
In those days many agreeable duties were connected with this
office--duties which Clement simply left alone, devoting himself instead
to the composition of epics and chronicles, which he manufactured in
great abundance.
At that moment he was casting his eyes over a great epic, in which he
recorded how his Highness, Prince Michael Apafi, had gone out against
Érsekújvár to besiege it; how with splendid valour he had arrived there;
how, on beholding the foe, he had drawn his sword; how, after mature
deliberation, he had turned back again; and how, finally, he and all his
heroes had returned home again safe and sound.
Poetic distraction had so completely absorbed the faculties of Clement
the Clerk, that a week had already elapsed since his servant had made
off with his master's spurred jack-boots, without the latter, in his
capacity of Patrol-officer, thinking of pursuing the runaway; but in
fact he was confined within a vicious circle, inasmuch as every time he
thought of inquiring for his boots, it occurred to him that his servant
had stolen them; and every time he thought of going out and inquiring
for his servant, it occurred to him that he had no boots. What could he
do then under such circumstances but sit down again, and write poems in
absolutely endless quantities?
His room had not been swept out for weeks, naturally therefore there was
no lack of dust and cobwebs; but, by way of contrast, the deal floor all
around the solitary table was mottled with ink-blots. The table itself
had only two legs, the place of the others being supplied by layers of
bricks.
The poet scribbles, erases, and nibbles at his pen; on the window-sill
lies a piece of bread and some cheese; it occurs to the poet that it has
been put there for him to eat; but first he must use up the ink still
remaining in his pen, and in doing so another idea occurs to him, and
after that a third, and then a fourth; meanwhile mice come skipping out
of a hole beneath the window-sill, frisk about the bread and cheese,
nibble away at it till not a morsel remains, and then skip back into
their holes again. The poet having wearied out his Pegasus, starts up,
looks for his bread and cheese, and perceiving that only the crumbs
remain on the window-sill, concludes that he has already eaten his fill,
so sits him down again and goes on writing.
While he is thus plaguing himself for the benefit of posterity, somebody
begins scratching at the door, and after groping about the door-hinge in
search of the door-latch, finds it at last, and shakes it to and fro as
if he does not know what to do with it. This disturbance disagreeably
awakens Clement the Clerk out of his poetic reveries, who, after vainly
exclaiming in a loud and angry voice that the door is not bolted, finds
himself at last obliged to rise from his seat and open the door himself,
lest the importunate visitor should break off the latch or lift the door
bodily from its hinges.
Before him, with a sealed letter in his hand, stands a gaping Wallach
peasant, who appears extraordinarily terrified to see the door open,
though that was the very thing he had been aiming at all along.
"Well, what is it?" snapped Clement the Clerk, horribly angry. "Why
don't you speak?"
The Wallach raised his round eyebrows, which looked, for all the world,
like a charcoal smear extending from his nostrils to his temples, and
which also served him as a kind of propeller for shoving backwards and
forwards the lamb's-wool cap that he wore half over his face, looked at
the poet with wide-open eyes, and asked him--
"Are you he whom they pay to tell lies?"
The Wallach meant no offence by this terminology. It was only his
roundabout way of describing Clement the Clerk's sphere of activity.
The poet was almost choking with rage.
"And whose ox are you?" he exclaimed furiously.
"The ox of his Excellency who sent this letter," he answered with
perfect simplicity.
"What is your master's name?" cried Clement, angrily snatching the
letter out of the Wallach's hand.
"They call him Excellency."
Clement tore open the letter and read as follows--"I want a word or two
with you; follow the bearer whithersoever he leads you."
Clement was wroth enough already, but the reflection that he was
summoned away on important business, and had no boots to go in, was the
last straw. He was quite beside himself.
"Go," cried he to the Wallach, "and tell your master, whoever he may be,
that he is as near to me as I am to him; if he wants to speak to me, let
him take the trouble to come hither. Do you understand?"
"I understand, Dumni Macska" (Mister Pussy), returned the Wallach,
involuntarily using in his fright the nickname secretly given by the
Roumanian peasants to the Patrol-officer when he is making his rounds;
and with that he slouched out of the room.
Meanwhile Clement, with a great muscular effort, had climbed on to his
high-backed chair again, and placed two huge folios upright on the floor
in front of him, so that his coming visitor might not see that he was
bare-footed.
In a short time strident, energetic footsteps were audible outside, and
Clement the Clerk, peeping out of the window, perceived to his no small
confusion that his visitor was none other than his Excellency, Count
Ladislaus Csaky, accompanied by two gold-laced heydukes.
"Clement," thought the clerk to himself, "now's the time to assert your
dignity! No doubt his lordship is a great man and a high; but, on the
other hand, he is in the Prince's bad books, while you, my boy, are in
high favour at court, and a public officer to boot." So he hid his feet
behind his books, stuck his pen between his lips, and when Csaky came in
did not so much as offer him a seat.
Csaky seemed much put out by this reception.
"You have a very high opinion of your official dignity," said he to
Clement.
"I am what I am thanks to the favour of the Prince," returned Clement
haughtily, crossing his arms with an air of importance.
"I too have come hither by the Prince's command. His Highness has just
entrusted me with a very delicate errand, in which I need your help; but
the affair must be managed with the utmost secrecy, and that was why I
wanted you to come out to me."
At this explanation Clement the Clerk forgot his dignity altogether.
"I beg you a thousand pardons," stammered he in great confusion, and
with meekly-bowed head. "I did not know--pray be seated!" As however
there was no other chair in the room but that on which he sat, he sprang
down from it to give place to the Count, thereby revealing the fact that
his feet were minus their legitimate coverings, at which Csaky laughed
till his jaws ached.
"Why, deuce take it, Mr. Officer, is it from a feeling of excessive
reverence that you take off your boots like the Turks do?"
"I beg your pardon! I have not taken them off; but my servant ran away
with them while I slept, and that was the sole reason why I was forced
to send your lordship that churlish message, which I hope your lordship
has long since forgotten."
At this Csaky's mirth became downright uproarious.
"Well, if that is all, we will soon find a remedy," said he to Clement;
and calling the heydukes, bade them fetch at once his own parade boots
out of his carriage.
Clement instantly began to raise objections: he could not think of it;
the honour was too great. But when his eyes fell upon the boots, they
took his fancy immediately, for they were made of the finest green
morocco, sewn with gold thread, trimmed on both sides with galloon, and
provided with enamelled spurs.
"Quick! on with them!" cried Csaky to the Patrol-officer; "for you must
set out upon your journey without delay."
So Clement the Clerk seized one of the boots by the tags, and after
bestowing a smile upon it, proceeded to pull it on. But this of itself
was no light labour, for Csaky wore very small, tight-fitting,
gentlemanlike boots, whereas Clement the Clerk was a very large-footed
animal; so that it was not till after three desperate struggles had
completely exhausted him that he managed to get one foot half-way down
the leg of the first boot, and all the time he made such grimaces that
Ladislaus Csaky had to put his head out of the window to hide his
merriment. When he got as far as the heel, he stuck fast again, so that
he had to seize the straps with both hands and stamp his way down,
hopping round the room all the while, with his body forming a complete
curve, and groaning aloud at every forward shove; so that by the time he
had wriggled into one boot, the eyes of the poor poet were almost
starting from their sockets, and the sweat trickled from his cheeks.
Similar difficulties awaited the good Patrol-officer with the second
foot; but after working with six-horse power to force his foot into a
receptacle never intended for it, he was at last able, with the
ruddiness of satisfaction on his cheeks, to take a smiling survey of his
gorgeous, tight-fitting boots, which harmonized so delightfully with the
other dusty, greasy, ink-bespattered constituent parts of his dress.
"Now, mark what I say!" said Csaky, sitting down with a lordly air on
the solitary chair, whilst the clerk, standing before him, raised first
one and then the other leg aloft, at the same time uttering a peculiar
hissing sound, and turning a livid green and blue in his agony, for the
boots had now begun to play havoc with his corns. "When did you last go
your rounds?"
"I really don't know."
"But you ought to know. Why don't you make a note of it? The Prince
wishes you to go your rounds at once, and you must look particularly
sharp after all the places between Toroczko, Banfi-Hunyad, and
Bonczhida. Besides the usual questions, you must ask the people whether
they have seen any foreign wild beast in the surrounding woods."
"Foreign wild beast?" mechanically repeated the wretched Patrol-officer.
"And if at any place they tell you they have seen such beast, you must
go personally into the districts indicated, and search till you come
upon its track."
"I cry your Excellency's pardon! but what manner of beast may it be?"
asked the student timidly.
"Come, come! don't be afraid! It is neither a seven-headed dragon nor
yet a minotaur, but only a young panther."
"A panther!" stammered the terrified Clement.
"You are not expected to catch it," said Csaky cheerily. "You have only
to discover its hiding-place and let me know."
"And if this wild beast--whose existence indeed in Transylvania I very
much doubt--should stray into the territory of Denis Banfi," asked
Clement, "what am I to do then?"
"You must go after it."
"I cry your Excellency's pardon, but his property is a _liber
baronatus_, where my jurisdiction ceases."
"Don't be so stupid, Clement," said Csaky. "I never said you were to
repair thither _vi et armis_: the whole expedition must remain a secret.
You have only to follow the wild beast's track. We have it, on the best
authority, that the beast is somewhere in the neighbourhood, and we
trust to your dexterity to spot it. The rest will be done by more
enterprising people than yourself."
Clement regarded the mission as altogether odd and risky, but he dared
not raise any objection, so he simply bowed low and sighed deeply.
"Above all things we must have dexterity, expedition, and secrecy. Keep
that constantly in mind."
"I will go at once," cried Clement desperately; "but first I must borrow
me a horse from some one or other, for I should not like to utterly ruin
these beautiful boots by walking in them."
"That too would be a little too slow for our purpose. But don't bother
your head about a horse. One of my heydukes will give you his, which you
must mount at once. Remember however to give him oats occasionally, as I
don't want him to come back all skin and bone."
Clement the Clerk, quite confounded by so much graciousness, hastily
shouldered his shabby knapsack, fastened his rusty sword to his side,
and after placing in his knapsack a roll of parchment, a goose-quill,
and a wooden ink-horn, declared himself ready to depart.
"You have a very light equipment," remarked Csaky.
"_Integer vitae, scelerisque purus, non eget Mauri jaculis neque arcu_,"
returned the philosopher with a classical flourish, and when the reins
had been placed in his hands, he prepared to mount. But the aristocratic
charger, as soon as he perceived that the clerk had one foot in the
stirrups, began to plunge, buck, and run round and round, thereby
compelling the aspiring poet to hop along with him on one foot, till the
laughing heydukes seized the horse by the bridle, and helped the
unpractised horseman into the saddle. As however he had very long legs,
and the wicked heydukes had lashed the stirrups up very high, he was
obliged to squat upon the horse as if it had been a camel.
Ladislaus Csaky bawled after him once more not to forget what he had
told him, whereupon the poet, quite unintentionally, gave his horse the
spur, and dashed madly off at full tilt over stock and stone. Mantle,
sabre, and knapsack flew about the ears of the unfortunate horseman, who
held on to his saddle with both hands in mortal agony, to the intense
delight of the whole population of Toroczko, who were sitting in groups
outside their houses on their _beard-driers_, as the benches used to be
called in those days.
* * * * *
First of all the Patrol-officer took the road to Abrudbánya. Formerly,
while he still had a servant, Clement used to leave all the pioneering
to him; but now he was forced to find his way from village to village
himself, with the occasional assistance of the country magistrates.
He had just quitted the narrow mountain path, and was ambling slowly
over a dilapidated bridge, which spanned a brawling stream, when he
perceived in the thicket a group of dirty-looking men crouching over a
large fire. At first he took them for gipsies, but, approaching nearer,
was horrified to discover that they were Tartars, who had dismounted
from their horses, and were sitting round an ox which they had roasted
whole.
To turn back was scarcely advisable; but the road he was following went
straight past the diners. Clement was in a fix; but he determined at
last to put a bold face on the matter, so he trotted by the gaping group
with affected nonchalance, pretending to be intent all the while on
calculating the exact number of acorns on the wayside oaks, and merely
raised his hat to the Tartars with a brief "_Salem aleikum!_" when he
came close up to them, as if he only then perceived them for the first
time, passing quickly on without looking once behind him.
So far all was well, but at that very moment two of the Tartars sprang
up from the fire and called to the rider to stop. Clement, perceiving
that they were both unarmed, argued therefrom that they had no murderous
designs upon him, and therefore halted and awaited them.
No sooner had the two dog-headed figures come up to him, one on each
side, than they caught hold of his legs and displayed no less an
intention than to rob him of his beautiful boots.
"Would you? ye sons of Belial!" cried Clement, beside himself with rage,
and grasping the hilt of his sword he tried to pull it from its leather
sheath, in order to cut off the ears of his assailants forthwith. But
the good blade, which had not quitted its sheath for ten years, had
grown so rusty that Clement, despite all his endeavours, could not pluck
it forth, and in the meantime the two Tartars pulled the wriggling rider
hither and thither by the legs, naturally without succeeding in
loosening the tight-fitting boots in the least. The Tartars reviled
Clement, and Clement reviled the Tartars: their language was perfectly
horrible.
The noise brought the Aga to the spot--an ourang-outang-like object
whose mahogany features were framed by a white beard--and he asked in a
hoarse whisper what was the matter.
Clement the Clerk at once drew his credentials from the pocket of his
mente, and shook it in the Aga's face--he was too wrathful to
speak--while the Tartars, pointing with frantic gestures at the boots,
jabbered something to the Aga.
"Who art thou, O bow-legged unbeliever!" asked the Aga, "that thou dost
presume to wear on thy lowest extremities, on thy mud-wading feet,
forsooth! the sacred colour of the Prophet, that radiant green which the
faithful may only behold on the arches of their mosques and on the
turban of the Padishah? Thou shalt be burned alive, thou godless
Giaour!"
"I am the Patrol-officer of his Highness Prince Michael Apafi!"
declaimed the ex-student, with terrified pathos. "My person is sacred
and inviolable. I am he who provides the host of the sublime Sultan with
meat and drink; I proclaim and collect the taxes, so let me go, for I am
a very important personage."
This mode of defence pleased the Tartars. The Aga exchanged glances with
his subalterns, as much as to say--"This is the very man we want!" and
addressed him again in a more friendly tone.
"Dost thou indeed collect the taxes? Look now! my master, Ali Pasha of
Grosswardein, has sent me hither to notify to the people a fresh
imposition. Allah hath clearly brought us together. Thou wilt act
discreetly then by proclaiming the new tax at once. It is no more than
thy duty."
"I'll do so gladly," replied Clement, who made as if he were going.
"Stay, my son," said the Aga, beckoning to him. "Thou dost not even know
yet the amount of the new tax. 'Tis a mere trifle, and only imposed by
way of showing that we are the masters here. 'Tis only a farthing per
head. That's not much, I'm sure."
"Nothing at all!" assented Clement, eager to be off.
"Not so fast! not so fast!" remonstrated the Aga. "I shall not be best
pleased if thou dost disobey my orders; but as I know that thou dost not
regard it as perjury to break promises made to us, I'll tell off one of
my brave fellows here to accompany thee from village to village, and
take care that thou dost duly proclaim the new tax whithersoever thou
goest."
"It is well, gracious sir," said Clement meekly, with the mental
reservation of ridding himself of the brave fellow at the very next
village.
"Mount your horse, Zülfikar," cried the Aga to one of his servants.
The person addressed was an evil-looking fellow with a malignant squint.
Although just as dirty as the others, it was clear from his physiognomy
that he was not made of the same stuff, and if we condescended to bestow
any thought at all upon such low people, it might even occur to us that
we had seen him somewhere else before.
"As for thee," said the Aga to Clement, who was anxious to be off at any
price, "take off thy boots as soon as thou gettest home, and if ever I
meet thee with them on again, thou shalt receive from me five hundred
strokes on the soles of thy feet, which thou wilt have cause to
recollect even on thy wedding-day."
Clement the Clerk said "Yes" to everything, rejoiced that he had got off
at last, and trotted off towards Abrudbánya. His Tartar escort rode
faithfully by his side.
From time to time the Patrol-officer cast a sidelong glance at his
companion, only quickly to avert his eyes again, for as the Tartar
squinted horribly, Clement could never exactly make out which way he
was looking. Clement was thinking all the while how easily he would give
the Tartar the slip, smiled to himself at the thought, winked with both
eyes, and nodded his head with a self-satisfied air.
"Mr. Patrol-officer, don't fancy you will circumvent me as you go your
rounds!" exclaimed the Tartar suddenly, in the purest Hungarian, as if
he could read Clement's thought from his face.
Clement was so aghast that he almost fell from his horse. How the deuce
could the fellow snap up his very thoughts, and speak Hungarian despite
his Tartardom?
"Don't bother your head about me any more," continued the Turk calmly.
"I am an Hungarian renegade who was once in the service of Emerich
Balassa. I had a hand in the capture and poisoning of Corsar Beg, and
when the Hungarians began to persecute me on that account, I turned
Turk. If the Prophet befriend me, I may yet rise to be Kapudan Pasha.
Pray don't imagine you can bamboozle a wily old fox like me."
Clement, completely disconcerted, could only scratch his head, proceeded
with his escort from village to village, and after accomplishing his
regular official business, proclaimed the fresh imposition of a farthing
per head, which the people everywhere received most favourably, in many
cases even paying it down at once to his Tartar comrade.
But no one knew anything about the panther. Indeed, but for the respect
inspired by his gallooned green boots, the Patrol-officer would have
been laughed out of countenance.
Only one little Wallachian village up in the mountains, called Marisel,
was yet to be visited, and beyond that place began the domains of Baron
Banfi, where the jurisdiction of the Patrol-officer terminated.
Thither also the renegade followed him.