Part 46 (2/2)
A bitter smile crossed the lips of Paul Beldi, he sighed sorrowfully, and looked back upon his comrades.
”You know right well, sir,” said he to Kiuprile, ”that we have no money, nor do I know from whence to get as much as you require, and my colleagues are as poor as I am. We never used the property of the State as a means of collecting treasures for ourselves, and what little remained to us from our ancestors has already been divided among the servants of the Prince. We have no money wherewith to buy us justice, and if there be no other mode of saving our country, then in G.o.d's name dismiss us and we will throw ourselves at the feet of some foreign Prince, and supplicate till we find one who must listen to us. G.o.d be with you; money we have none.”
”Then I have!” cried a voice close beside Beldi; and, looking in that direction, they saw Kucsuk Pasha approach Paul Beldi and warmly press the right hand of the downcast Hungarian gentleman. ”If you want two hundred and seventy purses I will give it; if you want as much again I will give it; as much as you want you shall have; bargain with them, fix your price; I am here. I will pay instead of you.”
Feriz Beg rushed towards his father, and, full of emotion, hid his face in his bosom. Beldi majestically clasped the hand of the old hero, and was scarce able to find words to express his grat.i.tude at this offer.
”I thank you, a thousand times I thank you, but I cannot accept it; that would be a debt I should never be able to repay, nor my descendants after me. Blessed are you for your good will, but you cannot help me that way.”
Kiuprile intervened impatiently.
”Be sensible, Paul Beldi, and draw not upon thee my anger; weigh well thy words, and hearken to good counsel. To demand so much money from thee as a private man in exile would be a great folly, but a.s.sume that thou art a Prince, and that this amount, which it would be impossible to drag out of one pocket, could easily be distributed over a whole kingdom and not be felt. Do no more then than promise us the amount; it is not necessary that thou shouldst pay us before we have made thee Prince.”
Beldi shuddered, and said to Kiuprile with a quavering voice:
”I do not understand you, sir, or else I have not heard properly what you said.”
”Then understand me once for all. If it be true what thou sayest--to wit, that the present Prince of Transylvania rules amiss, why then, depose him from his Princ.i.p.ality; and if it also be true what thou sayest--to wit, that thou dost love thy country so much and seest what ought to be done--why then, defend it thyself. I will send a message to the frontier Pashas, and they will immediately declare war upon this state, seize Master Michael Apafi and all his counsellors, clap them into the fortress of Jedikula, and put thee and thy comrades in their places. Thou art only to promise the Grand Vizier two hundred and seventy purses, and he will engage to make thee Prince as soon as possible, and then thou wilt be able to pay it; which, if thou dost refuse, of a truth I tell thee, that I will clap thee into Jedikula in the place of Michael Apafi.”
The heart of Paul Beldi beat violently throughout this speech. His emotion was visible in his face, and more than once he would have interrupted Kiuprile if the Hungarian gentlemen had not restrained him.
When, however, Kiuprile had finished his speech. Paul Beldi took a step forward, and proudly raising his head so that he seemed to be taller than usual, he replied in a firm, strong voice:
”I thank you, gracious sir, for your offer, but I cannot accept it. A sacred oath binds me to the present Prince of Transylvania, and if he has forgotten the oath which he swore to the nation it is no answer to say that we should also violate ours, nay, rather should we remind him of his. I have raised my head to ask for justice, not to pile one injustice upon another. Transylvania needs not a new Prince, but its old liberties; and if I had only wanted to make war upon the Prince, the country would rise at a sign from me, the whole of the Szeklers would draw their swords for me, but it was I who made them sheath their swords again. I do not come to the Porte for vengeance, but for judgment; not my own fate, but the fate of my country I submit to your Excellencies. I do not want the office of Prince. I do not want to drive out one usurper only to bring in a hundred more. I will not set all Transylvania in a blaze for the sake of roasting Master Michael Teleki, nor for the sake of freeing a dozen people from a shameful dungeon will I have ten thousand dragged into captivity. May I suffer injustice rather than all Transylvania. Accursed should I be, and all my posterity with me, if I were to sell my oppressed nation for a few pence and bring armies against my native land. As to your threats--I am prepared for anything, for prison, for death. I came to you for justice, slay me if you will.”
Kiuprile, disgusted, flung himself back on his divan; he did not count upon such opposition, he was not prepared for such strength of mind. The other gentlemen who, from time to time, had fled to the Porte from Transylvania had been wont to beg and pray for the very favour which this man so n.o.bly rejected.
The Grand Vizier, perceiving from the faces of those present the impression made on them by Beldi's speech, turned now to the right and now to the left for an explanation, and dismay gradually spread over his pallid face as he began to understand. Beldi's colleagues, pale and utterly crushed, awaited the result of his alarming reply; while Ladislaus Csaky, unable to restrain his dismay, rushed up to Beldi, flung himself on his neck in his despair, and implored him by heaven and earth to accept the offer of the Grand Vizier.
If the offer had been made to him he would most certainly have accepted it.
”Never, never,” replied Beldi, as cold as marble.
The other gentlemen knelt down before him, and with clasped hands besought him not to make himself, his children, and themselves for ever miserable.
”Arise, I am not G.o.d!” said Beldi, turning from his tearful colleagues.
The Grand Vizier, on understanding what it was all about, leaped furiously from his place, and tearing off his turban, hurled it in uncontrollable rage to the ground, exclaiming with foaming mouth: ”Hither, cava.s.ses!”
”Put that accursed dog in chains!” he screeched, pointing with bloodshot eyes at Beldi, who quietly permitted them to load him with fetters weighing half-a-hundredweight each, which the army of slaves always had in readiness.
”Wouldst thou speak, puppy of a giaour?” cried the Vizier, when he was already chained.
”What I have said I stand to,” solemnly replied the patriot, raising his chained hand to Heaven. ”G.o.d is my refuge.”
”To the dungeon with him!” yelled Kara Mustafa, beckoning to the drabants to drag Beldi away.
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