Part 57 (1/2)

Just when the revellers were at their merriest, a loud burst of martial music resounded from the plain outside, and a great din was audible as if the Turkish armies were saluting a Prince who had just arrived.

The merry gentry at once leaped from their seats and hurried to the entrance of the tent to see the ally who was received with such rejoicing, and a cry of amazement and consternation burst from their lips at the spectacle which met their eyes.

Emeric Tokoly had arrived at the head of a host of ten thousand Magyars from Upper Hungary. His army consisted of splendid picked warriors on horseback, hussars in gold-braided dolmans, wolf-skin pelisses, and shakos with falcon feathers. Tokoly himself rode at the head of his host with princely pomp; his escort consisted of the first magnates of Hungary, jewel-bedizened cavaliers in fur mantles trimmed with swansdown, among whom Tokoly himself was only conspicuous by his manly beauty and princely distinction.

The face of Teleki darkened at the sight, while the faces of all who surrounded him were suddenly illuminated by an indescribable joy, and their enthusiasm burst forth in _eljens_ of such penetrating enthusiasm at the sight of the young hero that Teleki felt himself near to fainting.

Ah! it was in a very different voice that they had recently cried ”_Viva!_” to him, it was a very different sort of smile with which they had been wont to greet _him_.

Meanwhile Tokoly had reached the front of the marshalled Turkish army, which was drawn up in two rows right up to the pavilion of the Grand Vizier, allowing the youth and his suite to pa.s.s through between them amidst a ceremonious abas.e.m.e.nt of their horse-tail banners. The young general had only pa.s.sed half through their ranks when the Grand Vizier came to meet him in a state carriage drawn by six white horses.

From the hill on which Teleki stood he could see everything quite plainly.

On reaching the carriage of the Grand Vizier, Tokoly leaped quickly from his horse, whereupon Kara Mustafa also descended from his carriage, and, hastening to the young general, embraced him and kissed him repeatedly on the forehead, made him take a seat in the carriage beside him, and thus conveyed him to his tent amidst joyful acclamations.

Teleki had to look on at all this! That was very different from the reception accorded to him and the Prince of Transylvania.

He looked around him--gladness, a radiant smile shone on every face. Oh!

those smiles were so many dagger-thrusts in his heart!

In half an hour's time Tokoly emerged from the tent of the Grand Vizier.

His head was encircled by a diamond diadem which the Sultan had sent for all the way to Belgrade, and in his hand was a princely sceptre. When he remounted and galloped away close beside the tents of the Transylvanians, the Hungarians in Teleki's company could restrain themselves no longer, but rushed towards Tokoly and covered his hands, his feet, his garments, with kisses, took him from his horse on to their shoulders, and carried him in their arms back to camp.

Teleki could endure the sight no more; he fled into his tent, and, throwing himself on his camp-bedstead, wept like a child.

The whole edifice which he had reared so industriously, so doggedly, amidst innumerable perils, during the arduous course of a long life--for which he had sacrificed relations, friends, and all the great and wise men of a kingdom, and pledged away the repose of his very soul--had suddenly collapsed at the appearance of a mere youth, whose only merit was the exaggerated fame of a few successful engagements! It was the heaviest blow he had ever staggered under. Oh! Fortune is indeed ingenious in her disappointments.

Evening came, and still Teleki had not quitted his tent. Then the Prince went to see him. Teleki wanted to hear nothing, but the Prince told him everything.

”Hearken, Mr. Michael Teleki! The Hungarian gentlemen have not come back to us, but remain with Tokoly. And Tokoly also, it appears, doesn't want to have much to do with us, for instead of encamping with us he has withdrawn to the furthest end of the Turkish army, and has pitched his tents there.”

Teleki groaned beneath the pain which the distilled venom of these words poured into his heart.

”Apparently, Mr. Michael Teleki, we have been building castles in the air,” continued Apafi with jovial frankness. ”We are evidently not of the stuff of which Kings and Palatines of Hungary are made. I cannot but think of the cat in the fable, who pulled the chestnuts out of the fire with the claws of others.”

Teleki s.h.i.+vered as if with an ague.

Apafi continued in his own peculiar vein of cynicism: ”Really, my dear Mr. Michael Teleki, I should like it much better if we were sitting at home, and Denis Banfy and Paul Beldi and the other wise gentlemen were sitting beside me, and I were listening to what they might advise.”

Teleki clenched his fists and stamped his feet, as much as to say: ”I would not allow that.”

Then with a bitter smile he watched the Prince as he paced up and down the tent, and said with a cold, metallic voice:

”One swallow does not make a summer. If ten or twelve worthless fellows desert to Tokoly, much good may it do him! The army of the real Hungarian heroes will not follow their example, and when it can fight beneath the banner of a Prince it will not fling itself into the arms of a homeless adventurer.”

”Then it would be as well if your Excellency spoke to them at once, for methinks that this night the whole lot of them may turn tail.”

Teleki seemed impressed by these words. He immediately ordered his drabants to go to the captains of the army collected from Hungary who had joined Apafi at Fulek, and invite them to a conference in his tent at once.

The officers so summoned, with a good deal of humming and hahing, met together in Teleki's tent, and there the Minister harangued them for two good hours, proving to demonstration what a lot of good they might expect from cleaving to Apafi, and what a lot of evil if they allowed themselves to be deluded by Tokoly, till the poor fellows were quite tired out and cried: ”Hurrah!” in order that he might let them go the sooner.