Part 58 (1/2)

What a ridiculous ending that would be!

Towards evening Emeric Tokoly paid a visit to the Prince. He approached the old man with the respect of a child, did obeisance, and would have kissed his hand, but Apafi would not permit it, but embraced him, kissed him on the forehead repeatedly, and made him sit down beside him on the bear-skin of his camp-bed.

The young leader feelingly begged the old man's pardon for all the trouble that he had caused him and Transylvania.

”It is I who ought to beg pardon of your Excellency,” said Apafi in a submissive voice.

”Not at all, your Highness and dear Father. I know that you have always loved me, but evil counsellors have whispered such scandalous things to you about me that you were bound to hate me--but G.o.d requite them for it if I cannot.”

”Be magnanimous towards them, my dear son; forgive them, for my sake.”

Tokoly was silent. He knew that Teleki was in the tent, he saw him, but he would not take any notice of him. At last, without even looking towards him, he said, in the most pa.s.sionate, threatening voice:

”Look, ye, Teleki, you have practised all sorts of devices against me, but if you put your nose outside the tent of the Prince you will eat his bread no more. You would be in my power now, and here your head would lie, but for his Highness whom I look upon as a father.”

Michael Teleki was silent, but future events were to prove that he had heard very well what was now spoken.

After surrendering the fortress of Fulek to the Turks, the Transylvanian gentlemen returned home with their army; and Michael Teleki, when he got home, paid a visit to the church where lay the ashes of Denis Banfy, and hiding his face on the tomb, he wept bitterly over the n.o.ble patriot whom he had sacrificed to his ambitious plans.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

A MAN ABANDONED BY HIS GUARDIAN-ANGEL.

One blow followed hard upon another.

In the following year the Sultan a.s.sembled a formidable host against Vienna, and the Transylvanian bands also had to go. Teleki would have avoided the war, but his representations and pretexts fell not upon listening ears. They asked him why he, who had hitherto urged on the campaign, wanted to withdraw from it now that it was in full swing? If he had liked the beginning, the end also should please him.

But the end was exceedingly bitter.

The formidable host surrounding Vienna was scattered in a single night by the heroic sword of Sobieski, the gigantic military enterprise was ruined.

The Transylvanian forces took no part in these operations. During the siege of Vienna they had been left at Raab, and Teleki did not let the opportunity pa.s.s. While the stupid Turks were fighting in the trenches, he entered into communication with the German commander at Raab and attached himself to the winning side.

Everything which the insane Feriz had prophesied in the Divan was literally fulfilled.

The Turkish armies were everywhere routed. They lost the fortresses of Grand Visegrad and ersekujvar one after the other. The fortress of Nograd was struck by lightning, which fired the powder-magazine and blew up the garrison. Finally Buda was besieged and captured in the sight of the Grand Vizier, and after a domination of one hundred and fifty years, the half-moons were hauled down from the bastions and crosses re-occupied their places.

And all those who were present at the Divan fulfilled, one by one, the prophecy that they should see Paradise before long.

Rislan Pasha fell beneath the walls of Buda at the head of the Janissaries, the Vizier of Buda was throttled by order of Kara Mustafa after the battle was lost, Rifa Aga was drowned in the Danube among the fugitives, Kara Ogli fell defending the ramparts of Buda, Tokoly killed Ajas Pasha at the Sultan's command; and, after the fall of Buda, Olaj Beg brought to Kara Mustafa for his own use the silken cord and the purple purse. It was the last purse which Kara Mustafa ever saw, for after his decapitation his head was put inside it.

And, finally, the people of Stambul, maddened by so many losses and reinforced by the rebellious Janissaries, rushed upon the Seraglio, cut down the counsellors of the Sultan, and threw the Sultan himself into the same dungeon in which he had let his own brother languish for thirty-nine years. The brother was now set on the throne, and the dethroned Sultan died in the dungeon.

And this also was fulfilled that those who had stirred up the Turks to begin the war turned against them at the end of it. Transylvania deposited its oath of homage in the hands of Caraffa, and Michael Teleki, who became a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, opened the gates of the towns and fortresses to German garrisons. The Prince paid the victors thirteen thousand florins, which it took heavy wagons two weeks to convey from Fogaras to Nagyszeben. But Michael Teleki, in addition to his countly escutcheon, got a present of a silver table service which cost ten thousand florins. So Transylvania became imperial territory, and its alliance with the Porte was dissolved.

And then it was that G.o.d called to Himself the last lovable figure in our history, the virtuous and magnanimous Anna Bornemissza.