Part 58 (2/2)
Only after her death did Apafi feel what his wife had been to him, his guardian-angel, his consoler in all his sorrows, the brightest part of his life, and when that light set, everything around him was doubly dark. Every misfortune, every trouble, now weighed doubly heavy on his mind and heart; he had no longer any refuge against persecuting sorrow.
He fled from one town to another like a hunted wild beast which can find no refuge from the dart which transfixes it. At last he barricaded himself in his room, which he did not quit for six weeks; and if visitors came to see him he complained to them like a child:
”I am starving to death. I have lost everything. It is a year since I got a farthing from my estates or my mines or my salt-works. If the farrier comes I cannot pay him his bill for my mantle, for I haven't got a stiver. What will become of my son when I am gone, poor little Prince?
There's not enough to send him to school.”
He began to get quite crazy, and could neither eat, drink, nor sleep.
The whole day he would stride up and down his room, and utter strange things in a loud voice. What troubled him most was that he must die of hunger.
At last those about him hit upon a remedy. Every day they laid purses of money before him and said: ”This sum Stephen Apor has sent from your property, and that amount Paul Inezedi has collected from your salt-works. Why should your Highness be anxious when there is such lots of money?”
And the next day they presented the same purses to him over again, and invented some fresh story. And this simple deceit somewhat pacified the poor old man, but the old worries had so affected his mind, never very strong at any time, that he could never recover his former spirits. He grew duller and more stupid every day, and often when he lay down he would sleep a couple of days at a stretch.
And at last the Almighty had mercy upon him and called him away from this vale of tears; and he went to that land where the Turks plunder not, and there is no warfare.
CHAPTER x.x.xI.
THE NEWLY-DRAWN SWORD.
The German armies were now in complete possession of Transylvania, the Turks were everywhere driven back and trampled down, the hereditary Prince of Bavaria took Belgrade by storm and put twelve thousand Janissaries to the edge of the sword. Thus the gate of the Turkish Empire was broken open, and the victoriously advancing host, under the Prince of Baden, crushed the remains of the Turkish army at Nish. Then Bulgaria and Albania were subjugated, the sea sh.o.r.e was reached, and only the Haemus Mountains stood between the invaders and Stambul.
The deluge left nothing untouched, even little Wallachia, whose fortunate situation, wild mountains, and villainous roads had hitherto saved it from invasion, saw the approach of the conquering banners.
Old S---- was still the Prince, and he now gave a brilliant example of the dexterity of Wallachian diplomacy, which at the same time ill.u.s.trates the simplicity of his character.
The armies invading Wallachia were entrusted to the care of General Heissler, who consequently wrote to Prince S---- informing him that he was advancing on Bucharest through the Transylvanian Alps with ten thousand men, therefore he was to provide winter quarters and provisions for his army, as he intended to winter there.
At exactly the same time the Tartar Khan gave the Prince to understand that he intended to invade Moldavia in order that he might follow the movements of the Transylvanian army close at hand.
The Prince liked the one proposition as little as the other, so he sent the Tartar Khan's letter to General Heissler bidding him beware, as a great force was coming against him, and he sent Heissler's letter to the Tartar Khan advising him in a friendly sort of way not to move too far as Heissler was now advancing in his rear.
Consequently both armies turned aside from the Princ.i.p.ality, and Wallachia had to support neither the Germans nor the Tartars.
This is the diplomacy of little states.
Amidst the wildly romantic hills of Lebanon is a pleasant valley for which Nature herself has a peculiar preference. Amidst the gigantic mountains which encircle a vast hollow on every side of it, rises a roundish mound. On level ground it would be accounted a hill, but in the midst of such a range of snowy giants it emerges only like a tiny heap of earth, and to this day nothing grows on it but the cedar--the finest, darkest, most widely spreading specimens of that n.o.ble and fragrant tree are here to be found. A foaming mountain stream gurgles down it on both sides, a little wooden bridge connects the opposing banks, and in the midst of the bridge a rock projecting from the water clings to the mountain side. Far away among the blue forests s.h.i.+ne forth the white roofless little houses of the city of Edena, which, built against the mountain side, peer forth like some card-built castle, and still farther away through gaps in the hills the Syrian sea is visible.
Here in former days on the heights stood the romantic and poetical kiosk of Feriz Beg.
The youth, with dogged persistence, continued to live for years in this sublime solitude with the din of battle all around him. The prophecy which he had once p.r.o.nounced in the Divan was whispered abroad among the people, ran through the army, and as every one of his sayings was severally fulfilled, the more widely there spread in the hearts of the soldiers the superst.i.tious belief that till he seized his sword they would everywhere be defeated, but when he should again appear on the battlefield the fortune of war would turn and become favourable once more to the Ottoman arms.
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