Part 31 (1/2)

”I would have you understand, Dionysius, that I am a heavy Szekler. If by chance I should happen to fall on you I should crush you so that you would not again on this earth sound your horn.”

”What foolishness is this?” said the Prince, coming between them. ”I am surprised at my lords. Drink now! Inter pocula non sunt seria tractanda!”

And the Prince compelled the two great lords to approach each other and placed the hand of the one in that of the other. Then he let the matter rest and went on, thinking that it was only a quarrel over the cups.

But Teleki observed that after this scene both lords left the hall, and soon learned that they had gone away from Karlsburg suddenly, so giving free play to the further plans of the minister. Teleki and his faithful men remained alone with the intoxicated Prince.

”Drink, my lords, be merry!” said Apafi. ”Let not a man of you leave me! Who has gone already?”

”Beldi!” shouted several.

”Very well, the poor fellow has not seen his wife for a long time; let him go to her. And who else?”

”Banfy!”

”Hm! He too! Why did he go?”

”He went home to reign,” said Ladislaus Szekeli, scornfully; he was one of Teleki's creatures.

”He cannot stay in a place where he feels that any one is his superior,” Nalaczy added.

”Just to please his Excellency I am sure I shall not lay down the Prince's crown.”

”That he does not need at all,” Teleki rejoined. ”He knows how to rule in Transylvania without a crown. What he commands the country must comply with, and what the country commands he pushes aside with disdain.”

”I should like to see him!” muttered Apafi, angrily.

”And yet 'tis so. We wish war, he does not, and we must yield. We wish peace and it occurs to him to carry on war at his own expense with our ally. The throne is ours, the country his.”

”Do not say that, my lord Michael Teleki.”

”Do you too speak for me, Nalaczy. What answer did he make in the affair of Zolyomi?”

”He sent word,” Nalaczy made haste to take up the conversation,--”that if the country demanded back from him the Gyalu property for Zolyomi he would like in exchange the Szamosujvar estate.”

”What!” cried the Prince. ”The estate which the country set apart for my revenue? my own princely income?”

”So he said; and otherwise he will not consent even if Zolyomi should set the Turk against us this very day.”

”I will soon settle that with him. Not another word, my lords.”

”The affront to the Prince,” Teleki joined in, ”your Highness may overlook as long as it pleases you, but Banfy's conduct toward the people, toward the n.o.bility,--that we cannot let pa.s.s in any such way.

He has recently taken a violent course against the n.o.ble lady Szent-Pali;--the ancestral house of the poor widow offended the house of my great lord because it interfered with the view from his palace; at once he ordered the poor woman's house to be appraised and pulled down. The authorities gave her a letter of protection but my lord tore this in two and ordered the work of destruction to go on and the home of the poor widow's ancestors to be razed to the ground. The country might build it up again if it chose, he said. Such a deed in ordinary times my lord, costs the doer his head.”

Apafi was silent. The flame of anger leaped into his eyes.

”But that was not all,” continued Teleki; ”the insult of the individual vanishes when the fate of the country is at stake. This great lord who knows so well how to talk about the blessings of peace--let us see how he exerts himself for its maintenance. He takes the sword out of our hand, closes our lips that we may not raise any protestations because Kecskemet has been burned to ashes and its inhabitants ma.s.sacred; and then he himself a.s.sembles an army and incites the Turks to war against the country while we are unable to make such royal gifts as might have some effect against his schemes.

Three letters have come to us, one from the Pasha of Nagy Varad, another from the General of the forces at Ofen and the third from the Sultan himself, in all of which satisfaction is demanded of us for the defeat which the Pasha of Nagy Varad suffered at the hands of Banfy, or else an indemnity of a hundred and fifty thousand piastres. Since it is useless to talk of satisfaction with Banfy will it please your Highness to consider where we can raise the money demanded?”