Midst the Wild Carpathians Part 20

"The villagers wanted to make lime of the statues."

"The impious wretches!" cried Apafi indignantly, "to turn such precious masterpieces of art into lime. And you have not striven to save at least a part of it from destruction?"

"I bought the lid of a sarcophagus adorned with sculptures, and a sphinx in a perfect state of preservation; but the Wallach who was charged with their removal was too lazy to have them lifted up as they stood, so he broke up the statues into five or six pieces, so that he might have less trouble in loading his cart."

"That man deserves to be impaled. I will issue a decree that no one shall henceforth lay a hand upon such antiquities."

"I am afraid your Highness will arrive too late, for when the people found that I was paying for these stones, the belief spread among them that I was seeking for diamonds and carbuncles therein, so they smashed the whole ma.s.s into such tiny morsels that they could now be offered for sale as sand."

"Have you spoken to that n.o.bleman of Deva about the mosaic?"

"He won't part with it at any price. He said that none of his ancestors had ever carried their property to market. If only he would remove it from the place where he found it, it would be something. But he won't even do that, and now the cow-house stands over it, and the oxen make their beds on the prostrate figures of Venus and Cupid."

"I should very much like to confiscate that man's property, and so come into possession of that priceless curiosity," cried Apafi, with a scholar's zeal, and again he busied himself with the investigation of the enigmatical letters.

At that moment Teleki entered the room with a busy, important look, and drawing from his silken pocket a MS. roll, placed it open in Apafi's hand. The Prince made as though he were reading the doc.u.ment attentively, and wrinkled his brows. Suddenly he looked up and exclaimed joyfully--

"They are Dacian letters!"

"What!" cried Teleki, opening his eyes wide in his astonishment. He was at a loss to explain how the Prince could have found Dacian letters in the Latin MS. which he had just put into his hands.

"Yes; there can be no doubt about it," continued the Prince. "I recollect reading somewhere--in Dion Ca.s.sius, I think--that the Romans, after the fall of Decebalus,[25] had commemorative medallions struck off with Dacian inscriptions, and the figure of a decapitated man on the reverse. Don't you see the emblem?"

[Footnote 25: _Decebalus_. King of Dacia during the reigns of Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan.]

"But your Highness," interrupted Teleki impatiently, "the memorial which I have handed to you----"

And now for the first time Apafi perceived that a parchment was in his hand awaiting perusal. He returned it sulkily to Teleki.

"I have already told you that I can speak to no one to-day. In a month the session of the Diet will begin, and then the Hungarian gentlemen can ventilate their affairs to their hearts' content."

"I cry your Highness' pardon!" replied Teleki caustically; "this doc.u.ment is not from the Hungarian lords, but from his Excellency the Tartar Khan."

"And what does he want?" cried Apafi, throwing a glance upon the parchment, but when he perceived how long it was he laid it aside. "I will be brief with him. Who brought the letter?"

"An emir."

Apafi immediately threw his attila over his shoulders, girded on his sword, and stepped into the reception-room.

"Good-day! good-day!" he cried hastily to those a.s.sembled there. He wished to cut short their long ceremonious greetings, and looked about among them with inquiring eyes.

"Where is the emir?"

The Tartar envoy at once stepped forward. He was a truculent, swarthy fellow, with small sparkling eyes. A heron's plume as long as the shaft of a lance waved from his large turban. He wore a red, richly-fringed jacket, and the gold inlaid hilt of his scimitar peeped forth from his broad girdle. Defiantly he placed himself in front of the Prince and stuck out his chest.

"_Salem alek!_ What do you want?" asked Apafi curtly.

The emir measured the Prince from head to foot twice or thrice with his piercing eyes, threw back his head, and said--

"My master, the gracious Kuban Khan, bids me say to thee, O Prince of the Giaours, that thou art a perjured, false, and faithless man. Thou didst swear by thy honour that we should be good neighbours, and how hast thou kept thy word? It chanced last year that we traversed the Saxon[26] land, and visited those towns whose names no true believer can p.r.o.nounce, to collect the usual yearly tribute. They were ever good payers, but some among them chancing to lag behind with their contributions were, by the order of the most gracious Khan, instantly reduced to ashes that they might learn to behave better another time.

And perchance thou dost fancy that they amended their evil ways? Not at all. For when we visited them again this year, we found the charred and naked walls as we had left them the year before: the unbelieving dogs had traitorously fled away. Wherefore my gracious master, the mighty Kuban Khan, bids me ask thee what manner of prince thou art that dost suffer these unbelieving dogs to so forsake their towns and make fools of us. When we came at other times, the hay was housed, the corn thrashed, the cattle stalled--and this time we find nought but weeds, and therein hares and other unclean beasts which ye unbelievers delight to eat, and none of the towns built up again, so that we could take no vengeance. Look to it, then, if thou wouldst not draw down upon thy head the wrath of the mighty Khan, look to it that thou commandest this runaway people to return to its towns that we may reckon with them; and in the meantime bid the remaining Saxon towns, which have faithlessly environed their houses with impregnable walls, that they open their gates to us, otherwise we will visit thee in Klausenburg itself with fire and sword, and will not leave thee one stone upon another."

[Footnote 26: _Saxons_. Geza II. (1141-1161) planted in Transylvania a German colony to clear the forests and till the lands. These so-called Saxons have survived to the present day, and reside chiefly at Hermannstadt.]

Apafi, during the course of this speech, had frequently laid his hand on his sword, but he evidently thought better of it, for it was with the utmost tranquillity that he thus replied--

"Go back! Greet thy master, and say that we will give him satisfaction."

With that he turned his back upon the envoy, and would have returned to his cabinet had not Teleki barred the way.

"That is not enough, your Highness. Once for all we must make it impossible for any dog-headed Tartar to speak such brave words before the throne of the Prince of Transylvania."

"Speak to him then yourself!"

Teleki thereupon, with an earnest, dignified mien, stepped up to the emir, stared him out of countenance, and said with a firm voice--

"Thy master is doubtless the ruler of Tartary, but is not my master the Prince of Transylvania? And is not the sublime Sultan the protector of us both? Know then that the sublime Sultan did not make thy master Khan of Tartary that he might dwell in Transylvania, nor has he set my master on the throne of Transylvania to endure the insolence of thy master! Go back then to thine own land, and come not hither again to wonder why a town which is burnt down one year is not built up again the next. We will take good care that all such places are rebuilt, but we will also see that the bastions are high enough to keep thee out, and shouldst thou desire to visit us at Klausenburg next year, we will also take care that thou shalt not have thy journey for nothing, and will provide guns in abundance to salute thee at a respectful distance."

All this Teleki said to the emir with a perfectly serious countenance.

The emir snorted with fury. His eyes grew bloodshot. His hand played with the hilt of his scimitar, and he stammered with pallid lips--

"If any of my master's servants spoke thus in his presence, he would immediately have his head struck off."

But Apafi tapped Teleki on the shoulder, and murmured as he stroked his beard--

"It is well, Master Michael Teleki! You have spoken like a man."

The emir turned furiously upon his heel, and, shaking the dust from his feet, left the room.

This scene put Apafi in a good humour, especially with Teleki. The minister could read this change of mood in his master's face, and hastened to make use of it. Taking one of the many suitors by the hand, he presented him to Apafi with these words--

"My future son-in-law, your Highness."

Apafi would probably have escaped from a presentation made in any other way; but made in this form he could not possibly avoid it. He was compelled to cast a glance upon the young man.

The person so presented was a tall, handsome stripling with blooming red cheeks and no trace, as yet, of a beard. In his femininely beautiful features, it was pride alone which revealed the man.

The youth pleased Apafi.

"What is your son-in-law's name?" he asked Teleki.

With a peculiar smile Teleki said--

"Emerich, Stephen Tokoly's son."

On hearing this name, Apafi suddenly became very grave, and said to the young man--