Midst the Wild Carpathians Part 51

Csaky had fortunately lingered on the road, or he and his company would have perished utterly.

On returning, he found Banfi already under arrest, and was thus deprived of the glory of having captured his foe with his own hand. He immediately hastened to accost him, and, with exquisite malice, brought with him the odalisk, who looked at Banfi as if she had never seen him before.

Banfi, however, since his voluntary surrender, had quite resumed his former sangfroid, and looking contemptuously over his shoulder at Csaky, said--

"So your Excellency means in future to wear my cast-off clothes, eh?"

At this bitter jest Azrael hissed like a snake upon whose tail one has suddenly trodden, whilst Csaky blushed up to his ears and tried hard to smile.

"Does your Excellency desire any favour from me?" asked Csaky presently, with insulting commiseration.

"None from _your_ Excellency. I came here of my own free will, and have been arrested I know not why. My wife, therefore, can now be set free."

"So at last we begin to whine for our wife, eh?"

"On the contrary. So far from wishing to meet her, I desire that as soon as I am put in prison she should be let go."

"It shall be as you desire, my lord!" replied Csaky, with ironical benevolence.

Banfi requited him with a look of the most withering contempt, and turning to the jailers entered into conversation with them: the magnates he no longer regarded.

When Teleki heard of the capture of Banfi, he ordered him to be sent at once to Bethlen Castle, to make the world believe that the anti-Banfi faction was headed, not by him, but by Beldi, to whom the castle belonged.

On his way thither, the captive magnate learnt that his consort had already been released, and thus relieved of his one remaining anxiety, cared little for the rest.

On reaching Bethlen Castle he was received by the Rev. Stephen Pataky, Rector of Klausenburg, to whom he cried jocosely--

"So they've appointed you my father confessor, eh?"

Pataky wept bitterly, but Banfi only smiled.

The jailer conducted Banfi up the steps with every demonstration of respect.

Banfi turned round to him.

"I hope you will let Reverend Master Pataky remain with me all the time?" said he.

Pataky was understood to say through his sobs--

"Truly your Excellency will find far better company awaiting you than any my poor self can offer."

Banfi, not knowing what to say to this, only shrugged his shoulders and hastened towards the door of his prison, but remained standing on the threshold transfixed with astonishment. In the room was a lady in deep mourning, who turned very pale on perceiving him, and clung to the table unable to utter a word.

Banfi felt all his blood rush to his heart. The next moment he darted impetuously forward and cried--

"My wife! Margaret!"

The lady threw herself upon her husband's breast and sobbed aloud.

"What! have they not released you?" inquired Banfi anxiously.

"I would not be released," answered Margaret. "How _could_ I forsake you in your prison?"

The tears came to Banfi's eyes. Speechless he sank to the ground, and covered her hands with glowing kisses.

"While we were what the world calls happy we might avoid each other,"

said Margaret, with a choking voice, "but misfortune has brought us together again," and she bowed her head to kiss her husband's forehead.

Banfi fell senseless at her feet. It was more than even his strong soul could bear.

CHAPTER X.

THE SENTENCE.

The Diet, hastily summoned to Fehervar, strongly disapproved of the secret proceedings against Banfi. Paul Beldi was the first to declare that even if Banfi could be arrested by means of a league, a Diet was the only tribunal which could try him, and insisted that he should have every opportunity of defending himself.

The Prince came to the Diet with red eyes, an aching head, and a very irritable temper--the usual witnesses of a drunken debauch.

Teleki, finding the Diet beyond his control, got Apafi to dissolve it, by persuading him that if Banfi were brought before it he would escape altogether, and even turn the two-edged sword of justice against the Prince himself.

In the Privy Council itself, Kozma Horvath's opposition to the extra-judicial prosecution was all in vain. The league drew up thirty-seven articles of accusation against Banfi, and the magnate was impeached.

Most of these articles were so utterly frivolous as to need no reply.

Banfi's real offence was his pretension to the throne, and this they dared not bring forward at all.

Banfi manfully replied on every count. In vain. Defend himself as he might, his adversaries knew only too well how much they had offended him: they could not afford to let him live.

The matter came to the vote.

Banfi was condemned to death.

On the day when this took place, no one could get at the Prince except the members of the league, who were constantly going in and out of Apafi's apartments with hasty steps and eager faces.

Towards evening they succeeded in bringing the besotted Prince to sign the sentence. It was no longer possible to recognize in the spectre-haunted drunkard the mild and gentle Prince, who had had a tear for the sorrows of the meanest of his servants.

Saddled horses and long rows of carriages had been standing before the castle gates since midday. Suddenly Ladislaus Csaky came very hastily out of the castle with a doc.u.ment hidden in the folds of his pelisse, and calling for his horse, mounted, nodded significantly to the other gentlemen who had followed him out, and galloped away. The other gentlemen thereupon leapt into their carriages, or on to their horses, with as much expedition as if some one was pursuing them, and exchanging hurried whispers, decamped so swiftly that in a few moments the Prince was left entirely alone.

Teleki was the last who quitted him. The Prince accompanied the minister to the very end of the ante-chamber. Black care was written in his face.

He would hardly let Teleki go.

Teleki coldly withdrew his hand from the Prince's grasp.

"You have no need to brood over it, sir. It is not a question of the life of a man, but of the welfare of a state. If my own neck had stood in the way, I would have said, Hew it off! I say the same when it is another's."