Midst the Wild Carpathians Part 52

With that he took his leave.

Apafi could not remain in his room. He was obliged to go out into the fresh open air. Inside something seemed to choke him, the air was so oppressive--or was it his own conscience? He went into the garden. The cool night air soothed his throbbing head; the sight of the starry heaven did good to his darkened soul. Leaning over the balcony, he looked amazedly out into the quiet night, as if he expected a star larger than all the rest to fall from heaven, or some one miles and miles away to call him by name.

Suddenly a scream fell on his ear.

He looked around with a shudder, and terror made him speechless--before him stood his consort, whom his counsellors had kept away from him for weeks.

The moment the last magnate had departed, her own faithful servants told her that the Prince had signed the death-warrant, and the terrified woman, breaking through the castle guards, rushed after Apafi, found him in the garden, seized him roughly, and shrieking rather than speaking in her agitation, exclaimed--

"Oh, accursed, accursed wretch! Thou hast shed innocent blood!"

Apafi tried to avoid his wife. He feared her.

"What do you want with me?" he asked in a hollow voice. "What do you mean?"

"You have signed Banfi's death-warrant."

"I!" cried Apafi feebly, trying to catch hold of his wife's hand.

"Away with that hand, monster! It is stained with my kinsman's blood."

"Then you don't consent to it?" stammered the abject creature. "Neither did I, but the magnates constrained me."

The Princess smote her hands together, and looked at her consort despairingly.

"You have brought blood on our family! You have brought a curse on the land and on me! Oh, why did I not let you perish in the hands of the Tartars? Where you are concerned virtue itself becomes a sin."

Apafi was crushed. Alone with his wife, he was something less than a man.

"I did not wish to kill him," he blurted out, "nor do I now; and if you wish it, I'll reprieve him. Here, take my signet-ring. Send a horseman after Csaky to Bethlen Castle. Reprieve your cousin and leave me in peace."

"What ho, there! Who is without?" shrieked the Princess.

The domestic servants came pouring in, headed by the pantler.

"Take four of the Prince's swiftest horses with you," cried Anna, as she wrote out the pardon with her own hand and made her husband sign and seal it. "Take this letter and hasten to Bethlen Castle. If one of the horses falls under you, take the others. Stop not an instant on the road! A man's life is in your hands!"

The grooms led forward the swift horses; the pantler swung himself into the saddle, and, leading the other three horses by the bridles, galloped away.

The Princess impatiently followed him with her eyes till he was out of sight, and then went up to her room again; but unable to rest there long, she came down once more, sent for her faithful old servant Andrew, and giving him an old piece of green velvet,[56] set him on horseback and sent him after the pantler.

[Footnote 56: Green velvet was the symbol of the princely dignity in Transylvania.]

"If the Prince's reprieve arrives too late, this will be a cere-cloth wherein to wrap the murdered man."

The same hour, perhaps at the self-same moment, Paul Beldi called his chief groom, bade him mount his swiftest horse, ride to Bethlen Castle, and inform the castellan there that he would cut his head off if the slightest harm happened to Banfi at Bethlen. He too dared not face his wife at that moment.

The same hour, perhaps at the self-same moment, Michael Teleki pressed the hand of his future son-in-law Tokoli, and whispered in his ear, "We are a step nearer." And beneath the pressure of the youth's iron hand, the engagement ring which knitted him to Teleki's daughter snapped in two, and Teleki took it as an omen[57] that, one day, the hand of this youth would be stronger than his own.

[Footnote 57: The omen was justified when, nearly thirty years later, Tokoli defeated and slew Teleki at the battle of Zernyes, 1691.]

That night all Transylvania was greatly disturbed. Farkas Bethlen could not sleep in his bed all night. Stephen Apor was so unwell that he had to send for his confessor, and Kornis lost himself so completely on his way home that he was forced to sleep in his carriage.

And what was going on in heaven? Towards midnight a storm arose, the like of which the oldest men could not call to mind. The lightning set forests and castles on fire; the falling clouds drove the rivers out of their beds. The alarm bells resounded everywhere. G.o.d sat in judgment over the land that night. The whole population was sleepless.

Only the reconciled consorts slept calmly.

With one arm under her husband's head and the other embracing him, the pale and fragile lady fell asleep. At times she wept in her dreams, and her tears fell on the pillow. She was dreaming of her happy bridal days, and of that sweet moment when she had laid her first and only child in her husband's arms, and she pressed him more closely to her, while he lay sleeping there so calmly, at enmity with the world, but reconciled to himself and to the better-half of his soul. Happiness, which had fled him in his palace, sought him out in his dungeon.

The night lamp cast its pale rays on the sleeping forms.

Through that terrible night, four hors.e.m.e.n, scarcely a thousand paces apart, are galloping at full speed towards Bethlen Castle. During the lightning flashes they sometimes catch a glimpse of each other, and then each of them digs his spurs more deeply into his horse's sides.

The first horseman reaches the castle gate and winds the signal horn.

The drawbridge sinks groaning down; the horseman springs into the courtyard and places a letter in the hands of the flurried castellan. It is Paul Beldi's messenger.

The horseman who next arrives at the castle orders the gates to be opened in the name of the Prince. He hands the castellan a second letter. It is Ladislaus Csaky.

The castellan grows pale as he reads this letter.

"My lord," says he, "I have just received a message from Paul Beldi, threatening us with death in case any harm befalls the prisoner."

"You have your choice," answered Csaky. "If you obey me, Beldi may perhaps cut off your head to-morrow; but if you don't obey me, I'll cut off your head myself this instant."

The trembling castellan bowed submission.

"Up with the drawbridge!" commanded Csaky. "None must enter this castle without my permission. Whoever acts against my orders is a dead man!"

The spouses lay tranquilly sleeping in each other's arms. A minute later the door creaked on its hinges, and the Rev. Stephen Pataky, tearful and terrified, entered the dungeon. His heart died within him when he saw the consorts sleeping so calmly side by side.

He stepped up to Banfi to rouse him. As he touched his hand, Banfi awoke, and perceiving Pataky, who could not speak for emotion, tried to disengage his head from his wife's encircling arm without awakening her.

At that very moment Lady Banfi opened her eyes. Pataky, wishing to conceal the fatal message from her, addressed Banfi in the Latin tongue--

"_Surge Domine! sententia lethalis adest!_"[58]

[Footnote 58: Arise, sir, the death-warrant has come!]