The Slaves of the Padishah Part 57

Just when the revellers were at their merriest, a loud burst of martial music resounded from the plain outside, and a great din was audible as if the Turkish armies were saluting a Prince who had just arrived.

The merry gentry at once leaped from their seats and hurried to the entrance of the tent to see the ally who was received with such rejoicing, and a cry of amazement and consternation burst from their lips at the spectacle which met their eyes.

Emeric Tokoly had arrived at the head of a host of ten thousand Magyars from Upper Hungary. His army consisted of splendid picked warriors on horseback, hussars in gold-braided dolmans, wolf-skin pelisses, and shakos with falcon feathers. Tokoly himself rode at the head of his host with princely pomp; his escort consisted of the first magnates of Hungary, jewel-bedizened cavaliers in fur mantles trimmed with swansdown, among whom Tokoly himself was only conspicuous by his manly beauty and princely distinction.

The face of Teleki darkened at the sight, while the faces of all who surrounded him were suddenly illuminated by an indescribable joy, and their enthusiasm burst forth in _eljens_ of such penetrating enthusiasm at the sight of the young hero that Teleki felt himself near to fainting.

Ah! it was in a very different voice that they had recently cried "_Viva!_" to him, it was a very different sort of smile with which they had been wont to greet _him_.

Meanwhile Tokoly had reached the front of the marshalled Turkish army, which was drawn up in two rows right up to the pavilion of the Grand Vizier, allowing the youth and his suite to pa.s.s through between them amidst a ceremonious abas.e.m.e.nt of their horse-tail banners. The young general had only pa.s.sed half through their ranks when the Grand Vizier came to meet him in a state carriage drawn by six white horses.

From the hill on which Teleki stood he could see everything quite plainly.

On reaching the carriage of the Grand Vizier, Tokoly leaped quickly from his horse, whereupon Kara Mustafa also descended from his carriage, and, hastening to the young general, embraced him and kissed him repeatedly on the forehead, made him take a seat in the carriage beside him, and thus conveyed him to his tent amidst joyful acclamations.

Teleki had to look on at all this! That was very different from the reception accorded to him and the Prince of Transylvania.

He looked around him--gladness, a radiant smile shone on every face. Oh!

those smiles were so many dagger-thrusts in his heart!

In half an hour's time Tokoly emerged from the tent of the Grand Vizier.

His head was encircled by a diamond diadem which the Sultan had sent for all the way to Belgrade, and in his hand was a princely sceptre. When he remounted and galloped away close beside the tents of the Transylvanians, the Hungarians in Teleki's company could restrain themselves no longer, but rushed towards Tokoly and covered his hands, his feet, his garments, with kisses, took him from his horse on to their shoulders, and carried him in their arms back to camp.

Teleki could endure the sight no more; he fled into his tent, and, throwing himself on his camp-bedstead, wept like a child.

The whole edifice which he had reared so industriously, so doggedly, amidst innumerable perils, during the arduous course of a long life--for which he had sacrificed relations, friends, and all the great and wise men of a kingdom, and pledged away the repose of his very soul--had suddenly collapsed at the appearance of a mere youth, whose only merit was the exaggerated fame of a few successful engagements! It was the heaviest blow he had ever staggered under. Oh! Fortune is indeed ingenious in her disappointments.

Evening came, and still Teleki had not quitted his tent. Then the Prince went to see him. Teleki wanted to hear nothing, but the Prince told him everything.

"Hearken, Mr. Michael Teleki! The Hungarian gentlemen have not come back to us, but remain with Tokoly. And Tokoly also, it appears, doesn't want to have much to do with us, for instead of encamping with us he has withdrawn to the furthest end of the Turkish army, and has pitched his tents there."

Teleki groaned beneath the pain which the distilled venom of these words poured into his heart.

"Apparently, Mr. Michael Teleki, we have been building castles in the air," continued Apafi with jovial frankness. "We are evidently not of the stuff of which Kings and Palatines of Hungary are made. I cannot but think of the cat in the fable, who pulled the chestnuts out of the fire with the claws of others."

Teleki shivered as if with an ague.

Apafi continued in his own peculiar vein of cynicism: "Really, my dear Mr. Michael Teleki, I should like it much better if we were sitting at home, and Denis Banfy and Paul Beldi and the other wise gentlemen were sitting beside me, and I were listening to what they might advise."

Teleki clenched his fists and stamped his feet, as much as to say: "I would not allow that."

Then with a bitter smile he watched the Prince as he paced up and down the tent, and said with a cold, metallic voice:

"One swallow does not make a summer. If ten or twelve worthless fellows desert to Tokoly, much good may it do him! The army of the real Hungarian heroes will not follow their example, and when it can fight beneath the banner of a Prince it will not fling itself into the arms of a homeless adventurer."

"Then it would be as well if your Excellency spoke to them at once, for methinks that this night the whole lot of them may turn tail."

Teleki seemed impressed by these words. He immediately ordered his drabants to go to the captains of the army collected from Hungary who had joined Apafi at Fulek, and invite them to a conference in his tent at once.

The officers so summoned, with a good deal of humming and hahing, met together in Teleki's tent, and there the Minister harangued them for two good hours, proving to demonstration what a lot of good they might expect from cleaving to Apafi, and what a lot of evil if they allowed themselves to be deluded by Tokoly, till the poor fellows were quite tired out and cried: "Hurrah!" in order that he might let them go the sooner.

But that same night they all fled to the camp of Tokoly. None remained with Apafi but his faithful Transylvanians.

But even now Teleki could not familiarise himself with the idea of playing a subordinate part here, but staked everything on a last, desperate cast--he went to the Grand Vizier. He announced himself, and was admitted.

The Grand Vizier was alone in his tent with his dragoman, and when he saw Teleki he tried to make his unpleasant face more repulsive than it was by nature, and inquired very viciously: "Who art thou? Who sent thee hither? What dost thou want?"

"I, sir, am the general of the Transylvanian armies, Michael Teleki; you know me very well, only yesterday I was here with the Prince."

Just as if the two speakers did not understand each other's language, the dragoman had to interpret their questions and answers.

"I hope," replied the Grand Vizier, "thou dost not expect me to recognise at sight the names of all the petty princes and generals whom I have ever cast eyes on? My master, the mighty Sultan, has so many tributary princes in Europe, Asia, and Africa, that their numbers are incalculable, and all of them are superior men to thee, how canst thou expect me to recognise thee among so many?"

Teleki swallowed the insult, and seeing that the Grand Vizier was anxious to pick a quarrel with him, he came straight to the point.

"Gracious sir, I have something very important to say to you if you will grant me a private interview."

The Grand Vizier pretended to fly into a rage at these words.

"Art thou mad or drunk that thou wouldst have a private interview with me, although I don't understand Hungarian and thou dost not understand Turkish, or perchance thou wouldst like me to learn Hungarian to please thee? Ye learn Latin, I suppose, though no living being speaks it? And ye learn German and French and Greek, yet ye stop short at the language of the Turks, though the Turks are your masters and protectors! For a hundred and fifty years our armies have pa.s.sed through your territories, yet how many of you have learned Turkish? 'Tis true our soldiers have learnt Hungarian, for thy language is as sticky as resin on a growing tree. Therefore, if thou art fool enough to ask me for a private interview--go home and learn Turkish first!"

Teleki bowed low, went home and learnt Turkish--that is to say, he packed up a couple of thousand thalers in a sack--and, accompanied by two porters to carry them, returned once more to the tent of the Grand Vizier.

And now the Grand Vizier understood everything which the magnate wished to say. The dragoman interpreted everything beautifully. He said the Sultan was building a fortress on the ice when he entrusted the fate of the Hungarians to such a flighty youth as Emeric Tokoly. How could a young man, who was such a bad manager of his own property, manage the affairs of a whole kingdom? And so fond was he of being his own master, that he suffered himself to be exiled from Transylvania with the loss of all his property rather than submit to the will of his lawful Prince.

The man who had already rebelled against two rulers would certainly not be very loyal to a third; while Apafi, on the other hand, had all his life long been a most faithful va.s.sal of the Sublime Porte, and, modest, humble man as he was, would be far more useful than Tokoly, whom the Porte would always be obliged to help with men and money, whereas the latter would always be able to help with men and money the Porte and its meritorious viziers--_uti figura docet_.

Mustafa listened to the long oration, took the money, and replied that he would see what could be done.

Teleki was not quite clear about the impression his words had made, but he did not remain in uncertainty for long; for scarcely had he reached the tent of the Prince than a defterdar with twelve cava.s.ses came after him, and signified that he was commanded by the Grand Vizier immediately to seize Michael Teleki, fling him into irons, and bring him before a council of pashas.

Michael Teleki turned pale at these words. The faithless dragoman had told everything to Tokoly, who had demanded satisfaction from the Grand Vizier, who, without the least scruple of conscience, was now ready to present to another the head of the very man from whom he had accepted presents only an hour before.

The magnate now gave himself up for lost, but the Prince approached him, and tapping him on the shoulder, said:

"If I were the man your Excellency is pleased to believe me and make other people believe too--that is to say, a coward yielding to every sort of compulsion--in an hour's time your Excellency would not have a head remaining on your shoulders. But everyone shall see that they have been deceived in me."

Then, turning towards the defterdar, he said to him in a firm, determined voice:

"Go back to your master, and say to him that Michael Teleki is the generalissimo of my armies and under my protection, and at the present moment I have him in my tent. Let anyone therefore who has any complaint against him, notify the same to me, and I will sit in judgment over him.

But let none dare to lay a hand upon him within the walls of my tent, for I swear by the most Holy Trinity that I will break open the head of any such person with my cudgel. I would be ready to go over to the enemy with my whole army at once rather than permit so much as a mouse belonging to my household to be caught within my tent by a foreign cat, let alone the disgrace of handing over my generalissimo!"

The defterdar duly delivered the message of the enraged Prince to the Grand Vizier. Emeric Tokoly was with him at the time, and the two gentlemen on hearing the vigorous a.s.sertion of the Prince agreed that after all Michael Apafi was really a very worthy man, and sending back the defterdar, instructed him to say with the utmost politeness and all due regard for the Prince that so long as Michael Teleki remained in the Prince's tent not a hair of his head should be crumpled; but he was to look to it that he did not step out of the tent, for in that case the cava.s.ses who were looking out for him would pounce upon him at once and treat him as never a Transylvanian generalissimo was treated before; and now, too, he had only the Prince to thank for his life.

Teleki was annihilated. Nothing could have wounded his ambitious soul so deeply as the consciousness that the Prince was protecting him. To think that this man, whom the whole kingdom regarded as cowardly and incapable, could be great when he himself had suddenly become so very small! His nimbus of wisdom, power, and valour had vanished, and he saw that the man whom he had only consulted for the sake of obtaining his signature to prearranged plans was wiser and more powerful and more valiant than he.

Peering through the folds of the tent he could see that, faithful to the threatening message, the cava.s.ses were prowling around the tent and telling the loutish soldiers that if Teleki stepped out they would seize him forthwith. The Szeklers laughed and shouted with joy thereat.

Then the magnate began to reflect whether it would not be best if he drew his sword, and rushing out, slash away at them till he himself were cut to pieces.