The battle won, Kucsuk by a flourish of trumpets recalled his squadrons from pursuing the beaten foe. The Turkish horsemen came galloping back at once, quite contrary to the usual practice of Turkish armies, which are generally as much demoralized after a victory as the vanquished themselves. Kucsuk had inured them to the strictest discipline.
Back they came, black with smoke and red with blood, but the bloodiest of all was Feriz Beg. His mantle was riddled with bullets, and the horse he rode was the third that he had mounted since the action began, two had already been killed under him.
Kucsuk, without a word, embraced his son, kissed him on the forehead, fastened his own Nishan Order on his breast, and exchanged swords with him, then the highest conceivable distinction.
Ferhad Aga, the leader of the right wing, was brought dead, on a litter of lances, before the general. His body bore wounds of every shape and size; he was literally covered with gunshot wounds, sabre-cuts, and lance-thrusts.
Kucsuk sprang from his horse, bent weeping over the corpse, covered it with kisses, and swore by Allah that he would not have given this man’s life for the whole of Transylvania.
Nor would he enter the town till Ferhad had been buried. The dervishes immediately surrounded the dead man, washed him, wrapped him in fragrant linen, and the Pasha himself sought out for him a sunny spot in the midst of a little grove. There they buried him with his face turned towards the east, and with a pennant fluttering on a lance’s head over his grassy grave. And for three days sentinels watched over him, to prevent the accursed Jinns from mutilating the corpse of the dead hero.
VII
The Princess
After the fatal day of Nagy Szöllös, the faithful followers of John Kemeny fled to Hungary, and transferred their allegiance to Simon Kemeny, the son of the fallen Prince. But a sinking cause has few friends, and while the younger Kemeny’s party rapidly diminished, Apafi’s as rapidly increased. His victory had assured his position, and won for him all the great men of the land—the governors of the towns, the magnates, the commandants of the fortresses—in short, it was a race who should do him homage first, all the Estates of the Realm recognized him as Prince.
Only a few fortresses, where Kemeny had placed German garrisons, still held out, Klausenburg among the number.
Kucsuk Pasha, whose army meanwhile had been reinforced, brought Apafi beneath the walls of that city, and pitched his tent at Hidelve over against the old town, then a mere heap of straw huts, and there the new Prince held his first reception.
The morning had scarcely dawned when Apafi’s tent was besieged by a host of visitors, petitioners, and liegemen. The Prince, enchanted at the delightful novelty of a position which enabled him to gratify everybody’s desires, could not find it in his heart to say no to anybody. Nalaczi and Daczo were there before he had finished putting on his boots, and introduced a whole mob of persons anxious to pay their respects, who were waiting with smiling faces at the tent door. Apafi made haste with his toilet in order that none should be kept waiting. He was anxious to oblige everyone.
Amongst the first who elbowed their way in was Count Ladislaus Csaky. He came to offer his son as a page to the Prince, the selfsame son who had filled and refilled John Kemeny’s glass a few weeks before. Apafi could scarcely find words to express his gratitude for such an offer.
Next came Master Gabriel Haller, who seemed as if he would really never leave off bowing and scraping, and addressed an eloquent oration to Apafi, every tenth word of which was a title of honour. Apafi could scarcely conceal his childish joy at being called your Highness, and invited Master Gabriel Haller to dinner straight off.
A dais was then placed in the back part of the tent, which the modest Prince absolutely refused to mount, till his brother Stephen used gentle violence, and even then he insisted on rising to receive every suitor, and accompanied him to the door at the end of each audience.
Petitioners, homagers, and visitors of every description kept coming and going one by one.
By Apafi’s side stood Nalaczi, Daczo, Stephen Apafi, and John Cserey, whom his Highness urged repeatedly to be seated.
After receiving the oaths of allegiance, on which occasion the commandants of the fortresses placed the keys of their strongholds in the Prince’s hands, it was the turn of the petitioners to be introduced.
First came Master Martin Pok, the jailer of Fogaros, with the humble petition that he might be appointed the governor of that fortress, inasmuch as the former governor had fled to Simon Kemeny.
Apafi promised to bear him in mind.
Next came Master John Szasy, the chief magistrate of Hermannstadt, complaining, with tears in his eyes, that his fellow-citizens were persecuting him, and throwing himself on the Prince’s protection.
Apafi at once took him under his wing.
Then followed Master Moses Zagoni, who begged the Prince to let him off a certain balance in his accounts which had been outstanding from Kemeny’s time.
Him too Apafi sent away comforted.
Last of all came a thickset, sturdy Szekler, in a short sheepskin jacket, who called himself the representative of Olahfalva; did homage to Apafi in the name of his district, and preferred two very peculiar petitions, to wit: that from henceforth Olahfalva should be declared to be only two miles from Klausenburg (the real distance between the two places is, as we all know, more than twenty); and secondly, that it should be legally enacted that he who had no horse should go on foot.
The Prince laughingly complied with both of these extraordinarily ludicrous requests, which put him into such a good humour that an itinerant scholar, Clement by name, a crooked-nosed, long-legged individual,
