“The insult to the Turks your Highness might overlook,” persisted Teleki, “but we really cannot look through our fingers any longer at the way in which he treats the gentry. The latest victim of his tyranny is Lady Saint Pauli. The poor widow’s ancestral dwelling was an eyesore to the great lord, because it spoiled the prospect from his palace windows; so he had the house appraised at his own valuation, and turned the poor lady out of doors. The magistrate gave her a letter of indemnity, but my Lord-Marshal tore the letter to pieces, and pulled down the poor widow’s sole possession, her ancestral dwelling-place. The Diet, he said, might build it up again if it felt so disposed. Such an act, sir, in ordinary times has been known to cost the doer thereof his head!”
Apafi was silent, but his bloodshot eyes began to glow savagely.
“But that is not all,” continued Teleki; “outrages on individuals are of small account when the security of the whole realm is at stake. This great lord can speak very prettily about the blessings of peace, let us see now how he labours to uphold it. He takes the sword out of our hands and closes our mouths, while he himself collects an army and goads the Turk against us, well knowing that we have no money wherewith to buy the gifts necessary to counteract his vagaries. Now, three letters have reached us simultaneously—one from the Pasha of Grosswardein, another from the Pasha of Buda, and a third from the Sultan himself—demanding instant satisfaction, or an indemnity of three hundred purses of gold, for the defeat which the Pasha of Grosswardein has suffered at Banfi’s hands. As, however, we cannot expect Banfi to pay the indemnity, will it please your Highness to consider from whence such a large sum of money is to be procured?”
“From nowhither!” cried Apafi furiously, smashing his glass to pieces on the table. “I’ll show the world that I’m able to exact satisfaction from whomsoever I will, let him be even as mighty again as Denis Banfi.”
“Then I wish your Highness would tell us how, for we know that Banfi will not appear to our summons, and we cannot compel him, for he has shown himself stronger than the whole realm. If we attempted to use force he would call out the banderia and the garrison troops, and then it might fare with us as it fared with Ladislaus Csaky—he would arrest the officers sent to arrest him, and expose us to universal derision.”
“As our first counsellor, it is your province to give us good counsel in such cases,” cried Apafi wrathfully.
“I only know of one remedy capable of curing the realm thoroughly of this disease.”
“Then prescribe it. In what does your remedy consist?”
“In the jus ligatum.”
Apafi, despite his semi-besotted state, instinctively shrunk back from such an expedient, and throwing himself into his armchair, looked blankly at Teleki.
“Are you not ashamed of yourself,” he murmured in broken sentences, as tipsy people usually do, “to propose a secret conspiracy against a free nobleman? To privily conspire against him is contrary to the law of the land.”
“It is not my fault if the expedient is shameful,” returned Teleki calmly and steadfastly; “but it is shameful that the law should not possess sufficient power to bring a rebel to book, and that one of our own subjects should be able to openly defy justice and laugh at the decrees of the Prince. If in such a state of things the jus ligatum is our only means of defence, the shame falls not upon me but upon the Prince.”
Apafi rose angrily from his seat and paced to and fro. The lords remained perfectly silent.
At last the Prince stopped short in front of Teleki, and, leaning on the back of his armchair, asked him—
“And how then do you propose to bring about this league?”
Nalaczi and Szekely exchanged a smile. It was plain that the idea had caught the Prince’s fancy. Teleki beckoned to Szekely to fetch him writing materials and a strip of parchment.
“We will quickly draw up the necessary articles of impeachment; your Highness will subscribe them, and we’ll secretly persuade the great men of the land to consent to Banfi’s arrest and join the league before any legal steps have been taken.”
At these words many of the gentlemen present began to bite their moustaches and move uneasily in their chairs.
Teleki observed the movement, and added emphatically—
“I perceive that no one here has the courage to put down his name first on the list. Nevertheless I have already found a man, who in dignity and power is every whit Banfi’s equal, and when once he has subscribed the list, the other signatures will follow as a matter of course.”
“And who may that be?” asked Apafi.
“Paul Beldi!”
The Prince shook his head.
“He won’t do it. He is much too honourable a man for that.”
Wine-inspired as this sentence was, it completely ruffled Teleki’s equanimity. Turning vehemently upon the Prince he cried—
“Then you mean to imply that we are acting dishonourably?”
“I meant to say that Beldi is never very willing to pick a quarrel with anybody. He is a peace-abiding man.”
“But I know his sore point, and if you but touch it with the tip of your finger, he’ll answer with his clenched fist, and the lamb will become a lion. I’ll get him to—”
At that moment the door opened, and, to everyone’s astonishment, the Princess entered the room.
Nevertheless, her appearance at this time was no freak of chance. You could see by her agitation that she was well aware of what was going on. The lords were confused, and Apafi, despite his tipsy wrath, became so frightened when he beheld the pale face of his consort that he whispered to Teleki—
“For heaven’s sake put that document out of sight.”
Only Teleki kept his countenance, and instead of hiding the parchment, ostentatiously spread it out before him.
“What are
