The mere act of writing generally clears and calms the mind, so that it was in a fairly moderate tone that Beldi challenged Banfi to meet him at Szamos-Ujvar on an affair of honour. Beldi then sealed the letter and gave it to Gyergyai, requesting him to forward it at once.
“So you are writing to Banfi, my brother?” said the old man, looking at the address of the letter. “Why, you only parted from him a little time ago! What is all this between you?”
“Do you recollect the time, my father,” said Beldi, “when you saw Banfi and me fight together in the lists at the tournament held by Prince George Rakoczy?”
“Quite well! On that occasion you had both vanquished every other competitor, but could do nothing against each other.”
“You then said that you would very much like to see which of the two would beat the other if we set to it in earnest.”
“Yes; I well remember it.”
“Well, now you shall see!”
Gyergyai looked Beldi in the face.
“My brother, I know not what this letter contains, but I can guess your thoughts from your face. My father used to say that a letter written in wrath should never be sent off the same day, but should be put under one’s pillow and slept upon. The advice is not bad; follow it, and send off the letter tomorrow morning, for, to be candid with you, I won’t send it tonight.”
Beldi followed the old man’s advice. He put the letter under his pillow, lay down, went to sleep, and dreamt that he was in the bosom of his family, saw his wife and children, and was very happy. It was only the rolling of his carriage into the courtyard next morning which woke him out of his slumbers. The first thing that occurred to him was his letter to Banfi. He broke the seal, read the letter through again, and was much ashamed that he had ever written such a letter.
“Where was your common sense, Beldi?” he asked himself, tore the letter to pieces, and threw it into the fire. “How the world would have laughed at me!” thought he. “An old fool, to take it into his head all at once to be jealous of the mother of his children!—and for the sake of a kiss too given in drunkenness and rejected with indignation. What a weapon I should have put into Banfi’s hands, had I led him to suppose that I was jealous of my wife on his account.”
“Let us go to Bodola,” said he very gently to his coachman, and with that he took leave of his host.
“But how about that pressing letter of yours?” asked Gyergyai anxiously.
“I have already sent it—up the chimney,” replied Beldi, smiling, and set out on his journey with feelings very different from those with which he had started.
So you see a man can be drunk without wine!
While still some distance from Bodola, he could see all the members of his family looking out for him on the castle terrace, and no sooner did they perceive his carriage, than they hastened down to greet him. He met them all in the park, wife and children; they threw themselves on his neck with cries of joy, and he kissed them all, one after another, over and over again; but his warmest embraces were for his darling wife, who smiled up at him with a radiant face, which he could not feast his eyes upon enough. It seemed to him as if her eyes were brighter, her features more enchanting, her lips sweeter than ever they had been.
“What a fool a man is, to be sure,” thought Beldi, “who, when his wife is out of sight, is capable of supposing everything bad of her, and when she stands before his eyes cannot make too much of her.”
In the abandonment of his joy he did not at first perceive that there was a strange face in the family circle—a handsome, stately young Turk, with frank and noble features, not unlike an Hungarian.
“You do not even notice me, or perhaps you forget me,” said the youth, stepping in front of Beldi.
Beldi looked at him. The youth’s features were familiar to him, and yet he could not recall his name till his youngest daughter, Aranka, who was dangling on her father’s arm, remarked archly—
“What! Not recognize Feriz Beg, papa! Why, I knew him at the first glance.”
Beldi at once held out his hand and heartily greeted the youth, whose manly features however wore a grave and serious look.
“My father sends me to you on an urgent errand,” said he, “and had you not come, I must have gone to seek you, for my message admits of no delay.”
Beldi was struck by the youth’s earnest tone, and on reaching the castle immediately took him aside into a private room, and there the young Beg handed him a parchment roll tied round with silken cord, and sealed with a yellow seal. Beldi broke the seal and read as follows—
“The blessing and protection of heaven rest upon you and your family!—Transylvania is in great danger. The Sultan is enraged at the war which Denis Banfi wages with the Pasha of Grosswardein. They say that this great noble is in league with the Emperor. See to it that the land chastises Banfi, the power to do so is still your own. But if the Prince cannot, or will not punish him, the Sultan has sworn to drive the pair of them out of the realm, and convert Transylvania into a Turkish Pachalic. The Pashas of Grosswardein and Temesvar, the Lord-Marchers, and the Tartar Khan have been ordered to hold themselves in readiness to invade Transylvania from all sides at a moment’s notice. Put a bit therefore in the mouth of this great lord, for death hangs over your heads on the film of a spider’s web.
