The first thing he perceived was the linstock cut in two by a pair of shears.
“Coward soul!” he growled, and, pierced through and through by the air, would have put on his mantle, when a roll of parchment fell at his feet, and picking it up he recognized Azrael’s handwriting, and read as follows—
“My lord, you read not hearts aright. We give our love for our own sakes, but we do not give ourselves for love’s sake. You have frittered away your power, and, deserted by all the world, think to find me faithful who loved your power and that only: I am his who has inherited that power. He who is in the ascendant I adore, but I hate and despise the fallen. Corsar Beg’s fate should have warned you that one day you too might fare like him …”
Banfi could not read it to the end. His face grew dark with shame. “To sink so low as this! This wretched slavish soul even while embracing me was devising treachery! And I to wish to spend my last moments in the arms of such a monster—” At that moment he loathed himself.
“Cowardice and infamy! A man who has lived as I have lived, to desire such a death! He who has always been wont to meet his foes face to face, to hide himself from them in his last moments!—to hide himself in the arms of a slave! Shame upon him!
“This lesson has done me good. It was meet that I who could forget a wife who sacrificed herself to deliver me out of the hands of my enemies, should fall into the power of a harlot who would have betrayed me to them. Yet even now it is not too late. My life is forfeit, but at least I can save my honour. None shall be able to boast that he has betrayed me. My enemies shall never say that I hid myself from them and they found me out. I’ll appear before them boldly, as I ought to have done at first.”
Full of this resolution, Banfi went straightway into the secret courtyard, where he had left his horse. He was surprised to find it no longer there. The odalisque had taken it away with her.
He smiled disdainfully.
“What matters it, so long as she has not stolen me also.”
He returned into the rocky chamber, rekindled the lunt, came out, and closing the iron door behind him made his way along the banks of the cold Szamos.
Towards midday he sat down on the bank to rest, and he had scarcely been there a quarter of an hour, when he heard the trampling of horses, and looking up—the bushes completely concealed him—beheld Ladislaus Csaky and Azrael on horseback, side by side, at the head of an armed band. The girl seemed to be pointing out something to Csaky on the rocks above, and the worthy gentleman was beside himself for joy.
Banfi smiled scornfully.
“Poor Tartars!”
As soon as the band had passed by, Banfi continued his journey. He had not gone far when he came upon a poor peasant cleaving wood.
“Dost know whither that armed band has gone?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. They have gone to capture Denis Banfi, on whose head a great price has been set.”
“How much?”
“If a noble capture him he will receive an estate, if a peasant, two hundred ducats.”
“Little enough, but enough for you, I dare say. I am Denis Banfi.”
The peasant took off his cap.
“Does my lord wish to be led anywhither?”
“Lead me to the place where they will pay you two hundred ducats.”
A quarter of an hour afterwards a tremendous explosion resounded through the mountains, which shook the earth for half-a-mile around. The enchanted garden of the Gradina Dracului had collapsed into an inaccessible chaos.
Csaky had fortunately lingered on the road, or he and his company would have perished utterly.
On returning, he found Banfi already under arrest, and was thus deprived of the glory of having captured his foe with his own hand. He immediately hastened to accost him, and, with exquisite malice, brought with him the odalisque, who looked at Banfi as if she had never seen him before.
Banfi, however, since his voluntary surrender, had quite resumed his former sangfroid, and looking contemptuously over his shoulder at Csaky, said—
“So your Excellency means in future to wear my cast-off clothes, eh?”
At this bitter jest Azrael hissed like a snake upon whose tail one has suddenly trodden, whilst Csaky blushed up to his ears and tried hard to smile.
“Does your Excellency desire any favour from me?” asked Csaky presently, with insulting commiseration.
“None from your Excellency. I came here of my own free will, and have been arrested I know not why. My wife, therefore, can now be set free.”
“So at last we begin to whine for our wife, eh?”
“On the contrary. So far from wishing to meet her, I desire that as soon as I am put in prison she should be let go.”
“It shall be as you desire, my lord!” replied Csaky, with ironical benevolence.
Banfi requited him with a look of the most withering contempt, and turning to the jailers entered into conversation with them: the magnates he no longer regarded.
When Teleki heard of the capture of Banfi, he ordered him to be sent at once to Bethlen Castle, to make the world believe that the anti-Banfi faction was headed, not by him, but by Beldi, to whom the castle belonged.
On his way thither, the captive magnate learnt that his consort had already been released, and thus relieved of his one remaining anxiety, cared little for the rest.
On reaching Bethlen Castle he was received by the Rev. Stephen Pataky, Rector of Klausenburg, to whom he cried jocosely—
“So they’ve appointed you my father confessor, eh?”
Pataky wept bitterly, but Banfi only smiled.
The jailer conducted Banfi up the steps with every demonstration of respect.
Banfi turned round to him.
“I hope you will let Reverend Master Pataky remain with me all the time?” said he.
Pataky was understood
