“What ho, there! Who is without?” shrieked the Princess.
The domestic servants came pouring in, headed by the pantler.
“Take four of the Prince’s swiftest horses with you,” cried Anna, as she wrote out the pardon with her own hand and made her husband sign and seal it. “Take this letter and hasten to Bethlen Castle. If one of the horses falls under you, take the others. Stop not an instant on the road! A man’s life is in your hands!”
The grooms led forward the swift horses; the pantler swung himself into the saddle, and, leading the other three horses by the bridles, galloped away.
The Princess impatiently followed him with her eyes till he was out of sight, and then went up to her room again; but unable to rest there long, she came down once more, sent for her faithful old servant Andrew, and giving him an old piece of green velvet,55 set him on horseback and sent him after the pantler.
“If the Prince’s reprieve arrives too late, this will be a cerecloth wherein to wrap the murdered man.”
The same hour, perhaps at the selfsame moment, Paul Beldi called his chief groom, bade him mount his swiftest horse, ride to Bethlen Castle, and inform the castellan there that he would cut his head off if the slightest harm happened to Banfi at Bethlen. He too dared not face his wife at that moment.
The same hour, perhaps at the selfsame moment, Michael Teleki pressed the hand of his future son-in-law Tököli, and whispered in his ear, “We are a step nearer.” And beneath the pressure of the youth’s iron hand, the engagement ring which knitted him to Teleki’s daughter snapped in two, and Teleki took it as an omen56 that, one day, the hand of this youth would be stronger than his own.
That night all Transylvania was greatly disturbed. Farkas Bethlen could not sleep in his bed all night. Stephen Apor was so unwell that he had to send for his confessor, and Kornis lost himself so completely on his way home that he was forced to sleep in his carriage.
And what was going on in heaven? Towards midnight a storm arose, the like of which the oldest men could not call to mind. The lightning set forests and castles on fire; the falling clouds drove the rivers out of their beds. The alarm bells resounded everywhere. God sat in judgment over the land that night. The whole population was sleepless.
Only the reconciled consorts slept calmly.
With one arm under her husband’s head and the other embracing him, the pale and fragile lady fell asleep. At times she wept in her dreams, and her tears fell on the pillow. She was dreaming of her happy bridal days, and of that sweet moment when she had laid her first and only child in her husband’s arms, and she pressed him more closely to her, while he lay sleeping there so calmly, at enmity with the world, but reconciled to himself and to the better-half of his soul. Happiness, which had fled him in his palace, sought him out in his dungeon.
The night lamp cast its pale rays on the sleeping forms.
Through that terrible night, four horsemen, scarcely a thousand paces apart, are galloping at full speed towards Bethlen Castle. During the lightning flashes they sometimes catch a glimpse of each other, and then each of them digs his spurs more deeply into his horse’s sides.
The first horseman reaches the castle gate and winds the signal horn. The drawbridge sinks groaning down; the horseman springs into the courtyard and places a letter in the hands of the flurried castellan. It is Paul Beldi’s messenger.
The horseman who next arrives at the castle orders the gates to be opened in the name of the Prince. He hands the castellan a second letter. It is Ladislaus Csaky.
The castellan grows pale as he reads this letter.
“My lord,” says he, “I have just received a message from Paul Beldi, threatening us with death in case any harm befalls the prisoner.”
“You have your choice,” answered Csaky. “If you obey me, Beldi may perhaps cut off your head tomorrow; but if you don’t obey me, I’ll cut off your head myself this instant.”
The trembling castellan bowed submission.
“Up with the drawbridge!” commanded Csaky. “None must enter this castle without my permission. Whoever acts against my orders is a dead man!”
The spouses lay tranquilly sleeping in each other’s arms. A minute later the door creaked on its hinges, and the Rev. Stephen Pataky, tearful and terrified, entered the dungeon. His heart died within him when he saw the consorts sleeping so calmly side by side.
He stepped up to Banfi to rouse him. As he touched his hand, Banfi awoke, and perceiving Pataky, who could not speak for emotion, tried to disengage his head from his wife’s encircling arm without awakening her. At that very moment Lady Banfi opened her eyes. Pataky, wishing to conceal the fatal message from her, addressed Banfi in the Latin tongue—
“Surge Domine! sententia lethalis adest!”57
Lady Banfi, terrified by these mysterious words, the meaning of which Pataky’s face so ill concealed, asked in mortal fear what was the matter.
“Nothing, my darling! nothing!” said Banfi, embracing her with a tender smile. “A pressing message which I must attend to at once. I’ll be back again soon! Lie down and sleep gently!”
With these words he persuaded his wife to fall back upon her pillow, kissed her repeatedly with great tenderness, and soothed her caressingly between each kiss—“My soul! my delight! my love! my heaven!”
The wife little suspected that this was the parting kiss of a man about to meet his doom; Banfi looked at her so smilingly, feigning a joyful countenance as he stood on the threshold
