There were present, besides Mustafa, Rezlán Pasha, Ajas Beg, Rifát Aga, Kara Ogli the Kapudan Pasha, and many more who promised themselves a long life.
The Grand Seignior had always made a particular favourite of Feriz, and he now addressed him in a gentle, fatherly voice.
“My dear son, go back home; my viziers are preparing to subdue the world with unconquerable armies. Go with them, in the din of battle thou wilt find again thy heroic heart and be cured of thy sickness.”
An extraordinary smile passed across the face of Feriz, he waved aside the idea with his hand and bent his head forwards, which is a way the Turks have of expressing decided negation.
“This war cannot be a triumphant war, for men are the cause thereof. Allah will bring it to nought. Ye draw the sword at the invitation of murderers, deceivers, and traitors. I have broken the hilt of my own sword in order that I may not draw it forth. They have killed those whom I love, how can I fight in that army which was formed for them who were the occasion of the ruin of my beloved?”
At this thought the blood flew to the youth’s face, the spirit of madness flamed up in his eyes, he rose to his full height before the Sultan, and he cried with a loud, audacious voice:
“Thou wilt lose the war for which thou dost now prepare, for thy viziers are incapable, thy soldiers are cowards, thy allies are traitors, thy wise men are fools, thy priests are hypocrites, and thou thyself art an oath-breaker.”
Then, as if he were suddenly sorry of what he had said to the Sultan, he bent humbly over him and taking hold of the edge of his garment raised it up and kissed it—and then, regarding him with genuine sympathy, murmured softly:
“Poor Sultan!—so young, so young—and yet thou must die.”
And thereupon, with hanging head, he turned away and prepared to go out. None stayed him.
On reaching the door, he fumbled for his sword, and perceiving when he touched it that the hilt was missing, he suddenly turned back again, and exclaimed in a low whisper:
“Think not that it will rust in its sheath. The time will come when I shall again draw it, and it will drink its fill of blood. When those who now urge us on to war shall turn against us, when those who now stand in line with us shall face us with hostile banners, then also will I return, though then ye will no longer be present. But ye shall look on from Paradise above. So it will be: ye shall look on … Poor young Sultan!”
Having whispered these prophetic words, the mad youth withdrew, and the gentlemen in the Divan were so much disturbed by his words that, with faces bent to the earth, they prayed Allah that He would turn aside from them the evil prophesy and not suffer to be broken asunder the weapons they had drawn for the increase of His glory.
XXIX
Pleasant Surprises
All the chief generals, all the border pashas, had received the Sultan’s orders to gather their hosts together and lead them against the armies of the King of the Romans, and besiege the places which were the pretext of the rupture—to wit, the fortresses of Fülek, Böszörmény, and Nagy Kallá.
At the same time the Government of Transylvania also received permission to attack Hungary with its armies, as had already been decided at the Diet of Szamosújvár.
Vast preparations were everywhere made. The Magyar race is very hard to move to war, but once in a quarrel it does not waste very much time in splitting straws.
Teleki, too, had attained at last to the dream of his life and the object of all his endeavours, for which he had knowingly sacrificed his own peace of mind, and the lives of so many good patriots—he was the generalissimo of the armies of Transylvania.
The Hungarian exiles in Transylvania hailed him as their deliverer, and he saw himself a good big step nearer to the place of Esterházy—the place of Palatine of Hungary. And why not? Why should he not stand among the foremost statesmen of his age?
All the way to the camp at Fülek he was the object of flattery and congratulation; the Hungarians gathered in troops beneath his banner, colonels and captains belauded him. As for the worthy Prince, he did not show himself at all, but sat in his tent and read his books, and when he felt tired he took his watch to pieces and put it together again.
At Fülek the Transylvanian army joined the camp of Kara Mustafa.
Teleki dressed up the Prince in his best robes, and trotted with him and his suite to the tent of the Grand Vizier with growing pride when he heard the guards blow their trumpets at their approach, and the Grand Vizier as a special favour admitted them straightway to his presence, allowed them to kiss his hand, made the magnates sit down, and praised them for their zeal and fidelity, giving each of them a new caftan; and when they were thus nicely tricked out, he dismissed them with an escort of an aga, a dragoman, and twelve cavasses to see the whole Turkish camp to their hearts’ content.
Teleki regarded this permission as a very good omen. Turkish generals are wont to be very sensitive on this point, and it is a great favour on their part when they allow foreigners to view their camps.
The dragoman took the Hungarian gentlemen everywhere. He told them which aga was encamped on this hill and which on that, how many soldiers made up a squadron of horse, and how many guns, and how many lances were in every company. He pointed out to them the
