So their pursuers were as near to them behind as Klausenberg was in front.
There was not a moment’s delay. The coachman whipped up the horses, their nostrils steamed, foam fell from their lips, they plunged wildly forward, the pebbles flashed sparks beneath their hoofs, the carriage swayed to and fro on the uneven road, the persecuted lady huddled herself into a corner of the carriage, and prayed to God for deliverance.
XIV
Olaj Beg
The Prince was just then standing in the portico of his palace conversing with the Princess, whose face bore strong marks of the sufferings of the last few days. Shortly after the panic of Nagyenyed she had given birth to a little daughter, and the terror experienced at the time had had a bad effect on both mother and child.
Apafi’s brow was also clouded. The Prince’s heart was sore, and not merely on his own account. Whenever there was any distress in the principality he also was distressed, but his own sorrow he had to share alone.
For some days he had found no comfort in whatever direction he might turn. The Turks had made him feel their tyranny everywhere, and the foreign courts had listened to his tale of distress with selfish indifference; while the great men of the realm dubbed him a tyrant, the common folks sung lampoons upon his cowardice beneath his very windows; and when he took refuge in the bosom of his family he was met by a sick wife, who had ceased to find any joy in life ever since he had been made Prince.
A sick wife is omnipotent as regards her husband. If Anna had insisted upon her husband’s quitting his princely palace, and returning with her to their quiet country house at Ebesfalu—where there was no kingdom but the kingdom of Heaven—perhaps he would even have done that for her.
As the princely pair stood on the castle battlements, the din of the town grew deeper, and suddenly the rumble of a carriage, driven at full tilt, broke upon the dreamy stillness of the castle courtyard, and dashing into it stopped before the staircase; the door of the coach was quickly thrown open and out of it rushed a pale woman, who, rallying her last remaining strength, ran up the staircase and collapsed at the feet of the Prince as he hastened to meet her, exclaiming as she did so:
“I am Mariska Sturdza.”
“For the love of God,” cried the agitated Prince, “why did you come here? You have destroyed the state and me; you have brought ruin on yourself and on us.”
The unfortunate lady was unable to utter another word. Her energy was exhausted. She lay there on the marble floor, half unconscious.
The Princess Apafi summoned her ladies-in-waiting, who, at her command, hastened to raise the lady in their arms and began to sprinkle her face with eau de cologne.
“I cannot allow her to be brought into my house,” cried the terrified Apafi; “it would bring utter destruction on me and my family.”
The Princess cast a look full of dignity upon her husband.
“What do you mean? Would you hand this unfortunate woman over to her pursuers? In her present condition, too? Suppose I was obliged to fly in a similar plight, would you fling me out upon the high road instead of offering me a place of refuge?”
“But the wrath of the Sultan?”
“Yes; and the contempt of posterity?”
“Then would you have me bring ruin upon my throne and my family for the sake of a woman?”
“Better perish for the sake of a woman than do that woman to death. If you shut your rooms against her, I will open mine wide to receive her, and then you can tell the Sultan if you like that I have taken her.”
Apafi felt that his wife’s obstinacy was getting him into a hideous muddle. This audacious woman would listen to no reasons of state in any matter which interested her humanity.
What was he to do? He pitied the persecuted lady from the bottom of his heart, but the emissary of the Sublime Porte, Olaj Beg, had come to demand her with plenipotentiary power. If he did not shelter the persecuted lady he would pronounce himself a coward in the face of the whole world; if he did shelter her, the Porte would annihilate him!
In the midst of this dilemma, one of the gatekeepers came in hot haste to announce that a band of Turkish soldiers was at that moment galloping along the road, inquiring in a loud voice for the Princess of Wallachia.
Apafi leant in dumb despair against a marble pillar whilst Anna quickly ordered her women to carry the unconscious lady to her innermost apartments and summon the doctor. She then went out on the balcony, and perceiving that the cavasses had just halted in front of the palace, she cried to the gatekeepers:
“Close the gates!”
Apafi would have very much liked to have countermanded the order; but while he was still thinking about it, the gates were snapped to under the very noses of the cavasses.
They began angrily beating with the shafts of their lances against the closed gate, whereupon the Princess called down to them from the balcony with a sonorous, authoritative voice:
“Ye good-for-nothing rascals, wherefore all that racket? This is not a barrack, but the residence of the Prince. Perchance ye know it not, because fresh human heads are wont to be nailed over the gates of your Princes every day as a mark of recognition? If that is what you are accustomed to, your error
