And with that he turned back from the third door with very grave resolves.
But when he had reopened the second door he bethought him once more that such violence might be of great prejudice to the realm, and besides, there was not very much glory after all in striking an old man of eighty. But at any rate he would tell him like a man what it had not occurred to him to say in the first moment of his surprise.
So when he had opened the first door and was in the presence of Olaj Beg, he stood there on the threshold with the door ajar, and said to him in a voice of thunder:
“Hearken, Olaj Beg! I have come back simply to tell you—”
Olaj Beg looked at him.
“What dost thou say, my good son?”
“This,” continued Apafi in a very much lower key, “that it will take time to summon the council, for Béldi lives at Bodola, Teleki at Gernyeszeg, Csaky at Déva, and until they come together you can do what you think best: you may remain here or go”—and with that he turned back, and only when he had slammed to the door he added—“to hell!”
XV
The Women’s Defence
This incident was the occasion of great affliction to the Estates of Transylvania. The counsellors assembled at the appointed time at the residence of the Prince, who at that moment would have felt happier as a Tartar captive than as the ruler of Transylvania.
On the day of the session everyone appeared in the council chamber with as gloomy a countenance as if he were about to pronounce his own death-warrant.
They took their places in silence, and everyone took great care that his sword should not rattle. There were present: old John and young Michael Bethlen, Paul Béldi, Caspar Kornis, Ladislaus Csaky, Joshua Kapi, and the protonotarius, Francis Sárpataky. For the Prince, there had just been prepared a new canopied throne, with three steps; it was the first time he had sat on it. Beside it was an empty armchair, reserved for Michael Teleki.
As soon as the guard of the chamber announced that the counsellors had assembled, the Prince at once appeared, accompanied by Michael Teleki and Stephen Nalaczi.
It could be seen from the Prince’s face that for at least two hours Teleki had been filling his head with talk. Nalaczi greeted everyone present with a courtly smile, but nobody smiled back at him. Teleki, with cold gravity, led the Prince to the throne. The latter on first looking up at the throne, stood before it as if thunderstruck, and seemed to be deliberating for a moment whether it ought not to be taken away and a simple chair put in its place. But after thinking it well out he mounted the steps, and, sighing deeply, took his seat upon it.
Michael Teleki stood silent in his place for some time, as if he was collecting his thoughts. His eyes did not travel along the faces of those present as they generally did to watch the effect of his words, but were fixed on the clasp of his kalpag, and his voice was much duller than at other times, often sinking to tremulous depths, except when he pulled himself together and tried to give it a firmer tone.
“Your Highness, your Excellencies—God has reserved peculiar trials for our unfortunate nation. One danger has scarce passed over us when we plump into another; when we try to avoid the lesser perils, we find the greater ones directly in our path, and we end in sorrow what we began in joy. Scarcely have we got over the tidings of the battle of St. Gothard (we had our own melancholy reasons for not participating therein), and the consequent annihilation of the far-reaching designs of the Turkish Empire, by the peace contracted between the two great Powers, amidst whose quarrels our unhappy country is buffeted about as if between hammer and anvil, when we have a fresh and still greater occasion for apprehension. For the generals of the Turkish Sultan impute the loss of the battle to the premature flight of Prince Ghyka, and at the same time hold us partly responsible for it—and certainly, had our soldiers stood in the place of the Wallachian warriors, although they would not have liked fighting their fellow-Magyars, nevertheless, if once they had been in for it, they would not have ran away and so the battle would not have been lost—wherefore the wrath of the Sublime Sultan was so greatly kindled against both the neighbouring nations, that he sent his cavasses to seize the Prince of Moldavia and carry him in chains to Stambul with his whole family. As for Transylvania, but for the mercy of God and the goodwill of certain Turkish statesmen, we might have seen it suddenly converted into a sanjak or province, and a fez-wearing Pasha on the throne of his Highness. Now it has so happened that the Prince of Moldavia, wresting himself and his wife out of the hands of their pursuers, took the shortest road to Transylvania. We sent a message to them that on no account were they to try to come here, as their flight would cost us more than a Tartar invasion. The Prince, therefore, took refuge in the mountains, but let his wife continue her journey, and, in an evil hour for us and herself, she arrived here a few days ago with the knowledge and under the very eyes of the Sultan’s plenipotentiary. The husband having escaped, the whole wrath of the Sultan is turned upon the wife and
