The Count had no sooner mentioned his name, and pointed at the captive prince, than the Turkish sentinel quickly came forth from beneath the archway, and Tököly and Ghyka, in astonishment, exclaimed with one voice:
“Feriz Beg!”
“Yes, ’tis I. Keep still. You want to save Mariska, so do I.”
“So it is,” said Tököly. “I promised the woman I do not love that I would do it, and I will keep my promise. You need have no secrets from us, for we shall require your assistance.”
“Your secrets are nought to me.”
The Prince listened with downcast head to the conversation of the two young men; then he intervened, took their hands, and said with deep emotion:
“Feriz! Tököly! Once upon a time we faced each other as antagonists, and now as self-sacrificing friends we hold each other’s hands. I don’t want to be smaller than you. A scaffold has been put up in the courtyard of the fortress of Buda, that scaffold awaits a victim, whoever it may be, for the sword which the Sultan draws in his wrath will not remain unsatisfied. That scaffold was prepared for my wife, you must let me take her place. I am well aware that whoever liberates her must be prepared to perish instead of her. Let me perish. You, Feriz, can easily get into the fortress. Tell Hassan that the scaffold shall have the husband instead of the wife—let him surrender the wife for the husband.”
“Leave the scaffold alone, Prince. He who deserves it most shall get to the scaffold.”
“Don’t listen to the Prince!” said Tököly to Feriz; “he has lost his head evidently, as he wants to make a present of it to Hassan. All I ask of you is to let me into the fortress; once let me get inside, and no harm shall be done. I was born with a caul, so good-luck goes with me.”
“Good. Wait here till the muezzin proclaims midnight, which will not be long, I fancy, as the night is already well advanced; meanwhile, keep your eye on those horsemen below there.”
The men fancied Feriz wanted to join the sentinels when the watch was relieved, and taking him at his word, hid themselves and their horses behind the lofty bank.
The night was now darker than ever, only here and there a lofty star looked down upon them from among the windswept clouds.
Hassan had a restless night. Horrible dreams awoke him every instant, and yet he never wholly awoke, one phantom constantly supplanted the other in his agitated brain.
The raging blast broke open one of the windows and beat furiously against the wall, so that the coloured glasses crashed down upon the floor.
Aroused by the uproar, and gazing but half awake at the window, he saw the long curtain slowly approaching him as if some Djinn were inside and had come thither to terrify him.
“Who is that?” cried Hassan in terror, laying his hand on his sword.
It was no one. It was only the wind which had stiffened out the curtains, expanding them like a banner and blowing gustily into the room.
Hassan seized the curtain, pulled it away from the window, fastened it up by its golden tassels, and laid him down again. The wind returned to torment him and again worried the curtain till it had succeeded in unravelling the tassels, and again blew the curtain into the room.
And then the tapestries of the door and the divans began fluttering and flapping as if someone was tugging away at their ends, and the flame of the night-lamp on the tripod flickered right and left, casting galloping shadows on the wall.
“What is that? Have the devils been let loose in this palace?” Hassan asked himself in amazement.
The closed doors jarred in the blast as if someone was banging at them from the outside, and every now and then the bang of a window-shutter would respond to the howling of the blast.
Men have curious supernatural faculties through which their minds are suddenly illuminated. At that moment the idea flashed through Hassan’s brain that, in the apartments of the wing beyond, a window must needs be open, which was the cause of the unwonted current of air which fluttered the curtains of his palace and made the doors rattle, and this window could be none other than Azrael’s, and if it were open, then the two women must have escaped.
At this horrible idea he quickly leaped out on to the floor, seized his sword, which was lying at his bedside, and, bursting open the door, rushed like a madman through all the apartments to Azrael’s dormitory.
At the instant of their escape Azrael had turned over the long divan and placed it right across the room in such a way that one end of it was jammed against the door, whilst the other end pressed against the wall, so that when Hassan tried to open the door, he found it impossible to do so.
Everything was now quite clear to him.
He called to nobody to open the door; he knew that they had escaped. In the fury of despair he snatched a battle-axe from the wall and began to break open the hard oaken door, so that the whole palace resounded with the noise of the blows, and the guards and the domestics all came running up together.
Having beaten in the door at last, Hassan rushed into the room, cast a glance around, and even his eyes could see that his slave had flown.
Howling with rage he rushed to the window, and when he saw the dependent branches of the gobaea, he beat his forehead with his fists and laughed aloud as if something had broken loose inside him.
“They have run off!” he yelled;
