“When the Sun leaves the heavens, her adorers are whelmèd in slumber;
When the Moon quits the sky, sleep falls on the eyes of her lovers.
But the fall of the Star is the death of the man who adores her—
And oh! if my loadstar doth fall, Machallah! I cease from the living!”
General applause rewarded the song, which it was difficult to believe had not been made expressly for the occasion.
“Who would think,” said Paul Béldi to the Pasha, “that your people not only cut darts from reeds, but pens also, pens worthy of the poets of love?”
“Oh!” replied Achmed, “in the hands of our poets, blades and harps are equally good weapons; and if they bound the laurel-wreath round the brows of Hariri it was only to conceal the wounds which he received in battle.”
When the banquet was over, Tököly, with courteous affability, parted from his fair neighbour, whom he immediately saw disappear in a window recess, arm-in-arm with Flora. He himself made the circuit of the table in order that he might meet the fair Aranka, but was stopped in mid-career by his host, who was so full of compliments that by the time Tököly reached the girl, he found her leaning on her mother’s arm engaged in conversation with the Prince. Aranka, feeling herself out of danger when she had only a married man to deal with, had quite regained her childish gaiety, and was making merry with the bridegroom.
Tököly, with insinuating grace, wormed his way into the group, and gradually succeeded in so cornering the Prince, that he was obliged to confine his conversation to Dame Béldi, while Tököly himself was fortunate enough to make Aranka laugh again and again at his droll sallies.
The Prince was boiling over with venom, and was on the verge of forgetting himself and exploding with rage. Fortunately, Dame Béldi, observing in time the tension between the two men, curtseyed low to them both, and withdrew from the room with her daughter. Whereupon, the Prince seized Tököly’s hand, and said to him with choleric jocosity: “If your Excellency’s own bride is not sufficient for you, will you at least be satisfied with throwing in mine, and do not try to sweep every girl you see into your butterfly-net?”
Tököly quite understood the bitter irony of these words, and replied, with a soft but offensively condescending smile: “My dear friend, your theory of life is erroneous. I see, from your face, that you are suffering from an overflow of bile. You have not had a purge lately, or been blooded for a long time.”
The Prince’s face darkened. He squeezed Tököly’s hand convulsively, and murmured between his teeth:
“One way is as good as another. When shall we settle this little affair?”
Tököly shrugged his shoulders. “Tomorrow morning, if you like.”
“Very well, we’ll meet by the cross.”
The two men had spoken so low that nobody in the whole company had noticed them, except Feriz Beg, who, although standing at the extreme end of the room with folded arms, had followed with his eagle eyes every play of feature, every motion of the lips of the whole group, including Dame Béldi and the girl, and who now, on observing the two men grasp each other’s hands, and part from each other with significant looks, suddenly planted himself before them, and said simply: “Do you want to fight a duel because of Aranka?”
“What a question?” said the Prince evasively.
“It will not be a duel,” said Feriz, “for there will be three of us there,” and, with that, he turned away and departed.
“How foolish these solemn men are,” said Tököly to himself, “they are always seeking sorrow for themselves. It would require only a single word to make them merry, and, in spite of all I do, they will go and spoil a joke. Why, such a duel as this—all three against each other, and each one against the other two—was unknown even to the famous Round Table and to the Courts of Love. It will be splendid.”
At that moment the courier, who had brought the letters, forced his way right up to Tököly, and said that he had got two important despatches for him.
“All right, keep them for me, I’ll read them tomorrow. I won’t spoil the day with tiresome business.”
And so he kept it up till late at night with the merriest of the topers. Only after midnight did he return to his room, and ordered the soldier who had brought the letters to wake him as soon as he saw the red dawn.
III
Three Men
Tököly’s servant durst not go to sleep on the off-chance of awaking at dawn in order to arouse his master, and so the sky had scarcely begun to grow grey when he routed him up. Emeric hastily dressed himself. A sort of ill-humour on his pale face was the sole reminder of the previous night’s debauch.
“Here are the letters, sir,” said the soldier.
“Leave me in peace with your letters,” returned Emeric roughly, “I have no time now to read your scribble. Go down and saddle my horse for me, and tell the coachman to make haste and get the carriage ready, and have it waiting for me near the cross at the slope of the hill, and find out on your way down whether the old master of the house is up yet.”
The soldier pocketed the letter once more, and went down grumbling greatly, while Emeric buckled on his sword and threw his pelisse over his shoulders. Soon after the soldier returned and announced that Master Michael had been up long ago, because many of his guests had to depart before dawn, amongst them the Prince, also the Turkish gentleman; the bride was to follow them in the afternoon.
“Good,” said Emeric; “let the coachman wait for me in front of the Dragmuili csarda.4 You had better bring with you some cold meat and wine, and we’ll have breakfast on the
