"But thou too wilt be close at hand?" stammered the Corsar, grasping tightly the arm of the odalisk, as if he feared that Death would instantly seize him if he let her go.
"Yes, I will be by thy side. But hasten. An hour is but a brief respite."
Corsar quickly threw his upper garment around him, and recited in broken sentences the beginning of a prayer, the end of which he could not recollect.
"Wake none of the watch," said Azrael cautiously. "The power of the spell might be broken if we met any living soul who should say a prayer contrary to ours. We will saddle the horses ourselves and descend by secret paths. Speak not a word by the way, nor cast a glance behind thee."
The Beg was ready. He was just putting on his fur-lined kaftan, for his limbs felt frozen, when the odalisk called to the panther, which was reposing on the carpet.
"Oglan,[23] thou shalt go with us and keep watch, and if we fall in with a wild beast, thou shalt defend us."
[Footnote 23: _Oglan_, the Turkish for boy.]
As if he understood the words of his mistress, the panther rose up on his hind legs and placed his fore-paws on her arm, while the trembling man clung to her on the other side.
The Turkish cemetery beneath the walls of the fortress is planted with cypress trees. The turbaned graves, with their coffin-like slabs, peer forth, ghastly white, from among the dark weeping-willows. The sound of the approaching footsteps startles away a grey wolf from among the tombs, the sole inhabitant of that desolation. Since the last shower the clouds have dispersed, and here and there the dark-blue sky looks through with its diamond stars. Raindrops trickle down from the leaves of the trees.
From time to time the rumbling of the storm is still heard faintly in the distance. Sheet-lightning flickers above the mountain crests, painting everything white for an instant. The lightning, like the night, can only give one colour to this region--the one paints it white, the other black.
The nightly shapes reach the churchyard by the secret path and dismount among the graves. Azrael places the reins of both horses in Oglan"s jaws, and the shrewd beast remains sitting there on his haunches, holding both the snorting horses as firmly as if they were fastened to a stake.
The Moorish horseman and the odalisk ascend a high funereal mound, the tombstone of which is barely visible through the dependent branches of a weeping willow.
"Something more than a slave must rest beneath that stone," whispered Azrael to the quaking horseman; and placing her magic tripod on the tomb, she ignited with a phosphorous pellet the powdered ambergris and borax, which flickered up and cast a whitish glare all around the grave.
There was a slight rustle in the distance. The Corsar"s horse neighed uneasily.
"What was that?" asked the Corsar.
"The Jins," replied Azrael; "look not behind thee."
With that she raised her magic staff, and p.r.o.nounced in unintelligible words the exorcism over the grave.
"Thou restless spirit, appear at my bidding. Wherever thou art, beneath the dark tree of h.e.l.l, or in the garden of the Houris; whether thou dost pine in chains of fire or dost recline on beds of roses, obey my voice, fly through the air, dissipate the darkness, and appear before me in the mortal shape thou didst wear on earth. Appear!"
With these words she struck with her staff upon the stone slab, and immediately a lofty shape in a white winding-sheet rose up from behind the tomb.
"Now advance three steps forward and speak to it," cried Azrael to the confounded Moor.
With tottering footsteps Corsar Beg approached the shape, and cried with a hoa.r.s.e, trembling voice--
"My name is Corsar Beg. Who then art thou, accursed spirit?"
"I am Bala.s.sa," replied the shape with a sonorous voice; and casting aside the white winding-sheet, a powerfully-built, fair-complexioned man appeared with a drawn sword in his hand. "Corsar Beg, you are my prisoner," cried he to the Turk, who stood there in his bewilderment as if turned to stone.
The next moment the Beg put his hand to his side, and not finding his sword there, rushed back with a howl of fury to his horse, threw himself like lightning into the saddle, and struck his sharp spurs into the flanks of his steed. But Oglan held the reins firmly between his teeth, and when the horse tried to start off, the panther planted his front paws firmly into the ground, and forced it back again.
"To h.e.l.l with thee, accursed monster!" roared the Beg, foaming with rage, and striking at the panther with his fist; but the beast tugged the halter first to the right and then to left, and stopped the horse in its flight; terrified it with his leaps and bounds, and forced it to go round and round.
"Speak to this monster, Azrael!" cried the Beg. He turned round to look for his favourite, and he beheld her nestling lovingly in Bala.s.sa"s bosom, with her snow-white arms encircling the young Hungarian"s neck.
At the same instant the woods all around teemed with life; the ambushed Hungarian soldiers rushed forth and tore the Beg from his horse, who, even when forced to the ground, tried to defend himself with stones.
"Be accursed!" gasped the vanquished freebooter.
The attacking squadrons marched before his very eyes through the secret pa.s.sage into the fortress, and an hour later he could see, by the light of his burning palace, his favourite Azrael mounting up behind Bala.s.sa, and disdaining to bestow so much as a glance at the discomfited Beg.
CHAPTER IX.
THE PRINCE AND HIS MINISTER.
Several years have elapsed since Apafi became a Prince. We have reached that period when the unexpected death of Nicolas Zrinyi dissolved the faction of the malcontent Hungarians, compelling most of them to emigrate into Transylvania, which land, owing to the ceaseless antagonism of the German Emperor and the Turkish Sultan, was allowed to enjoy an independent government. It paid indeed a tribute to the Sublime Porte; but it adopted what measures it chose in its own Diet, and if the Tartars occasionally reduced a few villages to ashes, that was only another proof that they no longer regarded the land as their own property. All the strongholds were in the hands of the Prince. He could keep as many soldiers as his purse would pay for, wage war with whomsoever he could cope, and hoodwink the Turks whenever it pleased him so to do. The Turk had nothing to find fault with, either in the const.i.tution of the land, its peculiar privileges, its patriarchal aristocracy, its Latin language, and its Hungarian dolman; or, again, in its manifold religions and its three distinct[24] and self-governing nationalities. All these things did not trouble him in the least. At most he pitied the poor gentlemen who made such a muddle of affairs of state; but he never made the slightest attempt to initiate them into his own much simpler political system.
[Footnote 24: _Viz._ the Saxons, the Szeklers, and the Magyars. The Wallachs simply cultivated the soil.]
Meanwhile, great changes had taken place at Ebesfalva. The dwelling of the Prince no longer consisted of a simple manor-house. On a neighbouring hill he had had a castle built with lofty, square towers, from the corners of which rose still loftier turrets. The entrance was guarded by two proudly rampant stone lions. On the facade, in bold relief, was carved the inscription: _Fata viam inveniunt_. A vestibule, connecting one wing of the castle with the other, and surrounded by a richly-gilded and ornamented trellis-work, runs along the front of the castle on huge, cla.s.sically-carved stone pillars. The windows are all in the Perpendicular style, with old-fashioned ornaments, and you reach the inner courtyard by a subterranean corridor.
In this courtyard, instead of ploughs and wagons, our eye falls upon arquebusses and culverins. Instead of peasants, we see body-guards, in yellow dolmans and scarlet hose, swaggering before the doors. To reach the Prince"s cabinet, one must traverse long corridors and re-echoing saloons, in which pages, footmen, and gentlemen of the bedchamber announce the newcomer from door to door, and when one has finally reached the reception-chamber, it is only to see, after all, not the Prince, but the Prince"s chief councillor, Master Michael Teleki, the same bald-headed man whom we first met at Csakatorny, at that memorable hunt where Nicolas Zrinyi met his death. At that time the worthy gentleman was only one of Prince George Rakoczy"s disgraced ex-captains; but since then a kind Providence has taken him by the hand, and he is now Captain-General of Kovar, and the Prince"s omnipotent prime minister. His mother was the Princess"s sister, and his aunt, whom he always calls sister (women seldom take offence at such mistakes), introduced him to her consort. Once near the Prince, Teleki needed no one"s good word. His comprehensive intellect, vast knowledge, and statesmanlike dexterity made him indispensable to the Prince, who loved to bury himself among his books and his antiquities, and felt aggrieved when anything tore him away from his family circle or his favourite studies.
To-day, too, his reception-room is crammed to suffocation by gentlemen who seek an audience of his Highness. They are the fugitive Hungarians, of whom the Prince seems to stand in peculiar horror. These restless, bellicose, dark-browed people are an abomination to the easy-going, contemplative Prince. So he shuts himself up in his study, and the only person admitted to his presence is the learned and reverend John Pa.s.sai, Professor at Nagy-Enyed, beloved by the Prince on account of his profound scholarship.
Apafi"s private room is more like the study of a scholar than the cabinet of a ruler. All around stands filled with books in gilded bindings hide the walls, and in every corner lie heaps of plans and charts. In the very circ.u.mscribed intervening s.p.a.ces stand consoles with clocks upon them, which the Prince always winds up himself; and the chairs and sofas are so overladen with books for immediate use, that whenever the Prince has a confidential visitor, he hardly knows where to bestow him. Nay, sometimes the stone floor itself is so bestrewn with outspread maps, dusty MSS., and open folios, that Teleki, when he enters, has to walk as circ.u.mspectly as one who picks his way circuitously through mud and mire.
The two gentlemen are at the present moment standing before the table, which is covered with all sorts of ancient coins. Apafi wears a short grey coat with loose sleeves, which is fastened round his loins by a silken cord. His headgear consists of a round skin cap. Pa.s.sai is b.u.t.toned up in a dark-green, fur-lined mente, which reaches from his chin to his heels. His thick white hair is shoved back and held together by a large circular comb. His face, despite the wrinkles which cover it, is fresh and ruddy, and his teeth are as perfect as those of a youth.
Apafi is attentively regarding a gold piece, which he poises between his fingers and holds against the light. Pa.s.sai stands hat in hand before the Prince like a log, with his wrinkled countenance fixed intently on his Highness.
Apafi petulantly turns and twists the coin in all directions.
"These are not Roman letters," he angrily murmurs; "neither are they Greek nor Cyrillic, and least of all Hunnish symbols. Where was it found?" he asked, turning to Pa.s.sai.
"In Vasarhely, as the Wallachs were removing the ruins of the old temple."
"Deuce take them! They might have been better employed."
"It was a very ancient ruin, what they call a Roman temple."
"But it cannot have been a Roman temple, for this is not a Roman coin."
"That"s my opinion too; but the Wallachs have a way of regarding all the ruins in Transylvania as Roman monuments."
"But why did they take it to pieces?"