"Well, well; I"m glad you conceal it. That shows you love him; and if ever there was a time when your husband needed your love, your watchfulness, and your protection, it is now."
"Your words alarm me! You have something extraordinary to tell me!"
"My coming here at all must have been enough to have alarmed you. You may well suppose that I would not come to your castle for nothing. We have both equal cause to fear a certain person, and if we do not quickly come to an understanding, one of us may lose what she prizes most in the world."
"Speak! oh, speak!" cried Dame Banfi, trembling, and making her sister sit down beside her on the sofa.
"Our husbands have hated each other from the first. They were always of different opinions, belonged to opposite parties, and early became accustomed to regard each other as foes. Woe betide us if this hatred should turn to open strife, and we should see our loved ones compa.s.s each other"s ruin."
"Oh, I can positively a.s.sure you that Banfi nourishes no hostile feeling against your husband."
"I do not apprehend Apafi"s fall, but your husband"s. The throne upon which he was placed by force has quite changed Apafi"s character. I perceive, to my consternation, that he has begun to grow jealous of his authority. Why, even at ersekujvar, when he first became Prince, he expressed his anxiety to the Grand Vizier that Gabriel Haller was plotting for the diadem, whereupon the Grand Vizier had poor Haller beheaded there and then without my husband"s knowledge; but Apafi still recollects the message your husband sent him on that occasion, namely, that ere long he would tear from his shoulders the green velvet mantle, the symbol of the princely dignity."
"Oh, my G.o.d! what must I not fear?"
"Nothing, so long as I do not lose my husband"s favour. While you are securely sleeping, I am watchfully guarding against his pa.s.sionate outbursts, and hitherto G.o.d has given me strength to fight against the monsters who would make of his reign a b.l.o.o.d.y memorial. But there is a certain condition of mind to which my husband is liable when my influence over him loses all its talismanic power; when, revolting against his own nature, his gentleness turns to ravening savagery; when his eyes, usually so ready to weep at the death of his lowliest va.s.sal, seem to thirst for blood; when he throws off his habitual circ.u.mspectness and becomes wildly reckless. And this condition--I blush to confess it--is drunkenness. I do not bring it against him as an accusation. He whom we love has no fault in our eyes."
"Except one thing--his infidelity to us," interrupted Margaret.
"That too, yes, that too must be forgiven when it becomes a question of saving his life," replied the Princess.
"Oh, Anna!" cried Margaret, "you make me suspect mysteries which you will not reveal to me."
"What you ought to know you shall know. A little while ago your husband, with haughty presumption, opposed himself to a mighty faction which has kings for its confederates and kings for its antagonists; he might just as well have opposed Destiny herself. He is too proud to calculate the dangers which he thus draws down upon his head; or does he really think that they who sharpen their swords against a reigning monarch would suffer for an instant one of their own subjects to raise his head against them? And Banfi has threatened, mocked, insulted them, and entangled the meshes of their well and widely laid plans--nay, more, he has encountered and browbeaten them in the very presence of the Prince."
Dame Banfi folded her arms in timid resignation.
"I see the storm which is gathering over Banfi"s head. In his drunken fits, Apafi has let fall hints which have filled my soul with terror, and I don"t wish Apafi"s to be the hand to strike down Banfi for the sake of others. They will try to catch him at every turn, but we two will watch over him. I will endeavour to keep back the stroke, yet should it fall, "tis for you to ward it off. We must both possess the entire love and confidence of our consorts, so as to be able to intervene energetically and decisively should they come to blows. For would it not be frightful if one fell by the other"s hand, and one of us were the cause of the other"s misery?"
Margaret timidly pressed Anna"s hand.
"What am I to do? Oh, my G.o.d! what can I do? How can I intervene? I have no power."
"Your power lies in your love, watchfulness, and self-sacrifice,"
returned Dame Apafi with an exalted look, striving to inspire her weaker sister with something of her own strength.
At that moment the fate of two men was in the hands of two angels, and the fate of those two men was one with the fate of Transylvania.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MIDNIGHT BATTLE.
As Denis Banfi, after quitting his wife"s chamber, was descending the spiral staircase which led to the hall, he saw a young horseman come galloping at full speed into the courtyard.
The horseman was covered with blood and foam. As he sprang from his horse the beast collapsed altogether; but the rider rushed pell-mell towards Banfi, who, recognizing in him one of his captains, Gabriel Benko, went to meet him, and asked him what was the matter.
"Sir," began the gasping knight, catching his breath, "Ali Pasha is attacking Banfi-Hunyad."
"Is that all?" said Banfi gruffly, not displeased that Fate had given his irritated temper something to rend and tear. "Send Veer hither!" he cried to his retainers; "and you, when you have got your breath, just tell me how the matter went."
"I must be brief, my lord. I come from the thick of the fight. Yesterday a troop of Kurdish freebooters appeared before Banfi-Hunyad. Your lordship"s captain, Gregory Soter, antic.i.p.ating that they had come to levy blackmail, went out against them with the castle bands, engaged in combat with them, drove them from beneath the walls after a sharp contest, and, following up his advantage, sounded a charge and pursued the fugitives in the direction of Zenlelke. We were still pursuing the Kurds, who fled headlong, when suddenly we saw ourselves attacked in flank; and in a trice the whole plain was swarming with Turkish hors.e.m.e.n, who overran us like ants. I cannot exactly tell their numbers, but I saw three horse-tail standards with my own eyes, which proves that the Pasha himself was with the expedition. Soter had no time to make good his retreat to Banfi-Hunyad."
"The devil!" cried Banfi.
"Every one of us had to do with two or three of them. Soter himself seized a morning-star with one hand and a broadsword with the other, and cried to me--I was by his side--"My son, leave the battle-field, cut your way through! Fly to Bonczhida and tell the news!" I heard no more.
The surging ma.s.ses parted us; so I threw my shield over my shoulders, bowed my head deep down over my saddle-bow, gave my nag the spur, and galloped out of the fight. About one hundred hors.e.m.e.n pursued me, the darts fell like a hailstorm on my shield; but my good horse, well aware of the danger, redoubled his speed, and so the pursuers lost trace of me."
"Did you come direct to Bonczhida?"
"No; I made a side-spring to Banfi-Hunyad, to warn the people there of their danger, so that they might have time to escape to the mountains."
"You did wisely. Then the people have escaped?"
"By no means. It was in front of Dame Vizaknai"s house that I told the news to the people. Their faces turned pale, when all at once the lady of the house appeared with a drawn sword in her hand, and as if possessed by the spirits of a hundred warriors, stood among the people with sparkling eyes and thus addressed them--
""Are ye men? If so, seize your weapons, go out upon the ramparts, and show the world that you can defend the place where your children were born and your fathers lie buried. But if ye are cowards, then fly whither you will; but the women will remain behind here with me, to show the savage foe that none is too weak to fight for hearth and home.""
Banfi, with a hoa.r.s.e voice, called to his armourers to bring him breastplate, spear, and helmet, and beckoned to the panting messenger to go on with his story.
"At these words the people uttered a loud and furious cry. The women, like so many Bacchantes, ran in search of weapons, and mounted the ramparts by the side of their husbands, whom the determination of their wives had turned into veritable heroes. Every one seized the first thing that came to hand--scythes, spades, flails. Meanwhile, Dame Vizaknai was everywhere at once, marshalling and haranguing the combatants, barricading the church, breaking down the bridge, so that when I left the town, it was already in a fair state of defence. Thereupon I swam the Koros, to avoid making a long circuit, and came hither through the woods and by-ways."
During the latter part of this narrative Banfi seemed to be nearly beside himself. He waited now for neither armour nor helmet, but roared for his horse; and as he sprang into the saddle, cried to Veer, who was hastening up--
"After me to Banfi-Hunyad! March day and night. The infantry must go round by the Gyalyui Alps. The cavalry will follow me to Klausenburg.
Light beacons in the mountains as you approach, that I may attack the foe simultaneously with the vanguard."
"Would it not perhaps be better if your Excellency remained behind with the main army?" said George Veer, with an anxious face.
"Do what I bid you, sir!" was Banfi"s reply; and giving his horse the spur, he dashed off, followed by about half-a-dozen of his suite.
"What ails him then, that he will neither wait for us, nor inform his wife and the Princess of what has happened?"
"He was aghast when I told him that Dame Vizaknai was defending Banfi-Hunyad," said Benko apologetically. "She is an old flame of his whom he has long forgotten; but his youthful affection seemed to revive him when he heard of her heroic audacity."
George Veer, satisfied with this explanation, ordered his squadrons to take horse forthwith; and after previously informing Lady Banfi that he was off on a petty raid, departed for Klausenburg, leaving the command of the infantry to Captain Michael Angel, who did not break up till evening, the road along the Snow Mountains being much the shorter way.
Just as they were about to start, a tattered young Szekler, with pale cheeks but strong arms, stepped forth. His companions had pushed him into the front ranks.
"Come, sing us a battle-song!" they cried.
It was the rude, popular poet, Ambrose Gelenze.
Drawing from the pocket of his tunic his Bible, on the inside of the parchment covers of which he used to jot down his improvised war-songs, he placed himself in front of the host, and began to sing the following simple lay, the whole of the Transylvanian gentry repeating it word for word as they marched after him--
"Now dawns serene the morning sheen, The wonted hour hath come; Sounds bold and free the merry march, Nor bush nor brake is dumb!