"We regard your Excellency neither as a stag nor yet as a lion,"
returned Csaky, blushing up to the ears in his confusion. "The fact is, we fancied ourselves on lawful ground."
"Of course! of course!" returned Banfi, with an offensive smile. "You are on my property, and that is certainly lawful ground. I don"t know how to express my grat.i.tude for such an honour. No doubt you are tired too. I therefore invite you all to Bonczhida, just to take a little pot-luck with me."
"We are much obliged," returned Csaky angrily, "but we are unable just now to accept your invitation."
"Nay, nay; you"ll not put me off. It is not my practice to let those who have come to me as guests depart hungry and thirsty. I cannot regard you as poachers, I suppose? And if you are not poachers, you must be guests."
"A third case is also possible."
"I know of none."
"Your Excellency shall learn from me that there is, though."
"Quite right. But there will be time for that at table. So turn your horses" heads towards Bonczhida, gentlemen."
"I"ve already said that we can"t accept your invitation."
"What! Are you so ill acquainted with my hospitality as not to know that, if necessary, I will carry you off by force? Ha, ha! You must take away with you a reminiscence of Bonczhida. As you know now what my wild animals are like, you must make the acquaintance of my domestic animals also. In any case, I mean to take you by force."
"A truce to jesting, Banfi. This is not the place for it."
"Methinks "tis you that jest. I am perfectly serious when I say that I will take you with me even against your will."
"We should like to see you do it."
"Then see it you shall," and with that Banfi blew on his horn, and instantly armed squadrons poured forth from every corner of the wood.
Count Csaky and his merry men were completely surrounded.
"Ha! this is treachery!" cried Csaky wildly.
"Oh dear, no! "Tis only a little carnival jest," replied Banfi, laughing. "This time "tis the quarry which captures the huntsmen.
Forward, comrades! Take these gentlemen"s horses by the bridles, and follow me with them to Bonczhida. If any one stands upon ceremony, tie his legs to the stirrups."
"I protest against this compulsion," cried Csaky furiously. "I take you all to witness that I enter my protest against this act of violence."
"I for my part call every one to witness," repeated Banfi, laughing, "that I"ve invited these gentlemen to a banquet in the most friendly manner in the world."
"I protest! "Tis violence."
"Nonsense! "Tis a merry jest. "Tis Hungarian hospitality!"
Some of the gentlemen laughed, others swore. As however Banfi had numbers on his side, the Csakyites sulkily and wrathfully submitted at last to their jocose tyrant, and allowed themselves to be conducted to Bonczhida, though Csaky stopped every one he met on the road, and took them to witness that Banfi was doing him violence, while Banfi laughingly endeavoured to make it plain to the good people that the worthy gentleman was a trifle fuddled, and that they were playing a harmless little practical joke upon him.
"You will live to bitterly rue this!" cried Csaky, gnashing his teeth, and half beside himself with rage.
As they were pa.s.sing through a village, one of Csaky"s company, a young n.o.bleman, whom his friends called Szantho, broke away from the crowd and vanished before he could be overtaken.
"Let him go to the devil!" cried Banfi gaily. "We will manage to be merry without him, eh! my lord Ladislaus Csaky?"
Gradually Csaky recovered his sangfroid, and his wrath seemed to abate; indeed, by the time they reached Bonczhida he wore a radiantly smiling countenance, for he was well aware that it would be indecent as well as ridiculous to pull wry faces before ladies. He therefore allowed himself to be presented to Dames Apafi and Banfi as a chance guest picked up on the way, without the least show of ill-humour.
Banfi crowned his insult by a.s.signing to Csaky the place of honour at the head of the table, next his wife, and sitting opposite to him treated him with the most marked attention, through which there ran, however, a vein of the most trenchant irony. And Csaky was not even able to resent it! What must his feelings have been!
As the banquet was drawing to a close and the general mirth increased proportionately, Csaky grew more and more furious. He was sitting all the time on burning coals, and had to smile and simper as if he liked it. At last Banfi invented a fresh torture for him, by raising his pocal and drinking his guest"s health. Csaky was obliged to clink gla.s.ses, drain his own to the very dregs, and endure to see Banfi laughing at him in his sleeve all the time. Every drop he drank was so much poison to him with that mocking laugh ringing in his ears.
And all this refined torture was so delicately veiled, that it escaped the attention of the ladies altogether.
Just as the mirth was most uproarious, the folding-doors suddenly flew wide open, and, without any previous announcement, Prince Michael Apafi, to whom the fugitive Szantho had brought the news of Csaky"s capture, entered the room.
Both ladies, with a cry of joyful surprise, hastened towards the unexpected guest; but the gentlemen, perceiving from the Prince"s face that a storm was brewing, suddenly became very grave.
Banfi alone preserved his usual grand seignorial gaiety, which could even express anger with a smiling countenance. He sprang quickly from his seat, and hastened joyfully towards the Prince.
"By Heaven, a lucky coincidence! Your Highness comes to us at the very instant that we are draining our gla.s.ses in your Highness"s honour. This is what I call an unlooked-for and most timely arrival."
Apafi received this salutation with a slight nod, and leading the ladies back to their places, sat down himself on Banfi"s chair. Several of the guests hastened to offer Banfi their seats, but the Prince beckoned him to approach.
"Your Excellency will remain standing. We would submit you to a little friendly cross-examination."
"If we are to be the judges in this case," interrupted the learned Master Csekalusi, taking up his gla.s.s, "allow me to inform you that the necessary preliminaries[40] have already been observed."
[Footnote 40: A banquet was the usual prelude to judicial as to all other public proceedings in Hungary.]
"I will be the judge," said Apafi; "although I do not quite know who is the master at Bonczhida, myself or Denis Banfi."
"The law of the land is the master of us both, your Highness," returned Banfi.
"Well answered! You would remind us that an Hungarian n.o.bleman permits no one to sit in judgment upon him in his own house. But this affair is after all only a little carnival jest. At least you have been pleased to call it so, and we will follow your example."
The most anxious suspense was legible in the faces of all present: they did not know whether the jest would end seriously or the reverse.
"Your Excellency," continued Apafi, "has seized our envoy, Lord Ladislaus Csaky, and brought him to your house by force."
"Ah!" cried Banfi, with affected astonishment, "I see it all now. Why then did not the Count tell me at once that you had sent him to hunt in my preserves? And besides, if your Highness had taken a fancy to some of my game, why did you not let me know it? I would have shot more excellent bucks for your Highness than any that my Lord Csaky could catch."
"This has nothing to do with bucks, my lord baron. You know very well the ins and outs of the whole business. Don"t force me to speak out plumply before these ladies."
At these words Lady Banfi would have risen, but the Princess prevented her.
"You must remain here," she whispered in her ear.
"So far, I don"t understand a single word," said Banfi, in an injured tone.
"No? Then we"ll recall to your mind a couple of circ.u.mstances. The peasants have caught sight of a panther in your woods."
"It is possible," returned Banfi, laughing--for a Hungarian gentleman may jest with his guests but never be rude to them, however much they offend him--"it is possible that this panther is a descendant of those which came into the land with arpad,[41] and may therefore be called ancestral panthers."
[Footnote 41: arpad, the primeval ancestor of the Hungarian princes, who first led the Magyars into the plains of Hungary. He died in 907. With Hungarians, to come in with arpad is like our coming over with the Conqueror.]