Mariska, as one inspired, placed her hand upon her heart and said: "It is written here!"

Azrael regarded the woman abashed. Truly, many mysterious words are written in the heart, why cannot everyone read them? She also had listened to such mystic voices, but they were words shouted in a desert, in her savage breast there was no manner of love which could interpret their meaning.

Mariska again put down her child on the edge of the cushion.

"Place not thy child there," cried Azrael impatiently; "it might easily fall, place it between us!"

Mariska accepted the offer, and placed the little one between herself and Azrael.

When the first ray of dawn penetrated the large window Mariska awoke, and, folding her hands together above the head of the little child, again began to pray.

Azrael looked on darkly.

"Dost thou never pray?" said Mariska, turning towards her.

"Why should women pray? Their destiny is not in their own hands. Their fate depends upon their masters; if their masters are happy, they are happy also; if their masters perish, they perish with them. This is their earthly lot--and that is all. Allah never gave them a soul--what have they to do with the life beyond this? In Paradise the Houris take their places and the Houris remain young for ever. The breath of a woman vanishes with the autumn mist like the fumes of a dead animal, and Allah has no thought for them."

Mariska, with only half intelligible sorrow, looked at this woman who wished to seem worse than she really was.

Azrael crept closer up to her.

"And dost thou really believe that there is someone who listens to what the worms say, to what the birds twitter, and to what women pray?"

"Certainly," replied the young Christian woman; "turn to Him, and thou wilt feel for thyself His goodness."

"How can it be so? Why should He pay any attention to me?"

"It is not enough I know to clasp thy hands and close thy eyes. Thy pet.i.tion must come straight from thy heart, and thy soul must believe that it will gain its desire."

Azrael's face flushed red. Hastily she cast herself down on her knees on the carpet, and pressing her folded hands to her bosom, stammered in a scarce audible voice:

"G.o.d! grant me one moment in my life in which I can say: I am happy."

Her eyes were still closed when the door of the dormitory opened, and Hayat, the oldest duenna of the harem, entered with an air of great secrecy. She was now a shrivelled up bundle of old bones, but formerly she had been the first favourite of Ha.s.san Pasha, and now she was the slave and secret confidante of all the favourites in turn.

Azrael leaned towards her, perceiving from the face of the duenna that she brought some message for her; whereupon the latter advanced and, looking around in case anyone should be lurking there, whispered some words in Azrael's ear.

On hearing these words the odalisk leaped from her seat with a face flushed with joy, while unspeakably tender tears trembled in her eyes.

Her hands were involuntarily pressed against her heaving bosom, and her lips seemed to murmur some voiceless prayer.

Some great unusual joy had come upon her, some joy which she had always longed but never dared to hope for. Scarce able to restrain herself she turned towards her comrade, who, after listening to her, gazed wonderingly at her and pressed her hand, exclaiming in a voice of strong conviction: "Then it is true, our prayer has indeed been heard!"

Azrael began merrily putting on her garments, and helped Mariska also to dress; then she sent the duenna with a message to Ha.s.san. She must go again to the mosque of the old dervish to pray, for she had been dreaming of Ha.s.san.

Soon afterwards Ha.s.san himself came to her, took from her arm the golden shackle which fastened the chain that bound her to Mariska, and, ordering her palanquin to be brought up to the door, sent her away to the old dervish; while, seizing the end of the Princess's chain, he led her, together with her child, into his own apartments and there sat down on his cushions, drawing his rosary from his girdle and mumbling the first prayers of the naama, constantly holding in his hand the end of the Princess's chain.

The Vizier had of late been much given to prayer, for since the lost battle not a soul had come to visit him. The envoys of the Sultan, the country pet.i.tioners, the foreign ministers, the begging brotherhoods, all of them had avoided his threshold as if he were dead.

The first day he was painfully affected by this manifestation, but on the second day he commanded the door-keepers to admit none to his presence. Thus, at any rate, he could make himself believe that if n.o.body came to visit him it was by his express command.

He knew right well that a sentence of death had been written down and that this sentence was meant for one of two persons, either the Princess or himself, where their two shadows mingled a double darkness was cast, and Israfil, the Angel of Death, stood over them with a drawn sword.

Ha.s.san knew this right well, and he pressed in his hand convulsively the silver chain to which his prisoner was attached, that prisoner whom he regarded as the ransom for his own life.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE EXTRAVAGANCES OF LOVE

After that melancholy scene, when the ladies of Transylvania vainly drew tears and blushes from the faces of their husbands, a ray of hope still remained in one heart alone. It was pretty Aranka Beldi, who, when everyone else's eyes were full of tears, could whisper words of encouragement to her unhappy friend, and who, when everyone else abandoned her, embraced her last of all, and said to her with firm conviction: "Fear not, we will save you!"

The youths of Transylvania also said: "Fear not, we will save you!" but Fate flung the dice blindly, the marked men in ambush captured only the escort, not the captive, and had all their fine trouble for nothing.

Aranka Beldi, however, begged her father to let her go to Gernyeszeg to visit her friend Flora Teleki, and there the two n.o.ble young damsels agreed together to write two letters to acquaintances in Hungary. One of them wrote to Tokoly, the other to Feriz Beg, and when the letters were ready, they read to each other what they had written. Flora's letter to Tokoly was as follows:

"SIR,

"The fact that _I_ write these lines to you shows the desperate position I am in, when I have to hide my blushes and apply to him whom of all men I ought to avoid. But it is a question of life and death. Do you recollect the moment when, in the castle of Rumnik, you saw three maids embrace each other, of whom I was one? We then swore friendship and good fellowship to each other. One of the three at the present moment stands at the brink of death; I mean Mariska St.u.r.dza, whose misfortunes cannot be unknown to you, and this is not the first mode of deliverance which we have attempted--but the last. Your Excellency is a powerful and magnanimous man, who has great influence with the Sultan, and where one expedient fails, you can employ another. I have always pictured your Excellency to myself as a valiant and chivalrous cavalier, and from what I know of the respect which all honourable persons of my acquaintance have for your Excellency, I have the utmost confidence that the unfortunate Princess of Moldavia will not wait in vain for deliverance. Do what you can, and may I add to the esteem in which you are held the fervent blessings of a heart which sincerely prays for your Excellency's welfare.

"FLORA TELEKI."

Flora's calculations were most just. Tokoly, in those days, stood high in the favour of the Sultan, was on terms of intimacy with all the pashas and viziers, and very frequently a casual word from him had more effect than other people's supplications. And Flora showed a fine knowledge of character when she appealed to the magnanimity of the very man who had so grievously offended her, feeling certain that just for that very reason, although Tokoly might not recognise the force of his former obligations, he would be magnanimous enough instantly to grant a favour to the lady who asked him for it, especially as the woman to be liberated had been the original cause of their separation.

Aranka kissed her friend over and over again when she had read this letter, and then she suddenly grew sad.

"Oh, _my_ letter is not nearly so pretty, I am ashamed to show it to you."

Flora looked at her friend with gentle bashfulness as Aranka handed over her letter, and blushed like a red rose all the time she was perusing it.

"n.o.bLE-HEARTED FERIZ!

"When we were both children you maintained that you loved me (here she inserted within brackets: 'like a sister,' and a good thing for her that she did put these three words in brackets). If you still recollect what you said, now is the time to prove it. My dearest friend, Mariska St.u.r.dza, is at Buda, a prisoner in the hands of Ha.s.san Pasha. My only hope of her deliverance depends on you. I have heard such splendid things of you. If you see her, for whom I now implore you, with a sad face and tearful eyes, think how I should look if I were there, and if you give her back to me, and I can embrace her again, and look into her smiling eyes, then I will think of you, too.

"ARANKA BeLDI."

The girls entrusted these letters to faithful servants, sending the first letter to Temesvar, where Tokoly was then residing, and the second to Feriz Beg, who, as we know, lay ill at Buda.

The news first reached Tokoly at supper-time. On receiving the letter and reading it through, he at once put down his gla.s.s, girded on his sword, and telling his comrades that he was about to take a little stroll, he mounted his horse and vanished from the town.

Feriz was lying half-delirious on his carpet. His health mended but slowly, as is often the case with men of strong const.i.tutions, and the tidings of the smallest disaster which befell the Turks threw him into such a state of excitement that a relapse was incessantly to be feared, so that at last they would not allow any messages at all to be brought to him, for even when they brought good news to him he always managed to look at them from the worst side, so that news of any kind was absolute poison to him. At last his Greek physician made it a rule to read every letter addressed to his patient beforehand; and if it contained the least disturbing element, he let Feriz know nothing at all about it. What especially annoyed Feriz were any letters from women, and these were simply sent back.

Thus Aranka's letter might very easily have had the fate of being suppressed altogether had it not been entrusted to Master Gregory Biro, a shrewd and famous Szekler courier, whose honourable peculiarity it was to go wherever he was sent, and do whatsoever he was told, be the obstacles in the way what they might. If he had been told to give something to the Sultan of Turkey, he would have wormed his way to him somehow--all inquiries, all threats would have been in vain; he would have insisted on seeing and speaking to him if his head had to be cut off the next moment.

One day, then, worthy Gregory Biro appeared before the kiosk of Feriz Beg and asked to be admitted.

At these words a Moor popped out, and, seizing him by the collar, conducted him to a room where a half-dressed man was standing before a fire cooking black potions in all sorts of queer-shaped crooked gla.s.ses.