"Your Excellency," said he, a.s.suming a very severe countenance, "this is the sort of allies we have. Last night I went on an excursion, taking four-and-twenty Spahis with me, in order to purchase horses for myself in the neighbourhood. We dealt honourably with the dealers. I entrusted the horses to the Spahis and myself galloped on in front. In a narrow pa.s.s the soldiers of Ladislaus Szekely laid an ambush for the Spahis, surrounded them and cut them off to a man. When I came to their a.s.sistance there they were all lying slain and the slayers had trotted off on my own good steeds. Most gracious sir, that is treachery, our own allies do us a mischief. I will not put up with it, but if thou dost not give me complete satisfaction, I will go myself to Klausenberg and put every one of them to the sword, from Master Michael Apafi down to Master Ladislaus Szekely."

Ajas Pasha, whose special favourite Feriz Beg was, laughed loudly at this demonstration, patted the youth's cheek, and said in a consolatory voice:

"Nay, my dear son, do not so, nor waste the fire of thy enthusiasm upon these infidels. I have a short method of doing these things--leave it to me."

And thereupon he sent for an aga, and gave him a command in the following terms:

"Sit on thy horse and go quickly to Klausenberg. There go to the commandant, Ladislaus Szekely, and speak to him thus: Ajas Pasha wishes thee good-day, thou unbelieving giaour, and sends thee this message: Inasmuch as thy dog-headed servants during the night last past have treacherously fallen upon the men of Feriz Beg and cut down four-and-twenty of them, now therefore I require of thee to search for and send me instantly these murderers, otherwise the whole weight of my wrath shall descend upon thine own head. Moreover, in the place of the horses stolen from him, see that thou send to me without delay just as many good chargers of Wallachia, and beware lest I come for them myself, for then thou wilt have no cause to thank me."

When the aga had learnt the message by heart he withdrew, and Ajas Pasha turned to Feriz Beg complacently:

"Trouble not thyself further," said he, "in a couple of days the murderers will be here."

"I want the Prince to intercede for them himself," said Feriz Beg.

"And dost thou not believe then that the little finger of the Sublime Porte is able to give thee the lives of a few giaour hirelings, when it sends forth thousands to perish on the battle-field?"

"And I will venture to bet a hundred ducats that Master Ladislaus Szekely will reply that his soldiers were not out of the fortress at all last night."

"I am sorry for thy hundred ducats, my dear son, but I will take thy bet all the same; and, if I lose, I will cut just as many pieces out of the skin of Master Ladislaus Szekely."

The terrified Zulfikar was almost at his last gasp by the time he reached the courtyard of Master Ladislaus Szekely, where, greatly exhausted, he obtained an audience of the commandant, who was resplendent in a great mantle trimmed with galloon and adorned with rubies and emeralds. This love of display was the good old gentleman's weak point. He had the most beautiful collection of precious stones in all Transylvania; the nearest way to his heart was to present him with a rare and beautiful jewel.

He was engaged in furbishing up a necklace of chrysoprases and jacinths with a hare's foot when the renegade breathlessly rushed through the door unable to utter a word for sheer weariness. Ladislaus Szekely fancied that Zulfikar had come for the reward of his treachery, and very bluntly hastened to antic.i.p.ate him.

"I was unable to make any use of your information, Zulfikar; it was the Prince's name-day, and the soldiers were not at liberty to leave the town."

"How can your honour say so," stuttered Zulfikar; "you had four-and-twenty Spahis cut down at elesd. What fool told your honour to kill them? You should merely have deprived them of their booty."

Ladislaus Szekely let fall his necklace in his fright and gazed at the renegade with big round eyes.

"Don't be a fool, Zulfikar, my son! Not a soul was outside this fortress to-day or yesterday."

"Your honour has been well taught what to say," said the renegade, with the insolence of fury; "you put on as innocent a face over the business as a new-born lamb."

"I swear to you I don't understand a word of your nonsense."

"Of course, of course! Capital! Excellent! But your honour would do well to keep these falsehoods for the messengers of Ajas Pasha, who will be with your honour immediately; try and fool them if you like, but don't fool me."

Ladislaus Szekely, well aware that every word he said was the sacred truth, fancied that Zulfikar's a.s.sertion was only a rough joke which he wanted to play upon him, so he cast an angry look on the renegade.

"Be off, my son Zulfikar, and cease joking; or I'll beat you about the head with this hare's foot till I knock all the moonshine out of you."

"Your honour had best keep your hare's foot to yourself, for if I draw my Turkish dagger I'll make you carry your own head."

"Be off, be off, my son!" cried Szekely, looking around for a stick, and perceiving a cane in the corner with a large silver k.n.o.b he seized it.

"And now are you going, or I shall come to you?" he added.

Zulfikar had just caught sight, meanwhile, through the window of the aga sent by Ajas Pasha, and fearing to encounter him, hastily skipped through the door, which sudden flight was attributed by Master Ladislaus Szekely to his own threats of violence. He followed close upon the heels of the fugitive, and ran almost into the very arms of the aga; whereupon, the aga, also flying into a rage, belaboured the commandant with his fists, reviled his father, his mother, and his remotest ancestry, and only after that began to deliver the message of Ajas Pasha, which he enlarged and embellished with the choicest flowers of an angry man's rhetoric.

At these words Ladislaus Szekely changed colour as often as a genuine opal, or as a fractured polyporus fungus. It was clear to him that someone or other had just slain a number of marauding Spahis, but he knew very well that neither he nor his men had performed this heroic deed, for that particular evening they had all been safe and sound at ten o'clock, and yet he was expected to pay the piper!

"Gracious sir, unconquerable aga," he said at last, "my men the whole of that evening were on duty beneath the windows of the Prince, and the same evening I myself closed the city gates, so that no living thing except a bird could get out. Therefore, I pray you ask not of me the slayers of the Spahis, for never in my life have I killed one of them."

The aga gnashed his teeth, and stared wildly about, as if seeking for big words worthy of the occasion.

"Darest thou say such things to me, thou wine-drinking infidel?" he cried at last. "I know very well that thou, single-handed, hast not cut down four-and-twenty Spahis; rather do I believe there were two thousand of you that fell upon them, but these thou must give up to me, every man-jack of them."

Large drops of perspiration began to ooze out upon the forehead of the commandant, and in his embarra.s.sment it occurred to him that deeds were better than words, so he seized the chain covered with chrysoprases and jacinths, which he had just been polishing, and handed them in a deprecating manner to the Turk, knowing that such a line of defence was most likely to obtain a hearing.

But the envoy gave the chain handed to him such a kick that the precious stones were scattered all over the deal boards, and, trampling them beneath his feet, he roared with a blood-red face:

"I want the murderers, not your precious stones."

The commandant thereupon seeing that the aga's emba.s.sy was really a serious matter, took him down to the soldiers, who were drawn up in the courtyard, in order to ask each one of them in the hearing of the envoy: "Where were you during the night in question?" Naturally everyone of them was able to prove an alibi, not one of them could be suspected.

The aga very nearly had an overflow of gall. He said nothing, he only rolled his eyes; and when the last soldier had denied any share in the death of the Turks, he leaped upon his horse, and threatening them with his fist, growled through his gnashing teeth:

"Wait, ye also shall have your St. Demetrius' day!"[21] and with that he galloped back to Grosswardein.

[Footnote 21: _i.e._ you shall be stoned to death.]

On his arrival he found Feriz Beg with the Pasha, and at once told his story, exaggerating the details to the uttermost.

"What did I tell thee?" said Feriz to the Pasha; "didn't I say they would send back the message that they had never quitted the town. I am sorry for your honour's hundred ducats."

At these words Ajas Pasha kicked over his chibouk and his saucer of sherbet, and in a hoa.r.s.e, scarce intelligible voice, said to the aga:

"Be off this instant to Stambul as fast as thou canst. Tell the Grand Vizier what has happened, and say to him that if he does not give me the amplest satisfaction, I myself will go against these unbelieving devourers of unruminating beasts who have dared to send me such a message, and will destroy them, together with their strongholds; or else I will cast my sword to the ground, and tie a girdle round my loins, and go away and join the brotherhood of Iskender! Say that, and forget it not!"

Very soon one firman after another reached the Prince from Stambul, each one of which, with steadily rising wrath, demanded the extradition of the a.s.sa.s.sins of the Spahis. The Prince made inquiries and searched for them everywhere, but n.o.body could be found to take upon his shoulders this uncommitted deed of heroism.

The messages from the Porte a.s.sumed a more and more furious tone every day. In itself the death of four-and-twenty Spahis was no very serious stumbling-block, but what more than anything lashed the Turkish generals into a fury was the persistent refusal of the Prince to acknowledge the offence. Yet with the best will in the world he was unable to do anything else, for not a single person on whom suspicion might fall could he find throughout the Princ.i.p.ality.

In those days the dungeons of Klausenburg were well filled with condemned robbers; in the past year alone no fewer than thirty incendiaries had been discovered who had resolved to fire all Transylvania.

One day the n.o.ble Martin Pok, the provost-marshal of the place, appeared before the robbers, and attracted the attention of the most evil-disposed of these cut-throats and incendiaries by shouting at them:

"You worthless gallows-dogs, which of you would like to be set free at any price?"

"I would! I would!" cried a whole lot of them.

"Bread is going to be dear, so we cannot waste it on the like of you, so Master Ladislaus Szekely has determined that whoever of you would like to become Turks are to be handed over to our gracious master, Ajas Pasha, who will make some of you Janissaries, and send the rest to the isle of Samos; so whoever will be a Turk, let him speak."