All the chief generals, all the border pashas, had received the Sultan's orders to gather their hosts together and lead them against the armies of the King of the Romans, and besiege the places which were the pretext of the rupture—to wit, the fortresses of FÜlek, BÖszÖrmÉny, and Nagy KallÁ.

At the same time the Government of Transylvania also received permission to attack Hungary with its armies, as had already been decided at the Diet of SzamosÚjvÁr.

Vast preparations were everywhere made. The Magyar race is very hard to move to war, but once in a quarrel it does not waste very much time in splitting straws.

Teleki, too, had attained at last to the dream of his life and the object of all his endeavours, for which he had knowingly sacrificed his own peace of mind, and the lives of so many good patriots—he was the generalissimo of the armies of Transylvania.

The Hungarian exiles in Transylvania hailed him as their deliverer, and he saw himself a good big step nearer to the place of EsterhÁzy—the place of Palatine of Hungary. And why not? Why should he not stand among the foremost statesmen of his age?

All the way to the camp at FÜlek he was the object of flattery and congratulation; the Hungarians gathered in troops beneath his banner, colonels and captains belauded him. As for the worthy Prince, he did not show himself at all, but sat in his tent and read his books, and when he felt tired he took his watch to pieces and put it together again.

At FÜlek the Transylvanian army joined the camp of Kara Mustafa.

Teleki dressed up the Prince in his best robes, and trotted with him and his suite to the tent of the Grand Vizier with growing pride when he heard the guards blow their trumpets at their approach, and the Grand Vizier as a special favour admitted them straightway to his presence, allowed them to kiss his hand, made the magnates sit down, and praised them for their zeal and fidelity, giving each of them a new caftan; and when they were thus nicely tricked out, he dismissed them with an escort of an aga, a dragoman, and twelve cavasses to see the whole Turkish camp to their hearts' content.

Teleki regarded this permission as a very good omen. Turkish generals are wont to be very sensitive on this point, and it is a great favour on their part when they allow foreigners to view their camps.

The dragoman took the Hungarian gentlemen everywhere. He told them which aga was encamped on this hill and which on that, how many soldiers made up a squadron of horse, and how many guns, and how many lances were in every company. He pointed out to them the long pavilion made of deal boards in which the gunpowder lay in big heaps, and gigantic cannon balls were piled up into pyramids, and round mortars covered with pitchy cloths, and gigantic culverines, and siege-guns, and iron howitzers lay on wooden rollers. The accumulated war material would have sufficed for the conquest of the world.

The gentlemen sightseers returned to their tents with the utmost satisfaction, and, overjoyed at what he had seen, the Prince gave a great banquet, to which all the Hungarian gentlemen in his army were also invited. The tables were placed beneath a quickly-improvised baldachin; and at the end of an excellent dinner the noble feasters began to make merry, everyone at length saw his long-deferred hopes on the point of fulfilment, and none more so than Michael Teleki.

One toast followed another, and the healths of the Prince and of Teleki were interwoven with the healths of everyone else present, so that worthy Apafi began to think that it would really be a very good thing if he were King of Hungary, while Teleki held his head as high as if he were already sitting in the seat of the Palatine.

Just when the revellers were at their merriest, a loud burst of martial music resounded from the plain outside, and a great din was audible as if the Turkish armies were saluting a Prince who had just arrived.

The merry gentry at once leaped from their seats and hurried to the entrance of the tent to see the ally who was received with such rejoicing, and a cry of amazement and consternation burst from their lips at the spectacle which met their eyes.

Emeric TÖkÖly had arrived at the head of a host of ten thousand Magyars from Upper Hungary. His army consisted of splendid picked warriors on horseback, hussars in gold-braided dolmans, wolf-skin pelisses, and shakos with falcon feathers. TÖkÖly himself rode at the head of his host with princely pomp; his escort consisted of the first magnates of Hungary, jewel-bedizened cavaliers in fur mantles trimmed with swansdown, among whom TÖkÖly himself was only conspicuous by his manly beauty and princely distinction.

The face of Teleki darkened at the sight, while the faces of all who surrounded him were suddenly illuminated by an indescribable joy, and their enthusiasm burst forth in eljens of such penetrating enthusiasm at the sight of the young hero that Teleki felt himself near to fainting.

Ah! it was in a very different voice that they had recently cried "Viva!" to him, it was a very different sort of smile with which they had been wont to greet him.Meanwhile TÖkÖly had reached the front of the marshalled Turkish army, which was drawn up in two rows right up to the pavilion of the Grand Vizier, allowing the youth and his suite to pass through between them amidst a ceremonious abasement of their horse-tail banners. The young general had only passed half through their ranks when the Grand Vizier came to meet him in a state carriage drawn by six white horses.

From the hill on which Teleki stood he could see everything quite plainly.

On reaching the carriage of the Grand Vizier, TÖkÖly leaped quickly from his horse, whereupon Kara Mustafa also descended from his carriage, and, hastening to the young general, embraced him and kissed him repeatedly on the forehead, made him take a seat in the carriage beside him, and thus conveyed him to his tent amidst joyful acclamations.

Teleki had to look on at all this! That was very different from the reception accorded to him and the Prince of Transylvania.

He looked around him—gladness, a radiant smile shone on every face. Oh! those smiles were so many dagger-thrusts in his heart!

In half an hour's time TÖkÖly emerged from the tent of the Grand Vizier. His head was encircled by a diamond diadem which the Sultan had sent for all the way to Belgrade, and in his hand was a princely sceptre. When he remounted and galloped away close beside the tents of the Transylvanians, the Hungarians in Teleki's company could restrain themselves no longer, but rushed towards TÖkÖly and covered his hands, his feet, his garments, with kisses, took him from his horse on to their shoulders, and carried him in their arms back to camp.

Teleki could endure the sight no more; he fled into his tent, and, throwing himself on his camp-bedstead, wept like a child.

The whole edifice which he had reared so industriously, so doggedly, amidst innumerable perils, during the arduous course of a long life—for which he had sacrificed relations, friends, and all the great and wise men of a kingdom, and pledged away the repose of his very soul—had suddenly collapsed at the appearance of a mere youth, whose only merit was the exaggerated fame of a few successful engagements! It was the heaviest blow he had ever staggered under. Oh! Fortune is indeed ingenious in her disappointments.

Evening came, and still Teleki had not quitted his tent. Then the Prince went to see him. Teleki wanted to hear nothing, but the Prince told him everything.

"Hearken, Mr. Michael Teleki! The Hungarian gentlemen have not come back to us, but remain with TÖkÖly. And TÖkÖly also, it appears, doesn't want to have much to do with us, for instead of encamping with us he has withdrawn to the furthest end of the Turkish army, and has pitched his tents there."

Teleki groaned beneath the pain which the distilled venom of these words poured into his heart.

"Apparently, Mr. Michael Teleki, we have been building castles in the air," continued Apafi with jovial frankness. "We are evidently not of the stuff of which Kings and Palatines of Hungary are made. I cannot but think of the cat in the fable, who pulled the chestnuts out of the fire with the claws of others."

Teleki shivered as if with an ague.

Apafi continued in his own peculiar vein of cynicism: "Really, my dear Mr. Michael Teleki, I should like it much better if we were sitting at home, and Denis Banfy and Paul BÉldi and the other wise gentlemen were sitting beside me, and I were listening to what they might advise."

Teleki clenched his fists and stamped his feet, as much as to say: "I would not allow that."

Then with a bitter smile he watched the Prince as he paced up and down the tent, and said with a cold, metallic voice:"One swallow does not make a summer. If ten or twelve worthless fellows desert to TÖkÖly, much good may it do him! The army of the real Hungarian heroes will not follow their example, and when it can fight beneath the banner of a Prince it will not fling itself into the arms of a homeless adventurer."

"Then it would be as well if your Excellency spoke to them at once, for methinks that this night the whole lot of them may turn tail."

Teleki seemed impressed by these words. He immediately ordered his drabants to go to the captains of the army collected from Hungary who had joined Apafi at FÜlek, and invite them to a conference in his tent at once.

The officers so summoned, with a good deal of humming and hahing, met together in Teleki's tent, and there the Minister harangued them for two good hours, proving to demonstration what a lot of good they might expect from cleaving to Apafi, and what a lot of evil if they allowed themselves to be deluded by TÖkÖly, till the poor fellows were quite tired out and cried: "Hurrah!" in order that he might let them go the sooner.

But that same night they all fled to the camp of TÖkÖly. None remained with Apafi but his faithful Transylvanians.

But even now Teleki could not familiarise himself with the idea of playing a subordinate part here, but staked everything on a last, desperate cast—he went to the Grand Vizier. He announced himself, and was admitted.

The Grand Vizier was alone in his tent with his dragoman, and when he saw Teleki he tried to make his unpleasant face more repulsive than it was by nature, and inquired very viciously: "Who art thou? Who sent thee hither? What dost thou want?"

"I, sir, am the general of the Transylvanian armies, Michael Teleki; you know me very well, only yesterday I was here with the Prince."

Just as if the two speakers did not understand each other's language, the dragoman had to interpret their questions and answers.

"I hope," replied the Grand Vizier, "thou dost not expect me to recognise at sight the names of all the petty princes and generals whom I have ever cast eyes on? My master, the mighty Sultan, has so many tributary princes in Europe, Asia, and Africa, that their numbers are incalculable, and all of them are superior men to thee, how canst thou expect me to recognise thee among so many?"

Teleki swallowed the insult, and seeing that the Grand Vizier was anxious to pick a quarrel with him, he came straight to the point.

"Gracious sir, I have something very important to say to you if you will grant me a private interview."

The Grand Vizier pretended to fly into a rage at these words.

"Art thou mad or drunk that thou wouldst have a private interview with me, although I don't understand Hungarian and thou dost not understand Turkish, or perchance thou wouldst like me to learn Hungarian to please thee? Ye learn Latin, I suppose, though no living being speaks it? And ye learn German and French and Greek, yet ye stop short at the language of the Turks, though the Turks are your masters and protectors! For a hundred and fifty years our armies have passed through your territories, yet how many of you have learned Turkish? 'Tis true our soldiers have learnt Hungarian, for thy language is as sticky as resin on a growing tree. Therefore, if thou art fool enough to ask me for a private interview—go home and learn Turkish first!"

Teleki bowed low, went home and learnt Turkish—that is to say, he packed up a couple of thousand thalers in a sack—and, accompanied by two porters to carry them, returned once more to the tent of the Grand Vizier.

And now the Grand Vizier understood everything which the magnate wished to say. The dragoman interpreted everything beautifully. He said the Sultan was building a fortress on the ice when he entrusted the fate of the Hungarians to such a flighty youth as Emeric TÖkÖly. How could a young man, who was such a bad manager of his own property, manage the affairs of a whole kingdom? And so fond was he of being his own master, that he suffered himself to be exiled from Transylvania with the loss of all his property rather than submit to the will of his lawful Prince. The man who had already rebelled against two rulers would certainly not be very loyal to a third; while Apafi, on the other hand, had all his life long been a most faithful vassal of the Sublime Porte, and, modest, humble man as he was, would be far more useful than TÖkÖly, whom the Porte would always be obliged to help with men and money, whereas the latter would always be able to help with men and money the Porte and its meritorious viziers—uti figura docet.

Mustafa listened to the long oration, took the money, and replied that he would see what could be done.

Teleki was not quite clear about the impression his words had made, but he did not remain in uncertainty for long; for scarcely had he reached the tent of the Prince than a defterdar with twelve cavasses came after him, and signified that he was commanded by the Grand Vizier immediately to seize Michael Teleki, fling him into irons, and bring him before a council of pashas.

Michael Teleki turned pale at these words. The faithless dragoman had told everything to TÖkÖly, who had demanded satisfaction from the Grand Vizier, who, without the least scruple of conscience, was now ready to present to another the head of the very man from whom he had accepted presents only an hour before.

The magnate now gave himself up for lost, but the Prince approached him, and tapping him on the shoulder, said:"If I were the man your Excellency is pleased to believe me and make other people believe too—that is to say, a coward yielding to every sort of compulsion—in an hour's time your Excellency would not have a head remaining on your shoulders. But everyone shall see that they have been deceived in me."

Then, turning towards the defterdar, he said to him in a firm, determined voice:

"Go back to your master, and say to him that Michael Teleki is the generalissimo of my armies and under my protection, and at the present moment I have him in my tent. Let anyone therefore who has any complaint against him, notify the same to me, and I will sit in judgment over him. But let none dare to lay a hand upon him within the walls of my tent, for I swear by the most Holy Trinity that I will break open the head of any such person with my cudgel. I would be ready to go over to the enemy with my whole army at once rather than permit so much as a mouse belonging to my household to be caught within my tent by a foreign cat, let alone the disgrace of handing over my generalissimo!"

The defterdar duly delivered the message of the enraged Prince to the Grand Vizier. Emeric TÖkÖly was with him at the time, and the two gentlemen on hearing the vigorous assertion of the Prince agreed that after all Michael Apafi was really a very worthy man, and sending back the defterdar, instructed him to say with the utmost politeness and all due regard for the Prince that so long as Michael Teleki remained in the Prince's tent not a hair of his head should be crumpled; but he was to look to it that he did not step out of the tent, for in that case the cavasses who were looking out for him would pounce upon him at once and treat him as never a Transylvanian generalissimo was treated before; and now, too, he had only the Prince to thank for his life.

Teleki was annihilated. Nothing could have wounded his ambitious soul so deeply as the consciousness that the Prince was protecting him. To think that this man, whom the whole kingdom regarded as cowardly and incapable, could be great when he himself had suddenly become so very small! His nimbus of wisdom, power, and valour had vanished, and he saw that the man whom he had only consulted for the sake of obtaining his signature to prearranged plans was wiser and more powerful and more valiant than he.

Peering through the folds of the tent he could see that, faithful to the threatening message, the cavasses were prowling around the tent and telling the loutish soldiers that if Teleki stepped out they would seize him forthwith. The Szeklers laughed and shouted with joy thereat.

Then the magnate began to reflect whether it would not be best if he drew his sword, and rushing out, slash away at them till he himself were cut to pieces.

What a ridiculous ending that would be!

Towards evening Emeric TÖkÖly paid a visit to the Prince. He approached the old man with the respect of a child, did obeisance, and would have kissed his hand, but Apafi would not permit it, but embraced him, kissed him on the forehead repeatedly, and made him sit down beside him on the bear-skin of his camp-bed.

The young leader feelingly begged the old man's pardon for all the trouble that he had caused him and Transylvania.

"It is I who ought to beg pardon of your Excellency," said Apafi in a submissive voice.

"Not at all, your Highness and dear Father. I know that you have always loved me, but evil counsellors have whispered such scandalous things to you about me that you were bound to hate me—but God requite them for it if I cannot."

"Be magnanimous towards them, my dear son; forgive them, for my sake."

TÖkÖly was silent. He knew that Teleki was in the tent, he saw him, but he would not take any notice of him. At last, without even looking towards him, he said, in the most passionate, threatening voice:

"Look, ye, Teleki, you have practised all sorts of devices against me, but if you put your nose outside the tent of the Prince you will eat his bread no more. You would be in my power now, and here your head would lie, but for his Highness whom I look upon as a father."

Michael Teleki was silent, but future events were to prove that he had heard very well what was now spoken.

After surrendering the fortress of FÜlek to the Turks, the Transylvanian gentlemen returned home with their army; and Michael Teleki, when he got home, paid a visit to the church where lay the ashes of Denis Banfy, and hiding his face on the tomb, he wept bitterly over the noble patriot whom he had sacrificed to his ambitious plans.