Mujko, the sham King, expresses his perfect satisfaction with the three beauties and begins to flirt with them. Magdalen, perceiving at once that they are being deceived, recognises the true King in the disguise of the cook, while he is haunted by a dim recollection, without being able to recognise the Countess in her disguise.
The scene ends with a charming ballet.—
In the third act Augustin has a stormy interview with Verona, whom he saw with a jealous eye flirting with the pretended cook.
Magdalen, who has also perceived Verona's wiles and graces, believes herself to be forgotten by the King, but Marjunka advises her, to revive his memory by a song, which he once composed for his lady love.
Meanwhile Augustin, goaded to fury by his provoking little bride, threatens to denounce the cook's love making to the King, and when he finds himself alone with the man, whom he takes for the cook, he tells him, that the King is being deceived, for the three beauties do not come from Fogaras.
On hearing this, the King decides to punish them for their treachery.—The prisoners being brought into the courtyard he tells Mujko to choose every tenth man of them as husbands for the three beauties of Fogaras.
Mujko announcing their fate to the ladies frightens them to death, the prisoners presenting a most repulsive aspect of misery and neglect.
The lot of the brunette is the first cast, but Czobor, the Bohemian leader intervenes, having recognised in Marjunka the girl he saw and loved two years ago.
After a sign from the King Mujko consents to give the brunette to Czobor.