And immediately Banfi commanded his men to set out for Marisel as swiftly and as silently as possible, and bade the little band he left behind him light many large fires in the wood, so as to make the enemy believe that the whole host was bivouacking there, while he himself hastened towards the imperilled hiding-place. To Zülfikar he paid five hundred gold pieces for his timely warning.
The same night Ali Pasha fell with his whole host upon the two or three hundred Hungarians whom Banfi had left behind him; scattered them after a brief resistance, and hastened back to Grosswardein, swallowing as best he could the indignity of a great defeat, for he left behind him two thousand dead, and the whole of his baggage.
From him too Zülfikar received the covenanted one thousand gold pieces, thus doing a service to the Turks and to the Hungarians at the same time, and making both of them pay him for his pains.
CHAPTER V.
THE BANQUET TRIBUNAL.
The blast of hunting-horns resounded from the Batrina Mountains, the hubbub of the chase came nearer and nearer; a group of well-dressed, well-mounted gentlemen led the way, and at their head rode Count Ladislaus Csaky.
"After him! after him!" resounded on all sides, and the pack were already in full cry, when the cavalcade, emerging from the thicket into an open glade, suddenly encountered another party coming from the opposite direction, in whose leader they all recognized Denis Banfi. Csaky with considerable confusion called the beaters back.
Banfi rode up to the group with an ironical smile.
"Welcome, gentlemen, to my domains. Delighted, I'm sure, at my great good fortune. Probably you have lost your way; but, if not, you are my guests, and consequently doubly welcome. But, pray, why do you stare at me so wildly? You really remind me of the Hindoo proverb, which says, He who beats the woods for a stag, oftentimes falls in with a lion."
"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."