"By Heaven, a lucky coincidence! Your Highness comes to us at the very instant that we are draining our glasses in your Highness's honour. This is what I call an unlooked-for and most timely arrival."
Apafi received this salutation with a slight nod, and leading the ladies back to their places, sat down himself on Banfi's chair. Several of the guests hastened to offer Banfi their seats, but the Prince beckoned him to approach.
"Your Excellency will remain standing. We would submit you to a little friendly cross-examination."
"If we are to be the judges in this case," interrupted the learned Master Csekalusi, taking up his glass, "allow me to inform you that the necessary preliminaries[40] have already been observed."
[40] A banquet was the usual prelude to judicial as to all other public proceedings in Hungary.
"I will be the judge," said Apafi; "although I do not quite know who is the master at Bonczhida, myself or Denis Banfi."
"The law of the land is the master of us both, your Highness," returned Banfi.
"Well answered! You would remind us that an Hungarian nobleman permits no one to sit in judgment upon him in his own house. But this affair is after all only a little carnival jest. At least you have been pleased to call it so, and we will follow your example."
The most anxious suspense was legible in the faces of all present: they did not know whether the jest would end seriously or the reverse.
"Your Excellency," continued Apafi, "has seized our envoy, Lord Ladislaus Csaky, and brought him to your house by force."