"Eh! you damned beasts! Who commands here, I should like to know? Am I not your captain?"
"No!" bluntly replied a stiff-necked, bull-headed Szekler, twitching his bulky shoulders to and fro. "Our captain is Nicholas Bethlen, and he is not here."
"Then go and find him. But let me tell you that whoever does not instantly quit this room shall be beaten into a pulp."
Still the Szeklers persisted in remaining, and there is no knowing what they might not have done, had not one of the hindermost suddenly exclaimed—
"Let us go to Bonczhida!"
Thereupon all the others fell a-shouting—"To Bonczhida! to Bonczhida!" and they withdrew, cursing horribly, and in the most chaotic confusion.
But Captain Kornis quietly put Lady Banfi into a carriage, and sent her to Bethlen Castle, which then belonged to Paul Beldi, hoping that Banfi would behave with a little more discretion when he heard that his wife was a prisoner.
Meanwhile, the Szekler rabble sent out against Banfi by order of the Prince had arrived at Bonczhida, and on showing the castellan the Prince's mandate, the gates were opened to them without the slightest contradiction. Daczo only left a portion of his band there, whom he strictly charged to arrest Banfi the moment he appeared, then with the rest he went on to Örmenyes, where Banfi had another castle, to seek him there.
The Szeklers left behind at Bonczhida no sooner perceived themselves captainless, than they proceeded to make themselves perfectly at home in the occupied castle. At first indeed they only jostled each other in the hall and vestibules, but presently they began to insist that the private apartments should also be thrown open to them.