"I don't understand it at all," said he to his captains. "If the attack was by the Prince's command, I ought to have been served beforehand with a writ, a citation, or, at the very least, a notice of judgment. If however it be only an act of private vengeance, my band is more than sufficient to reach these honest Szeklers. In any case, you will remain under arms before the town while I go up to my castle. In a few hours I shall know whither we have to turn."
Thereupon Banfi rode into the town, accompanied by Michael Angel. As he turned the corner of his palace, he was obliged to pass over the ground where the house of Dame Saint Pauli had formerly stood. All that remained of it now was a large stone, and Banfi, chancing to look in that direction, saw the mistress of the vanished house sitting on that single stone, and evidently awaiting him. He turned impatiently away, but she arose, curtseyed low, and cried derisively—
"Good-morning, your Excellency! Good-morning!"
Banfi haughtily rode on without a word. At the palace gate the castellan of Bonczhida awaited him, who, after escaping from the violence of the Szeklers, had discreetly kept his evil tidings secret, and now told his lord, in a hurried whisper, that his castle had been turned upside down, and the Szeklers were making merry there to their hearts' content.
Banfi answered not a syllable, but he sent for his armour and his charger, and calmly got ready to depart.
"Your lordship would do well to hasten," said the castellan; "by this time the Szeklers must have penetrated into the state apartments."
"It is well," replied Banfi, walking up and down the room with folded arms.
"No, my lord; it is not well. They have smashed to pieces everything in the rooms, torn the carpets to shreds, divided among them the curiosities, flooded the cellars with wine, and even made away with the horses."
"It does not matter," replied the magnate hoarsely. What cared he at that moment for his costliest treasures, his wine, his horses?
"They have done still worse, my lord. They forced their way into her ladyship's bedroom, set up the bust of her ladyship as a target, and mutilated it horribly amidst peals of laughter."