That night all Transylvania was greatly disturbed. Farkas Bethlen could not sleep in his bed all night. Stephen Apor was so unwell that he had to send for his confessor, and Kornis lost himself so completely on his way home that he was forced to sleep in his carriage.
And what was going on in heaven? Towards midnight a storm arose, the like of which the oldest men could not call to mind. The lightning set forests and castles on fire; the falling clouds drove the rivers out of their beds. The alarm bells resounded everywhere. God sat in judgment over the land that night. The whole population was sleepless.
Only the reconciled consorts slept calmly.
With one arm under her husband's head and the other embracing him, the pale and fragile lady fell asleep. At times she wept in her dreams, and her tears fell on the pillow. She was dreaming of her happy bridal days, and of that sweet moment when she had laid her first and only child in her husband's arms, and she pressed him more closely to her, while he lay sleeping there so calmly, at enmity with the world, but reconciled to himself and to the better-half of his soul. Happiness, which had fled him in his palace, sought him out in his dungeon.
The night lamp cast its pale rays on the sleeping forms.
Through that terrible night, four horsemen, scarcely a thousand paces apart, are galloping at full speed towards Bethlen Castle. During the lightning flashes they sometimes catch a glimpse of each other, and then each of them digs his spurs more deeply into his horse's sides.
The first horseman reaches the castle gate and winds the signal horn. The drawbridge sinks groaning down; the horseman springs into the courtyard and places a letter in the hands of the flurried castellan. It is Paul Beldi's messenger.