"I'm nicely in for it now," sighed Apafi with the resignation of despair.
His solitary hope now was, that the deputies whom he had summoned would ignore his informal mandate by failing to appear.
A few days afterwards, as Apafi still lay on his camp bedstead in the early morning, Stephen Kun, John Daczo, and Stephen Nalaczi, with all the other noble Szeklers to whom the circular had been sent, suddenly walked into his tent.
"In Heaven's name!" cried Apafi, starting up, "why have you come hither?"
"Your Highness ordered us to come hither," replied Nalaczi.
"True; but you would have shown far greater wisdom if you had kept away. What are you going to do?"
"Solemnly install your Highness, and, if need be, defend you also in the good old Szekler fashion," replied Stephen Kun.
"You are too few for that, my brothers," objected Apafi.
"Pray be so good as to cast a glance outside the tent!" replied Nalaczi, drawing aside the curtain and pointing to a band of Szeklers armed with sabres and lances, who had remained outside the tent. "We have marched out cum gentibus, to prove to your Highness that if we have accepted you as our Prince, we have not done so simply by way of a jest."