Last of all came a thick-set, sturdy Szekler, in a short sheep-skin jacket, who called himself the representative of Olahfalva; did homage to Apafi in the name of his district, and preferred two very peculiar petitions, to wit: that from henceforth Olahfalva should be declared to be only two miles from Klausenburg (the real distance between the two places is, as we all know, more than twenty); and secondly, that it should be legally enacted that he who had no horse should go on foot.
The Prince laughingly complied with both of these extraordinarily ludicrous requests, which put him into such a good humour that an itinerant scholar, Clement by name, a crooked-nosed, long-legged individual, wrapped from head to foot in a fox-skin mantle, made bold to approach Apafi, and present him on his knees with a huge parchment roll which he had been holding in his hand for some time, and which the Prince, not without extraneous help, now took and unfolded. Inside it he read the whole genealogical record of the Apafis, painted on a green-leaved family-tree, whereby his family was brought into connection with the illustrious Bethlen and Bathory families; traced back to King Samuel Aba, from him again to Huba, one of the seven original leaders of the Magyars, and thence ascending still further, first to Attila's youngest son Csaka, and from him in the female line to the daughter of the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, but in the male line to Nimrod, the first recorded earthly king.
This fulsome piece of flattery seemed to somewhat annoy Apafi; but as he could not quite make up his mind to kick the impertinent poet out of the tent, he resolved to be quit of him with a handful of ducats, and placed the genealogical tree behind him by way of a prop.
Nevertheless the Prince's good-humour was not in the least disturbed. He seemed to feel it his bounden duty to treat every one who approached him with peculiar graciousness and condescension, and after listening patiently to the last of his many petitioners, he turned to Messrs. Nalaczi and Daczo, who stood by his side, and said—
"Is there absolutely nothing I can do for you? How shall I requite the fidelity with which you have stood by me from the very first?"
Nalaczi and Daczo had long been racking their brains as to what they should ask of the Prince. Their chief anxiety was lest they should ask too little.
"I leave the reward of my poor services to the benevolence of your Highness," said Nalaczi: but he thought within himself that the Szeklers needed another Captain-General in the place of Beldi.
"The little I have been fortunate enough to do for your Highness is, in my opinion, not even worth mentioning," declared Daczo; but it did occur to him at the same time that the post of Governor of Klausenburg, vacant by the flight of Banfi, was just the very thing for him.
Apafi looked at them benignly, and no doubt would have created both these worthy but not particularly capable gentlemen privy-counsellors at the very least, when, unfortunately for them, a hubbub outside here interrupted the conversation, and the body-guards, drawing aside the curtains of the tent, admitted Kucsuk Pasha.
The Prince sprang from his seat at once, and would have gone to meet him, had not Stephen Apafi pulled him by the mantle and whispered in his ear—