"You are accused of grievous crimes, from which we have neither the will nor the power to absolve you. You will therefore be conveyed to Hermannstadt with a strong escort, there to clear yourself as best you can."
John Szasy, with a stupefied air, looked first to the right and then to the left. He could not understand it at all.
"You, Master Moses Zagoni, we command to present your accounts for examination to our officers of the Exchequer thereunto appointed."
To hide his own confusion, Zagoni thought he could not do better than whisper consolation to Szasy.
The deputy of Olahfalva had now to take his turn. It was indeed high time that something amusing should happen, for while the Prince had thus been distributing rewards and punishments, the smile had gradually vanished from every face; nothing short of the discomfiture of the quaint and crafty boor could now restore the general hilarity.
"What I promised you," said the Prince, scarcely able to repress his inward merriment, "is yours. If it give you any satisfaction, you may henceforth regard Olahfalva as only two miles distant from Klausenburg instead of twenty; let him also who has no horse go on foot as you desire. But we grant this with the express reservation that you are not to take any timber to the market of Klausenburg, and that you always give the couriers the necessary relays of horses."
The Szekler grinned, shook his head, and then looked very hard at the Prince, as if to find out how Apafi could possibly have got to the bottom of his artifice.
The wondering, puzzled face of the Olahfalvian was too much for Apafi's gravity, and he burst into a loud guffaw, in which everybody present joined him. The Szekler, whose face had hitherto worn a bewildered smile, suddenly became quite serious, threw back his head defiantly, cast a furious look around, half stripped off his short jacket, and exclaimed—
"Harkye, gentlemen! If the Prince chooses to make merry with me, I suffer it; but I'll trouble you all not to laugh so at my expense."
The Prince beckoned to them to be silent, and diverted their attention by calling forward the itinerant scholar Clement, who shambled up on his long, lean legs, as if he were every moment about to fall on his knees.