"I know it," replied Beldi, and let Teleki read Kutschuk Pasha's letter with the exception of the signature.
"You know more than I," said the minister; "what I wished to say of this affair is a secret which not even walls may hear."
"I understand," said Beldi, and at once gave orders that no one should come into the entrance hall, stationed guards under the windows and had the curtains drawn. Only one way was left unguarded, and that was a door in the arras at the back of the room, which led by a narrow hallway to his wife's sleeping room, an arrangement often found in the houses of the Hungarian nobility. By way of precaution Beldi closed even that door.
"Do you feel safe enough?" he asked Teleki.
"One thing more. Give me your word of honor that in case the information communicated to you does not meet your approval you will at least guard it as a secret."
"I promise solemnly," replied Beldi, tense for the development. With that Teleki drew out a sheet of parchment folded several times, spread it out and held it under Beldi's eyes without letting it go out of his hands. It was the League formed against Banfy signed and sealed by the Prince. The farther Beldi read in the document the gloomier he grew. Finally he turned to Teleki and thrust the paper from him with loathing.
"My lord, that is a dirty piece of work!"
Teleki was prepared for such a reception and summoned his usual sophistry to his aid.
"Beldi," he said, "this is no time for strait-laced notions. It is the end and not the means in this case. This is the worst only because it is the last. It is the last because there is no other way left. If anybody in the country has attained to such despotism that the arm of the law is no longer strong enough to bring him into the courts, then he has only himself to thank if the state is compelled to conspire against him. The man who cannot be reached by the executioner's axe is struck by the dagger of the assassin. When Dionysius Banfy set at naught the commands of the Prince and began war on his own account he put himself outside the law. In such a case when the justice of the state has lost its authority it is natural to take refuge in secret justice. If anybody has wronged me and the law cannot procure me satisfaction I make use of my own weapons and shoot him down wherever I find him. If the country is wronged by anybody who escapes punishment, it must make use of the jus ligatum and have the man seized. The general welfare demands this and the general peril drives us to it."
"God's hand controls us," said Beldi. "If he will destroy our fatherland let us bow our heads and die with a quiet conscience—die in the defence of liberty; but let us never raise our arms to the destruction of our own hereditary justice. Rather let us endure the evils that have their origin in this freedom, than lay the axe to its very root. Let war and conflict over freedom enter our land rather than any conspiracy contrary to its laws. The one sheds the blood of the nation but the other kills her soul. I disapprove of this League and will fight against it."