The second rider who reached the castle, ordered the gate opened in the name of the Prince. He gave the castle warder a second paper. It was Ladislaus Csaki. The warder turned pale as he read this message.
"My lord," he faltered, "I have just received an order from Paul Beldi who threatens me with death if any harm happens to the prisoner."
"You have your choice," replied Csaki. "If you obey, it is possible that he will have your head cut off to-morrow. If you do not obey, I will kill you to-day." The warder trembled as he bowed.
"Raise the draw," ordered Csaki. "Let no one enter the castle without permission. Whoever acts contrary to my orders is a dead man."
Husband and wife slept peacefully. A minute later the door opened with a slight noise and Stephen Pataki entered, terror-stricken and with difficulty restraining his tears. He stepped up to Banfy to awaken him. As he touched his hand, Banfy, seeing Pataki who in his emotion could not speak, tried to rise without waking his wife but she opened her eyes at that very moment and Pataki, who did not wish her to know the terrible message, said in Latin:
"Rise, my lord, the death sentence is here."
Trembling at the speech in a foreign tongue whose meaning Pataki's face so ill concealed, Banfy's wife asked in terror what it meant.
"Nothing, nothing," said Banfy, with a tender smile, embracing his wife. "An urgent message that I must answer at once. I will return soon; lie down and sleep quietly."
With these words he laid his wife back in her pillows and kissed her tenderly several times, after each kiss saying: