"Take your place here at the door," replied the minister. "The Prince will soon pass on his way to dinner; you may then speak with him."
The young man with the beggar's pouch sat for a long time at the Prince's door, until Apafi finally appeared and the beggar placed himself at once in his way.
"Who are you?" asked the Prince astonished.
"I am the ransomed knight Emerich Balassa, who was once named among Hungary's most influential men, and who now stands before your Highness with a beggar's staff."
"You were concerned in that conspiracy, I believe," said Apafi, who appeared unpleasantly affected by the scene.
"I was not, your Highness. If you will deign to listen to my story"—
"Tell it."
"As you well know there was once in Hungary a notorious Turkish robber-knight, by name Corsar Bey, who for a long time laid waste the upper country and whom the united powers of the counties could not succeed in bringing under control, in his rocky fortress. This man I caught by stratagem and in such a manner as to win over to my side his favorite. Under pretext of an apparition she enticed him alone outside the castle. I was duly informed, fell upon him with my men who had been concealed in the forest, and took him captive with his favorite, one of the most beautiful and unprincipled of women."
"I have already heard the story, Balassa. That was a worthy deed."
"Then hear the rest, your Highness. No sooner was the news of the capture spread abroad than the Palatine demanded of me most emphatically to give over my prisoners to him. The Turks had already offered me sixteen thousand ducats for the two, but I would not let them go at any price and sent word to the Palatine that if he wished to call a Bey his own, he must crawl out from behind his wife's shadow and catch one for himself. I had caught mine for my own use."