Apafi felt that his wife's obstinacy was getting him into a hideous muddle. This audacious woman would listen to no reasons of state in any matter which interested her humanity.
What was he to do? He pitied the persecuted lady from the bottom of his heart, but the emissary of the Sublime Porte, Olaj Beg, had come to demand her with plenipotentiary power. If he did not shelter the persecuted lady he would pronounce himself a coward in the face of the whole world; if he did shelter her, the Porte would annihilate him!
In the midst of this dilemma, one of the gate-keepers came in hot haste to announce that a band of Turkish soldiers was at that moment galloping along the road, inquiring in a loud voice for the Princess of Wallachia.
Apafi leant in dumb despair against a marble pillar whilst Anna quickly ordered her women to carry the unconscious lady to her innermost apartments and summon the doctor. She then went out on the balcony, and perceiving that the cavasses had just halted in front of the palace, she cried to the gate-keepers:
"Close the gates!"
Apafi would have very much liked to have countermanded the order; but while he was still thinking about it, the gates were snapped to under the very noses of the cavasses.
They began angrily beating with the shafts of their lances against the closed gate, whereupon the Princess called down to them from the balcony with a sonorous, authoritative voice:
"Ye good-for-nothing rascals, wherefore all that racket? This is not a barrack, but the residence of the Prince. Perchance ye know it not, because fresh human heads are wont to be nailed over the gates of your Princes every day as a mark of recognition? If that is what you are accustomed to, your error is pardonable."
The cavasses were considerably startled at these words, and, looking up at the imperious lady, began to see that she really meant what she said. For a while they laid their heads together, and then turned round and departed.
Apafi sighed deeply.