Olaj Beg looked at him, rose with the utmost aplomb, and approached a table on which was a silver dish covered by a cloth. This cloth he removed, and a severed bloody head stared at Yffim Beg with stony eyes.
"There he is—speak to him!" said Olaj Beg gently.
CHAPTER XXI.
OTHER TIMES—OTHER MEN.
Great men are the greatest of all dangers to little States. There are men born to be great generals who die as robber-chiefs. If Michael Teleki had sat at the head of a great kingdom, his name perchance would have ranked with that of Richelieu, and that kingdom would have been proud of the years during which he governed it. It was his curse that Transylvania was too small for his genius, but it was also the curse of Transylvania that he was greater than he ought to have been.
The Battle of St. Gothard was a painful wound to Turkish glory, and it left behind it a constant longing for revenge, though a ten-years' peace had actually been concluded; and presently a more favourable opportunity than the prognostications of the Ulemas or the wisdom of the Lords of Transylvania anticipated presented itself, an opportunity far too favourable to be neglected.
Treaty obligations had compelled the Kaiser to take part in the War of the Spanish Succession against Louis XIV., and the Kaiser's enemies at once saw that the time for raising their standards against him had arrived. The war was to begin from Transylvania, and the reward dangled before the Prince of Transylvania for his participation in this war was what his ancestors had often but vainly attempted to gain in the same way—the Kingdom of Hungary.
It was, of course, a dangerous game to risk one kingdom in order to gain another, for both might be sacrificed. There was even a party in Transylvania itself which was indisposed to risk the little Principality for the sake of the larger kingdom, and though the most powerful arm of this party, Dionysius Banfy, had been cut off, it still had two powerful heads in Paul Béldi and Nicholas Bethlen.
So one fine day at the Diet assembled at Fogaras, the Prince's guard suddenly surrounded the quarters of Paul Béldi and Nicholas Bethlen, and informed those gentlemen that they were State prisoners.
What had they done? What crime had they committed that they should be arrested so unceremoniously?