"Be magnanimous towards them, my dear son; forgive them, for my sake."
Tököly was silent. He knew that Teleki was in the tent, he saw him, but he would not take any notice of him. At last, without even looking towards him, he said, in the most passionate, threatening voice:
"Look, ye, Teleki, you have practised all sorts of devices against me, but if you put your nose outside the tent of the Prince you will eat his bread no more. You would be in my power now, and here your head would lie, but for his Highness whom I look upon as a father."
Michael Teleki was silent, but future events were to prove that he had heard very well what was now spoken.
After surrendering the fortress of Fülek to the Turks, the Transylvanian gentlemen returned home with their army; and Michael Teleki, when he got home, paid a visit to the church where lay the ashes of Denis Banfy, and hiding his face on the tomb, he wept bitterly over the noble patriot whom he had sacrificed to his ambitious plans.
CHAPTER XXX.
A MAN ABANDONED BY HIS GUARDIAN-ANGEL.
One blow followed hard upon another.
In the following year the Sultan assembled a formidable host against Vienna, and the Transylvanian bands also had to go. Teleki would have avoided the war, but his representations and pretexts fell not upon listening ears. They asked him why he, who had hitherto urged on the campaign, wanted to withdraw from it now that it was in full swing? If he had liked the beginning, the end also should please him.
But the end was exceedingly bitter.