are
dismissed. As you see my counsellors are in opposition and without
them I can do nothing."

"We will bring it before the Diet," said Teleki, solemnly.

The Prince withdrew, greatly annoyed, to his private room, and the
lords went out the other door.

Banfy looked at him proudly as he went away and then straightened his
fur cap.

"My good standing is at an end," he said mockingly as he went away.

Teleki looked after him coldly. When all had gone Teleki whispered a
few words to a page, who went away and soon came back with a
curly-haired blonde youth.

It seems as if we had already seen this young man at some time, but
for so short a time that we cannot at once recall him. Over his warm
dress hung a beggar's pouch, and in his hand was a knotted stick.

"So at last you allow me to come into the presence of the Prince," he
said in a somewhat imperious tone to Teleki.

"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 Turk