The most anxious suspense was legible in the faces of all present: they did not know whether the jest would end seriously or the reverse. "Your Excellency," continued Apafi, "has seized our envoy, Lord Ladislaus Csaky, and brought him to your house by force." "Ah!" cried Banfi, with affected astonishment, "I see it all now. Why then did not the Count tell me at once that you had sent him to hunt in my preserves? And besides, if your Highness had taken a fancy to some of my game, why did you not let me know it? I would have shot more excellent bucks for your Highness than any that my Lord Csaky could catch." "This has nothing to do with bucks, my lord baron. You know very well the ins and outs of the whole business. Don't force me to speak out plumply before these ladies." At these words Lady Banfi would have risen, but the Princess prevented her. "You must remain here," she whispered in her ear. "So far, I don't understand a single word," said Banfi, in an injured tone. "No? Then we'll recall to your mind a couple of circumstances. The peasants have caught sight of a panther in your woods." "It is possible," returned Banfi, laughing--for a Hungarian gentleman may jest with his guests but never be rude to them, however much they offend him--"it is possible that this panther is a descendant of those which came into the land with Árpád,[41] and may therefore be called ancestral panthers." [Footnote 41: Árpád, the primeval ancestor of the Hungarian princes, who first led the Magyars into the plains of Hungary. He died in 907. With Hungarians, to come in with Árpád is like our coming over with the Conqueror.] "It is no matter for jesting, my lord. That panther has torn a young Wallach to pieces in the sight of several persons, wherefore I sent out Lord Ladislaus Csaky to hunt down the beast and kill it. And Csaky had seen the monster and was hard upon it when you met him in the forest and stopped him." "Lord Ladislaus Csaky no doubt mistook his own tiger-skin for a panther." "No gibes, please. The lair of the monster is discovered. Do you understand me now?" "I understand your Highness. But 'twas a pity to put my lord Csaky to so much inconvenience for such a trifle. So 'twas he then who discovered the pleasure-house which I built over a hot spring among the rocks? Well, I don't think even such a discovery as that will earn for him the title of a Columbus." "You persist in sneering then? Will nothing make you bow your haughty head? Suppose now I knew the secret of that mysterious cave, what then?" Banfi began to change colour, and he answered in a low, husky voice, like a man who finds it very difficult not to speak the truth.