"We are homeless fugitives," sobbed Sophia, sinking on her father's breast. "They have taken from us our Hungarian possessions; my husband has been driven from his castle, and a price set on his head." Beldi became very serious. This unexpected ill-tidings pricked him to the heart. Within, Tököli's thundering voice was raising a perfect tempest of indignation, but Beldi no longer made haste back to quell it. "Remain with me," said he, with a troubled countenance; "here you can dwell in peace till things improve." "Too late!" said Wesselenyi. "I have already enlisted under the flag of the French General, Count Boham, as a common soldier." "You a common soldier! You, the descendant of the Palatine Wesselenyi! And what in the meantime is to become of my daughter?" "She will remain behind with you--till Hungary has been won back again!" and with these words he placed his wife in Beldi's arms, kissed her on the forehead, and departed with dry eyes. Within raged the tumult. Beldi heard his daughter sobbing, and a bitter feeling began to fill his breast, a feeling not unlike a nascent desire of vengeance. He felt almost pleased that war was being demanded within there; and he, the leader of the peace party, was also just about to draw his sword, rush into the Diet, and exclaim--"War! war! and retribution!" when the pages led into the lobby an old man as pale as death, who, recognizing Beldi, staggered up to him and addressed him in a trembling voice-- "My lord, are you not the Captain-General of the Szeklers, Paul Beldi of Uzoni?" "Yes. What do you want with me?" "I am the last inhabitant of Benfalva!" stammered the dying man. "War, famine, and pestilence have carried off all the others. I alone remain, and feeling that I too am on the point of death, I have brought you the official seal of the place and the church bell. Give them to the Diet. Preserve them in the archives, and write over them--'These are the bell and the seal of what was once Benfalva, the inhabitants of which utterly perished.'" Beldi's nerveless arm dropped the hilt of his sword, and he tore himself from his daughter's embrace. "Go to your mother at Bodola, and learn to bear your fate with a stout heart!" Then he took the seal and the bell from the dying man, and hastened back to the hall of the Diet, where Tököli had just finished his speech, which had produced a terrible effect on the Assembly. The French ministers were shaking hands with him. Beldi stepped up to the president's table, and placed upon it the seal which had just been handed to him. Every one looked at him, and seeing that he was about to speak, became silent.