But it did not escape Teleki that, immediately after this scene, both the magnates quitted the room, and he learnt soon afterwards that they had suddenly left Fehervár, thus leaving the field clear for him. Teleki and his satellites remained alone with the half-besotted Prince. "Drink, gentlemen! drink! be merry!" cried Apafi. "Don't drop off one by one! Who last went out there?" "Beldi!" cried several voices. "Ah, I understand! The poor fellow has not seen his wife for a long time. Let him go. And who else has gone?" "Banfi!" "What? Banfi too? What's the meaning of that?" "He has gone to lord it at home?" sneered Szekely, one of Teleki's creatures. "He can't endure to be anywhere where there is a greater than he," put in Nalaczi. "I certainly shall not resign the princely diadem to please his Excellency!" cried Apafi. "That is not necessary!" insinuated Teleki. "He knows how to rule in Transylvania without an _athname_. When he commands the country must obey, and what the country commands he contemptuously rejects." "I should like to see him do it!" murmured Apafi angrily. "But is it not so? We want war, he doesn't, and we must give way. We want peace, and he is immediately up and waging war against our allies on his own account. The throne is ours, the realm is his!" "Don't say that, Master Michael Teleki!" "I appeal to you, Nalaczi! What answer did he give in the Zolyomi affair?" "He said that if the country wished him to surrender the Gyulai property to Zolyomi, it must give him in exchange the domain of Szamos-Ujvar." "What!" cried the Prince, "the property which the Estates gave to me for my maintenance! My princely domains! The man must be mad!" "So he said, adding that he would not surrender the property even if Zolyomi saddled us with the Turks in consequence." "Well, now we've had enough of him. Not a word more about it, gentlemen." "The insult to the Turks your Highness might overlook," persisted Teleki, "but we really cannot look through our fingers any longer at the way in which he treats the gentry. The latest victim of his tyranny is Lady Saint Pauli. The poor widow's ancestral dwelling was an eyesore to the great lord, because it spoiled the prospect from his palace windows; so he had the house appraised at his own valuation, and turned the poor lady out of doors. The magistrate gave her a letter of indemnity, but my Lord-Marshal tore the letter to pieces, and pulled down the poor widow's sole possession, her ancestral dwelling-place. The Diet, he said, might build it up again if it felt so disposed. Such an act, sir, in ordinary times has been known to cost the doer thereof his head!" Apafi was silent, but his bloodshot eyes began to glow savagely.