Apafi could not remain in his room. He was obliged to go out into the fresh open air. Inside something seemed to choke him, the air was so oppressive--or was it his own conscience? He went into the garden. The cool night air soothed his throbbing head; the sight of the starry heaven did good to his darkened soul. Leaning over the balcony, he looked amazedly out into the quiet night, as if he expected a star larger than all the rest to fall from heaven, or some one miles and miles away to call him by name. Suddenly a scream fell on his ear. He looked around with a shudder, and terror made him speechless--before him stood his consort, whom his counsellors had kept away from him for weeks. The moment the last magnate had departed, her own faithful servants told her that the Prince had signed the death-warrant, and the terrified woman, breaking through the castle guards, rushed after Apafi, found him in the garden, seized him roughly, and shrieking rather than speaking in her agitation, exclaimed-- "Oh, accursed, accursed wretch! Thou hast shed innocent blood!" Apafi tried to avoid his wife. He feared her. "What do you want with me?" he asked in a hollow voice. "What do you mean?" "You have signed Banfi's death-warrant." "I!" cried Apafi feebly, trying to catch hold of his wife's hand. "Away with that hand, monster! It is stained with my kinsman's blood." "Then you don't consent to it?" stammered the abject creature. "Neither did I, but the magnates constrained me." The Princess smote her hands together, and looked at her consort despairingly. "You have brought blood on our family! You have brought a curse on the land and on me! Oh, why did I not let you perish in the hands of the Tartars? Where you are concerned virtue itself becomes a sin." Apafi was crushed. Alone with his wife, he was something less than a man. "I did not wish to kill him," he blurted out, "nor do I now; and if you wish it, I'll reprieve him. Here, take my signet-ring. Send a horseman after Csaky to Bethlen Castle. Reprieve your cousin and leave me in peace." "What ho, there! Who is without?" shrieked the Princess. The domestic servants came pouring in, headed by the pantler. "Take four of the Prince's swiftest horses with you," cried Anna, as she wrote out the pardon with her own hand and made her husband sign and seal it. "Take this letter and hasten to Bethlen Castle. If one of the horses falls under you, take the others. Stop not an instant on the road! A man's life is in your hands!" The grooms led forward the swift horses; the pantler swung himself into the saddle, and, leading the other three horses by the bridles, galloped away. The Princess impatiently followed him with her eyes till he was out of sight, and then went up to her room again; but unable to rest there long, she came down once more, sent for her faithful old servant Andrew, and giving him an old piece of green velvet,[56] set him on horseback and sent him after the pantler.