"I summon a Diet! I should like to know who would appear to my summons. Why, sir, I am the least amongst the gentry of the land; people will laugh in my face, and say that I am mad." "In that case they will soon see that it is they who are mad." "But how am I to send out the writs? for, excepting the land of the Szeklers,[9] Kemeny[10] holds every place." [Footnote 9: _Szeklers_ (Siculi). The Szeklers were originally a military colony placed, at the beginning of the twelfth century, in the waste lands of Transylvania, which they engaged to defend against the incursions of the pagan Pechenegs, on being exempted from every other obligation.] [Footnote 10: John Kemeny, Prince of Transylvania, 1661-1662.] "Then summon the Szeklers. They, at any rate, will come." "But I don't even know _their_ chief-men, for I am not a born Szekler. The only persons I know amongst them are Stephen Kun, John Daczo, and Stephen Nalaczi." "Then summon hither Stephen Kun, John Daczo, and Stephen Nalaczi, if you consider them fit and proper persons." Apafi began to scratch his head. "But supposing they do appear, where shall we hold our Diet? There is no place for us. At Klausenburg the governor, my brother-in-law, Denis Banfi, is my sworn enemy, while at Hermannstadt lies John Kemeny in person." "We can assemble here in Kis-Selyk." Harassed as he was, Apafi could not help laughing aloud. "Why, here there is not a house large enough to hold thirty men," cried he energetically. "What! is there not the church?" interrupted the Pasha. "If that house be sufficiently fine for the honour of God, I suppose it will do to honour men in!" Apafi saw no further escape. "Can you write?" asked the Pasha. "Yes, I can do that," replied Apafi, sighing deeply. "Very well, for I cannot. So sit down and issue the writs for a Diet." A slave then brought in a writing-table, a scroll of parchment, and an inkhorn. Apafi sat down like a lamb about to be slaughtered, and began with a caligraphic flourish so large that the Turk sprang up in affright, and asked what it meant. "It is a W," answered Apafi. "You won't leave any room for the remaining letters." "That is only the initial letter, the others will be much smaller." "Read aloud then what you are writing." Apafi wrote with a trembling hand and read: "Whereas--" The Pasha furiously tore away the parchment and roared at him. "Plague take all your whereases and inasmuch-ases! Why all this beating about the bush? Write the usual formula--'We, Michael Apafi, Prince of Transylvania, command you, wretched slaves, by these presents, to appear incontinently before us at Kis-Selyk, under pain of death.'"