"To hell with thee, accursed monster!" roared the Beg, foaming with rage, and striking at the panther with his fist; but the beast tugged the halter first to the right and then to left, and stopped the horse in its flight; terrified it with his leaps and bounds, and forced it to go round and round. "Speak to this monster, Azrael!" cried the Beg. He turned round to look for his favourite, and he beheld her nestling lovingly in Balassa's bosom, with her snow-white arms encircling the young Hungarian's neck. At the same instant the woods all around teemed with life; the ambushed Hungarian soldiers rushed forth and tore the Beg from his horse, who, even when forced to the ground, tried to defend himself with stones. "Be accursed!" gasped the vanquished freebooter. The attacking squadrons marched before his very eyes through the secret passage into the fortress, and an hour later he could see, by the light of his burning palace, his favourite Azrael mounting up behind Balassa, and disdaining to bestow so much as a glance at the discomfited Beg. CHAPTER IX. THE PRINCE AND HIS MINISTER. Several years have elapsed since Apafi became a Prince. We have reached that period when the unexpected death of Nicolas Zrinyi dissolved the faction of the malcontent Hungarians, compelling most of them to emigrate into Transylvania, which land, owing to the ceaseless antagonism of the German Emperor and the Turkish Sultan, was allowed to enjoy an independent government. It paid indeed a tribute to the Sublime Porte; but it adopted what measures it chose in its own Diet, and if the Tartars occasionally reduced a few villages to ashes, that was only another proof that they no longer regarded the land as their own property. All the strongholds were in the hands of the Prince. He could keep as many soldiers as his purse would pay for, wage war with whomsoever he could cope, and hoodwink the Turks whenever it pleased him so to do. The Turk had nothing to find fault with, either in the constitution of the land, its peculiar privileges, its patriarchal aristocracy, its Latin language, and its Hungarian dolman; or, again, in its manifold religions and its three distinct[24] and self-governing nationalities. All these things did not trouble him in the least. At most he pitied the poor gentlemen who made such a muddle of affairs of state; but he never made the slightest attempt to initiate them into his own much simpler political system. [Footnote 24: _Viz._ the Saxons, the Szeklers, and the Magyars. The Wallachs simply cultivated the soil.] * * * * *