"I am afraid your Highness will arrive too late, for when the people found that I was paying for these stones, the belief spread among them that I was seeking for diamonds and carbuncles therein, so they smashed the whole mass into such tiny morsels that they could now be offered for sale as sand." "Have you spoken to that nobleman of Deva about the mosaic?" "He won't part with it at any price. He said that none of his ancestors had ever carried their property to market. If only he would remove it from the place where he found it, it would be something. But he won't even do that, and now the cow-house stands over it, and the oxen make their beds on the prostrate figures of Venus and Cupid." "I should very much like to confiscate that man's property, and so come into possession of that priceless curiosity," cried Apafi, with a scholar's zeal, and again he busied himself with the investigation of the enigmatical letters. At that moment Teleki entered the room with a busy, important look, and drawing from his silken pocket a MS. roll, placed it open in Apafi's hand. The Prince made as though he were reading the document attentively, and wrinkled his brows. Suddenly he looked up and exclaimed joyfully-- "They are Dacian letters!" "What!" cried Teleki, opening his eyes wide in his astonishment. He was at a loss to explain how the Prince could have found Dacian letters in the Latin MS. which he had just put into his hands. "Yes; there can be no doubt about it," continued the Prince. "I recollect reading somewhere--in Dion Cassius, I think--that the Romans, after the fall of Decebalus,[25] had commemorative medallions struck off with Dacian inscriptions, and the figure of a decapitated man on the reverse. Don't you see the emblem?" [Footnote 25: _Decebalus_. King of Dacia during the reigns of Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan.] "But your Highness," interrupted Teleki impatiently, "the memorial which I have handed to you----" And now for the first time Apafi perceived that a parchment was in his hand awaiting perusal. He returned it sulkily to Teleki. "I have already told you that I can speak to no one to-day. In a month the session of the Diet will begin, and then the Hungarian gentlemen can ventilate their affairs to their hearts' content." "I cry your Highness' pardon!" replied Teleki caustically; "this document is not from the Hungarian lords, but from his Excellency the Tartar Khan." "And what does he want?" cried Apafi, throwing a glance upon the parchment, but when he perceived how long it was he laid it aside. "I will be brief with him. Who brought the letter?" "An emir." Apafi immediately threw his attila over his shoulders, girded on his sword, and stepped into the reception-room. "Good-day! good-day!" he cried hastily to those assembled there. He wished to cut short their long ceremonious greetings, and looked about among them with inquiring eyes. "Where is the emir?"