Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/152

 him; if not, goes away and looks at others, so that these unhappy people are almost every hour obliged to strip themselves of their clothes. Their food is a piece of bread, and a draught of water, and that scantily supplied. No one who has not experienced it will believe, and it is impossible to believe, how great is the misery of Turkish captives, whom the Turks value less than dogs. As long as a captive lives, so long must he work, and when he cannot work his head is cut off; truly, more fortunate is the man who desires to die in war, rather than fall into such cruel misery, as he must endure both day and night.

At this time our fortune was already beginning to creak, when the janissaries quarrelled with the defterdar, or chief tax-gatherer, on account of non-payment of their wages, and, rising in mutiny, slew his family, to the number of seven persons. This mutiny was with difficulty appeased by the chief-pasha, and the chiaous-pasha was dismissed from all his offices for not having prevented it. My lord our ambassador, knowing very well that the Turks were preparing for war, and wishing to know what plans were being formed at the Turkish court in secret councils with regard to Hungary, induced, by many gifts and payments, the agas, or imperial chamberlains, to send him, by an old woman, information of the intentions of the Turkish court; and they then informed him, amongst other things, that it was determined, in the secret council, to commence war in Hungary.

My lord, therefore, quickly gave notice to our Emperor, by way of Venice, to be on the look out in Hungary. And not only were the imperial chamberlains