Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/165

 it, we should have wrested it from him by force, and thrown it into the fire, for we were as numerous as they. But my lord immediately began negotiating with the chiaouses, and sent his cousin to the money-chest, and ordered him to bring out dollars and ducats in Hungarian hats, and distributed them among the chiaouses, begging them only to allow him to tear something out. This would certainly have been done for the money, but that villain, when the chief chiaous requested it from him, would let nothing go out of his hands, affirming that his fortune and life depended on it. Thus my lord distributed his money to the chiaouses in vain.

When the Turkish commissaries took their departure, my lord began to lament bitterly, reproached the secretary with tears, and asked him how he should answer for it to God and our Emperor, saying, “I care not for my own neck; I am quite content to die, if only it were not for you young people; for you will be obliged to become Mahometans to save your lives, and thus you will come to perish everlastingly owing to my heedless secretary’s gaming. For, when what that unhappy renegade took out of the cupboard is brought to Synan Pasha, it is impossible for you to escape a terrible death.” From that time forth he ate and drank nothing, did not sleep in bed, was continually praying with tears, and expecting every hour the time when we should be sent for.

After a short time that wretched renegade steward sent word to my lord that he would allow him to tear something out of the documents, if he would send him 1,000 broad dollars. My lord, in fact, sent him several hundred dollars; but he took the money, went with it to Synan Pasha, and boasted to him how well and honestly