Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/168

 countless number of the inhabitants accompanied Synan to the place behind the city, where he had ordered his tents to be pitched and had his camp. For, whenever the Turks go from home, they do not go far on the first day, in order that, should they have forgotten anything, and it not be at hand, they may be the nearer, and therefore the more easily able to set matters to rights and fetch it.

We were all glad that our principal enemy had left the city, imagining that we should stay in the house shut up as it was, and that nothing worse would befall us; but hope deceived us. For on the third day Synan Pasha cunningly and falsely sent, in Ferhat Pasha’s name, some Turks of rank to my lord the am bassador, who lay very sick, bidding him immediately to take two or three servants only and come to him (Ferhat Pasha), to translate to him some Latin docu ments which had been found. My lord, being more dead than alive, begged them to make his excuses to the pasha, saying that it was impossible for him to ride on horseback at that time; but as soon as he was better he would gladly visit him. But they persisted in requiring him to get ready, and said that, if he did not do so voluntarily, they would compel him, as they had a carriage for him with them. My lord the ambassador, seeing that it could not be otherwise, put on a black velvet Hungarian suit, and, as the Turks told him he would come back in about an hour, seated himself in the carriage, which was lined withred cloth, (like those which have been used in cities from time immemorial, and into which you get by steps,) and bidding adieu to us, was taken from us by a pair of horses, not to Ferhat, but out of the city to Synan Pasha, only having five