Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/193

 misfortune. The superintendent was so violently enraged at us for not seizing him that he immediately ordered six blows with the usual scourge to be given to each of us over the bare back, beginning at the first bench and ending at the last; and thus, on account of this godless villain, over three hundred poor Christian captives had to suffer. If the Turk had come to us in the boat a second time we should have felt such tender compassion for him that not a single piece of him would have remained. Being tender, I felt the effects of this beating for a tolerably long time, and so did some of the rest. Bloody weals sprang up in different parts of the body, and as it was the very hottest weather, and we were obliged to leave the island and pull at the oars, the skin burst, the perspiration aggravated the pain, it itched, it nipped, enough to drive one mad; but it pleased a kind God again to grant that I obtained favour in the eyes of a Turk, who gave me a piece of salve to put over it. Nevertheless, as I could not be free from pain, and it could not be helped, I comforted myself, at any rate, with the fact that I had three hundred partners in my pains, according to the proverb:—

At this time there were sixteen important prisoners in the Black Tower, four Hungarians, two Greeks, one German, and the rest Italians. The Greeks were notorious pirates, or sea-robbers, who had done great damage to the Turkish merchants. And some of these prisoners had been fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen years in the tower, without having any hope of getting out of it. The two Greeks, who were famous heroes and majestic