Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/198

 shut, and many thousand people searched for the prisoners on all sides, by land and by water, but found none of them, except the Hungarian who was sitting in the fosse. Three days afterwards the German, Hernstein, was found among the vineyards, he not having been able to get rid of his fetters. When they were both brought before the chief pasha, and had given a true account of their escape, he asked the mufti, or chief priest, what he should do with the prisoners? The mufti immediately bade him not to do them any harm, but to remember that, although a bird in a cage has enough to eat and drink, yet, nevertheless, it seeks a hole through which to make its way out; much more does a prisoner, who suffers hunger, misery, and want, longing for freedom, as a reasonable creature, seek out all manner of means to set himself free; therefore those persons were not guilty, or deserving of any punishment, but their guards deserved to be punished capitally, since they had not done what their duty required, and had thoughtlessly let loose such important prisoners, who might be a cause of great damage to the Turks. The pasha, without delay, commanded all the guards who had had the watch that day, and their chief commanders, to be hung in the fortress, immediately appointed another aga, named Mehemet, and committed the two prisoners to his vigilance, with the advice to take warning from the fate of the previous governor, and, if he did not wish to lose his life as well, to look better to the guards himself.

Three months afterwards the Turks captured two other prisoners, Hungarians, who had also escaped at that time from the Black Tower, viz. Christopher, an innkeeper, and Matthew, a hussar. The own brothers