Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/200

 their names, and demanded that they should be watched by a guard, since he knew them as well as his own eye. They were, therefore, immediately seized, bound, and placed again in the Black Tower, where we afterwards found them, and shared their imprisonment. When we had already been half-a-year at the galleys, the Turks became fearful lest some of us should escape, and conducted us all back again from the galleys to our first prison, where they left us about a week.

Intelligence was again brought that our men had gained a glorious victory over the Turks in Hungary, whence great sorrow and lamentation arose on all sides; and the clerk of the prisoners, Alfonso di Strada, a Spaniard, who had gained his liberty by work and service, came to us early in the morning, and sorrowfully informed us that the Turks were violently enraged with us, and, in short, were on the point of putting us in the Black Tower, but that he did not in any wise wish us such a prison. Upon this we all fervently besought the Lord God that we might be released from that very terrible tower.

After dinner the pasha’s kihaja ordered us to be all called out, and made known to us the will of his pasha, and also bade us take our things and follow him, saying that we were to sail to the Black Tower. As soon as we heard the Black Tower mentioned, and received the unhappy news that we were to be placed in so gloomy a prison, we all with one voice began to weep and lament, till our hearts were breaking. All the other prisoners pitied us too, and wept with us; moreover, we would rather have undergone death than go to so unendurable a prison. Having, therefore, tied up our things in wal-