Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/201

 lets, and each taking his own property on his shoulders, we mournfully bade adieu to the prisoners, but were unable to speak for excessive weeping. All who were in the prison accompanied us with tears and lamentations to the gate.

A sad and sorrowful journey! indeed, the heart could then have broken with sorrow. One prisoner gave us half a loaf of bread as a parting gift, another some sewing needles, another a piece of cotton, and each what he had. When we came to the gate, and thus sorrowfully weeping, thanked the Quardian Pasha of the place for having been kind to us, he too wept over us with compassion, and, intending to console us, said to us: “Now, my dear prisoners, as the prophet Mahomet knows, I do not wish you that grievous prison, whence ye will never come forth till the day of your deaths, and will never meet your friends. I pity you, poor creatures! And yet, if ye be willing to become Turks, ye will be released from all this, and will receive special presents from the pasha. My counsel is that ye do so, for when ye arrive there ye will be forgotten by all who knew you. That prison is called the grave of the living, because the prisoners stay there, as in a grave, and never come out again.”

These words of the pasha caused us still more pain and heartfelt sorrow, and after embracing each other we bade adieu to the prisoners and all the Turks. At parting the Quardian Pasha ordered a loaf of bread with a draught of wine to be given each of us, but we could neither eat nor drink, nay, we could not even speak or see for weeping, knowing that we had no hope of getting out of that tower to the day of our death.