Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/205

 as I was, in my shirt, and only having a torn upper garment over it. The Croat said to them, “There are no more fetters.” The aga, on hearing this, commanded me to go into the tower without irons; but his councillors would not allow it, explaining to him, that, young as I was, I might, nevertheless, help myself and the rest of my companions out of prison, and that he well knew himself what danger he would afterwards be in. They therefore agreed that I should be fettered, and, as they had no more fetters, they put two iron rings round each of my feet, and riveted them to a chain. Thus I, too, was constrained to drag myself back to the tower after my companions with tears.

When the third day came, and neither bread nor other food was given us, we sent for our aga, and asked what they wanted to do with us. And it being already the third day since we had had anything in our throats, if they wanted to kill us with hunger, we bade them throw us into the sea and drown us, that we might, at any rate, be quit of our misery. When we wept before him, he had such compassion on us that tears fell from his eyes, and he said to us:—“As God lives, and his great prophet Mahomet, I do not wish you so grievous and gloomy a prison; and I cannot wonder sufficiently why they imprison you, and give no orders what is to be done with you further. I do not think that they are going to kill you with hunger, for surely they would not have put you among the other prisoners; but you would have been put into a vault, where they kill the other Turks with hunger. Therefore, I will go immediately to Constantinople, and ascertain, and inform you directly, what is to happen with you further.” All of us then kissed his