Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/210

 months, I began almost to talk, and could already read. For a Turkish priest used to come to me in the prison and teach me, and I promised to give him some stockings and gloves for his trouble. My two partners also learnt with me. It was very surprising to the Turk that I comprehended their letters and language in so short a time, and he spread wonderful reports about me everywhere. When our old aga came to know this, he came into the tower, and I had to read to him. He also wondered at my attainments, and promised me that it would be well with me to the day of my death if I would become a Mussulman; for when Cykula Pasha, a born Italian, came to know of me, I should be compelled, nolens volens, to become a Turk. If, then, I wished to remain a Christian, I should leave off my studies. At this I was exceedingly terrified, and my companions, also, gave me similar advice. I satisfied the Turkish priest, and left off learning. May the Lord God recompense the aga for his counsel, for I really should have been taken out of the tower and placed in that pasha’s suite. When we had already been more than four quarters of a year in this Black Tower, with only one shirt and one rug a-piece, the violent frosts and cold wet west-winds tormented us in winter, just as much as the great heat had done in summer, and therefore our aga made us each a coat of cloth, in which we clad ourselves and kept out the cold.

Being all emaciated with hunger, our guards begged for us, from the fishermen, a large fish, just like a round table, and with a long tail, which the Turks call a kedy baluk, or cat-fish. This fish is not eaten, but its fat, for it is very fat, is melted down. Our guards begged this