Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/214

 They, too, they said, as soldiers, must expect a similar misfortune to that which had befallen us, adding:—“Bwgium sise, jarambise;” “To-day to you, tomorrow to us;” “for,” said they, “it is destined for each what fate he is to meet with.” When they saw us chained in fetters, and, moreover, with our feet in the blocks, they had compassion on us, and spoke to the aga not to treat us so harshly. For, just as with us no sensible people insult the Jews, but the mob, when they meet one, give him a fillip, or a kick, or knock his hat off his head, so also no respectable Turks insult the Christians much, but only the worthless mob, who will not be subject to any order or law.

When Synan Pasha returned from Hungary, and delivered the silver key from the fortress of Raab to his Sultan, Amurath, he was received and welcomed with great and inexpressible glory, so that nothing was talked about for a long time but his valour; and the vulgar Turks imagined that there were no more fortresses in Christendom, but Vienna and Prague. Our guards, too, advised us to turn Turks, if we wished to be released from prison, assuring us that, when spring came, the Sultan himself would go to Hungary, and take Vienna and Prague; and whither should we betake ourselves? But we gave them far different information about Christendom, at which they wondered greatly, and would not believe us, because they were otherwise instructed by their popaslars, or priests.

All that winter the Turks made preparations for a campaign in Hungary, and said that with the spring the Emperor himself would march, which both I, and the priest, John von Winor, my countryman and fellow