Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/227

 death, with tears streaming from his eyes, and said: “It is news good for you, but mournful for us, that the most experienced soldier and pillar of the Turkish dominions, Synan Pasha, is dead, who served our imperial house faithfully, and often troubled the giaours, and before whom no fortress could stand, which he did but undertake to capture. ’Tis a pity, ’tis a pity, that that experienced man is gone! But now that it has pleased God, and the prophet Mahomet, that it should be so, may his soul shine as the sun! Neither I, nor my children, expect to see such a man again. Therefore, I advise and expect you to pray to God that Ibrahim Pasha, who sent you the alms, may be chosen grand vizier in his room.”

More than a fortnight passed while intrigues for that office were going on, till, at last, Ibrahim Pasha was chosen. At that time we were all heartily weary in the tower, for we had been fettered in irons for three years without intermission. Indeed, we often prayed with tears, and besought God for release, especially when very cold and disagreeable north-winds blew, till many of us fell sick; on some of us the skin sloughed from filth; others broke out into eruptions, and so great a stench came from them, that not only was it offensive to us, but even our guards were annoyed by such a smell. They, therefore, brought us laurel-leaves, which we put on the coals, like juniper, and fumigated with them, for they grow them in abundance. And, in sooth, we longed to die, being utterly enfeebled by hunger, and tortured by that intolerable darkness and stench, for we had no other hope of getting out of it, unless peace were made between our Emperor and the Sultan. Rightly is that