Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/231

 The pasha received our letter and said:—“Dear aga, thou perceivest and knowest how great a burden is placed upon me, so that I have more cares than hairs in my beard. Therefore, it is impossible to attend to them before I set more important matters in order. Remind me in about two or three weeks’ time, and conduct them to the divan (the national council), and I will use every means that they may be freed from this imprisonment.”

When the aga made this known to us we were filled with great joy, and waited anxiously for the time to come; and certain it is that those two weeks seemed to us as long a space as the four years preceding; for we were constantly thinking, whether the time was already come when we should be released from our prison. For such thoughts we could not even sleep. When the longed-for time came, the aga gave orders for us all to be let out of the tower, and the fetters to be taken off one foot. These we tied to our girdles, that we might carry them the more easily. On coming into the open air we were refreshed, as if born anew; yet we could not look at the sun, but, on coming suddenly out of such great darkness into the light, tears streamed from our eyes, till they became accustomed to it again. Meanwhile the aga ordered the caïque to be prepared for us to sail to Constantinople, and on looking over us, and seeing me, the youngest of all, with long hair and no beard, pale and emaciated, he said that I should stay there below with the guards and walk about, till he returned with my comrades, otherwise, on account of my youth, I might easily be seized by some pasha and forced to turn Mahometan. For the Turks, and especially the renegades, are addicted to infamous crimes, and young people are in great danger.