Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/98

 each other, they dismounted from their horses, and embraced each other with great joy, as if they had long known each other. Herr Petsch was more especially delighted, as he was aware that there was something brewing among the Turks before it broke out, and knew that he was to return to Christendom in a few days.

During this day’s journey we lost two of our company, the clerk of the kitchen and a Hungarian tailor. These persons, wishing to get to Constantinople before us, left the road and were seized by the Turks, who imprisoned them in one of the emperor’s summer-houses, went off, and rode to Constantinople to ask Bostangi Pasha what they were to do with them. Meanwhile the Hungarian tailor broke loose, and helped his companion to break loose from his bonds. Being thus freed from their fetters, they fled and concealed themselves; nor was it till the third day afterwards that they got to us at Constantinople. Moreover, the Turks took from them all the money they had with them, at least thirty ducats, and it is a certainty that, had they not broken loose, they would have been taken and sold somewhere beyond the sea.

This day we went for a long time through the city of Constantinople before we arrived at the hotel assigned to us, which was built of square red stone, and covered in with a lead roof. Immediately as you enter it, through a great gate, is a clean and tolerably spacious square, with gates on each side, and a stone staircase, by which you can ascend to the gallery, which is of stone, and runs all round. Underneath is a kitchen, wine-cellars, and stabling for 200 horses. Above, on