Part 18 (2/2)

”Valentine! Valentine!” cried Dame Sarah, threatening her son with the large carving-knife which she always kept hanging by her side.

”You are after no good thing. You love a woman who has already got a husband. Don't deny it! I see by your sudden change of color that I've hit the mark. Valentine, you are walking in evil ways! Bethink you what is in store for you--here on earth the sword of the headsman, and in the next world the fires of h.e.l.l! You know that in matters of morality our laws don't jest! I have seen with my own eyes many a head, quite as comely as yours, roll in the sand--the sole offense of these poor sinners was presuming to cast sheep's eyes at women who had no business to have lovers at all. But I pray G.o.d that he'll place an obstacle in your path at the very outset, which will make it impossible for you to go any further on the way where shame, death, and d.a.m.nation await you. G.o.d will hear me!”

But Valentine reflected that he too had recommended his affairs to G.o.d. Had he not said that if he returned safe and sound from the battle, it should be a sign that his intention of seeking out his beloved in her misery was right and pious? And, lo! the blessing of G.o.d had followed hard upon his footsteps; he had not only returned home safe and sound, but had brought back with him a captive whose ransom would enable him to face all manner of unknown perils with far more courage than if he only had an empty purse. Therefore he impatiently waited for the kinsfolk of his prisoner Achmed to send him the ransom from Grosswardein. But it was just at this time that Dame Sarah was moving heaven and earth to convert the Turk. Every day she read to him extracts from the Gospels, and taught him to sing hymns. He had even got so far as to renounce those articles of his creed which prohibited the drinking of wine and the eating of ham, when he one day put to Dame Sarah the ticklish question, whether a converted Turk might not keep all four of his wives? The worthy dame smote her hands together in horror.

”What! you have four wives, you d----d Turk? Well, then, you may remain in your heathenish faith for all I care. Go with your four wives to your Turkish h.e.l.l, but don't contaminate ours.” And with that she washed her hands of him altogether.

A few days later the Turk's ransom reached the hands of Captain Hommonai, who paid over the money to Valentine, and Achmed was sent off to Grosswardein.

So Valentine had at last enough money to carry out what he had so long been brooding over.

His first step was to beg Captain Hommonai for a short furlough for himself and his comrade Simplex, which furlough he very easily obtained, inasmuch as my lord count was just then in the middle of his honeymoon, and therefore ill disposed to engage in martial feats for some time to come. The Turks also were keeping very quiet in that part of the country.

The two hundred ducats Valentine already had in his pocket. All that he now required for his journey was a good cloth mantle, a stout ax, a flask, and a knapsack.

It was also of no small a.s.sistance to our two honest comrades that the general ordered the squadron of cavalry to which they belonged to proceed to Onod (which was half-way to Zeb), for Valentine was thereby able to conceal from his mother the fact that he had obtained leave of absence. So they reached Onod safely, and thence made their way across country to seek Michal.

Yet the prayers of Dame Sarah were more efficacious than the resolutions of the two friends, for as they were pa.s.sing through the Onod forest, out of the bushes sprang twelve of those miscreants who then pursued the accursed trade of kidnaping Christian men and women in order to sell them to the Turks. Valentine indeed made a good fight for it, and broke no end of jaws and noses; but at last he was overpowered by numbers. Then the robbers gagged him, and tied him with his comrade to a tree, and naturally left him very little of the two hundred ducats which they found upon his person. Then they separated to seek fresh booty. In the evening they returned with a woman and a young girl, and at dusk they tied the captives to their saddles and haled them away.

Thus Dame Sarah's pious wish that her son Valentine might light upon an obstacle which should hinder him at the very outset from pursuing his evil way, was exactly fulfilled.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Wherein is related what very different fates befell the two honest comrades.

The wicked kidnapers took off all their captives' upper garments, leaving them nothing but their s.h.i.+rts and hose to cover their limbs with, and drove them in this guise through all the villages they came to.

The captive girl had bruised her feet on the stony ways so that it was as much as she could do to limp painfully along. Valentine could not bear to see the robbers goading the poor child on with their whips, as if she were a brute beast, so, as if he had not enough wretchedness of his own to carry, he must needs take her on to his shoulders and trudge along with her to Eger, where they happened to arrive on market day. The slaves were driven straight to the market place, where a brisk traffic in oxen, sheep, and buffaloes was going on, and one of the accursed robbers blew a hoa.r.s.e, squeaking fife, to advertise his slaves, and after attracting a crowd around them, began to praise their good points with a glib tongue. He called attention to Valentine's mighty arms as he stood there defiantly protruding his broad chest; but as for Simplex, he pulled such wretched faces and was so doubled up by his misery, that the robber felt bound to flip him now and then with his whip just to put a little life into him. The female slaves were treated with even less ceremony, for the robber tore the very smocks from their shoulders to show the purchasers how smooth their skins were.

First of all the woman and her little daughter were sold. A Mudir required them both, so at all events they had the consolation of each other's society.

Then there came an under-sized Turkish butcher who dealt in sheep flesh, and rejoiced greatly when he learnt from Valentine that he was a butcher's a.s.sistant. He did not chaffer very long about him, but paid the thousand ducats which the robber demanded for Valentine, put him in chains, and drove him off, at the same time bidding him be of good cheer, as he would be very well treated, have enough to eat, and when the vintage time came, might work in the vineyards in the open air, and have plenty of sour wine to comfort his heart with.

But for Simplex no purchaser could be found. They all looked at his hands, which were quite smooth and soft, for how could trumpet blowing make them hard? n.o.body would have him. In vain did the robber make him dance at the end of a rope like a bear, and cry continually:

”Buy! buy! Who'll buy this _giaour_?”

At last, finding that no one would buy him, he led him to the fortress to the pasha. There the Mutes.h.i.+n came to meet him, and the robber said that he had brought him a captive soldier, for all captive soldiers had to be handed over to the pasha, who made an immense profit out of them by buying them dirt-cheap and then reselling them to their friends at fancy prices. The Mutes.h.i.+n, therefore, paid the robber forty ducats down for Simplex, one of which the G.o.dless wretch gave to the poor captive as a sort of parting gift.

Simplex was then sent straight to the smithy, and there such heavy fetters were fastened to his legs that he could scarcely drag them along. After that they stuck him in a subterranean dungeon, already occupied by some fifty other persons, who said very little to each other, but squatted on the floor, as near as they could get to the narrow, single window, and carved pipes, plaited scourges, or wove Turkish girdles in order to earn a few aspers. Many of them, however, lay against the wall as if they were sick, and these had their feet tied up. A barber came down to them in the morning and evening to change their bandages, and rub their wounded soles with soothing salves.

Simplex asked them what long journeys they had been taking to make the soles of their feet so sore. One of them answered:

”Just wait a bit. It will be your turn soon to take the same journey and find out where Bambooland lies.”

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