In which is a very circumstantial, if not very
pleasant, description of all the conditions to be
observed in the exchange and purchase of slaves.
On arriving at the fortress of Onod, Valentine at once handed over
his prisoner and the money he had brought with him (of course
deducting the two hundred ducats which the robbers had taken away
from him) to the Commandant of the fortress, that he might ransom
therewith the persons who were languishing in the dungeons of Eger,
and especially the woman and child who had been abducted with him
and sold at the Eger cattle market. As for the imprisoned butcher,
he proposed to exchange him for the field-trumpeter, Simplex.
By this noble deed Valentine so completely won the hearts of the
brave warriors of Onod, that they made him a corporal on the spot.
Moreover, the liberated lady also visited him with her daughter,
expressed her thanks by kissing his hands and embracing his feet,
informed him that she was a rich proprietress, and insisted upon
giving him her daughter to wife as soon as she had reached maturity,
the young lady at present being only twelve years of age.
Valentine thanked her for her offer, but begged her to bring up her
daughter for some other more fortunate mortal. Who could tell where
his bones might be bleaching in five or six years' time?
It was only pretty Michal that he had always in his thoughts.
He could scarcely wait for Simplex to appear, so impatient was he to
set out with him to discover Michal.
But the ransom of the prisoners did not go off so smoothly after
all. The Kaimakan of Eger wrote to the Commandant of Onod that he
did not consider the Eger butcher worth four hundred gulden, the
amount of the trumpeter's ransom. There were still two and thirty
butchers at Eger, and therefore he would not give more than two
hundred gulden for this particular butcher. If the other two hundred
gulden were not paid in cash, the whole of the Christian prisoners
at Eger should suffer for it on the soles of their feet. Annexed to
the Kaimakan's letter was a heart-rending petition from the
Christian prisoners, in which they implored the Commandant to
fulfill the desire of the Kaimakan for their sakes.
The Commandant of Onod thereupon fetched out of prison the six and
twenty Turks who were in captivity there, and made them address a
solemn memorial to the Kaimakan of Eger, whom they piteously
besought not to bastinado the Christian captives, as in such a case
they, the Turkish captives, would be visited with still more
grievous torments.
The principal sufferers, however, were the two prisoners who were to
be exchanged, and from whom both sides tried to extort as much as
possible, so that in their mutual distress they grew quite fond of
each other.
At last Valentine sent the extra two hundred gulden, and both
Simplex and the Turkish butcher were escorted to Eger with fetters
on only one leg. There the Kaimakan received his gold and the
butcher his wife. Ibrahim Kermes celebrated his liberation with a
banquet, to which Simplex was also invited, and regaled with mutton
in twelve different editions. Finally, Ibrahim presented him with a
pair of red morocco slippers, while Jigerdilla sent Valentine a
couple of superfine laced pocket-handkerchiefs, with initials
embroidered in the four corners in Turkish letters, and wet with the
tears from her lovely eyes at the recollection of him.
But Ibrahim Kermes swore by the beard of the Prophet that he would
never again buy a Calvinist _giaour_ as a slave, even if he could
get him for a single denarius.
And now, after all this, it is high time that Valentine set out to
seek his unhappy Michal.