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 shirts 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 hoarse, 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 assistant. 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? Nobody 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 Muteshin 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 Muteshin, therefore, paid the robber forty ducats down for Simplex, one of which the godless 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."

And, indeed, before the week was out, Simplex's curiosity was satisfied, and he had no need to bother his head about the matter any more.

When his turn came he was led to the Kaimakan.

The Kaimakan was a fat-faced, big-bellied man who loved his joke. He was smoking a pipe with a very long stem, and sat with crossed legs on a bright carpet.

He addressed Simplex most affably, called him "my dear son!" and asked whence he was, who his relations were, how much property he had, and where his estate lay.

Simplex gave him the same answer which he had given to the robber captain, Janko. He said that he was a poor orphan.

At this the Kaimakan fairly screamed with laughter.

"Ha! ha! Of course! of course! Just as if you had got it all up. All the lot of you answer like that when the question is first put to you. I know! I know! You have neither father nor mother, don't even know where you were born, are as poor as a church mouse, carry your house on your shoulders, your bread in your breast, and begging is your trade. 'Tis the usual answer to the first question, but we'll now see what you've got to say to the second question."

He gave a nod, and four soldiers instantly threw Simplex to the ground. Two of them tied his feet together and hoisted them up with a cord till the soles pointed heavenwards, whereupon the other two so belabored them with bamboo sticks, that Simplex, in reply to the continually reiterated questions, confessed that he was a prince, that his father was the Doge of Venice, and his godfather the King of Poland, and that they would certainly send, on application, his weight in gold by way of ransom.

At this the soles of his feet were belabored still more--poor Simplex really thought his last hour had come.

Then followed the third examination. The Kaimakan ordered poor Simplex's swollen and lacerated soles to be well rubbed with soothing balsam, told the soldiers to give him a cooling drink, and then began to address him still more amicably.

"Look now, my dear son! Why talk such nonsense? Why say at one moment that you are a poor orphan, and the next that you are a prince? Surely there must be someone in the wide world who would give something to save your skin, some good friend or other who would pay your ransom for you? Just reflect a moment! Surely we don't ask so very much?"

Then it occurred to Simplex that he had one good friend, only unfortunately this friend had also fallen into captivity at Eger, where a butcher had purchased him; if he were in a position to buy his friend off he would certainly do so.

"Oh, come, now! there's sense in that. And what kind of master-butcher is it, then, who purchased your friend?"

"He has a blistered face."

Now as there was no less than thirty and three butchers in Eger whose faces had all been blistered by the fly bites which are part and parcel of their trade, the Kaimakan summoned them all to the fortress, so that Simplex might pick out the right one.

He selected Valentine's master, Ibrahim.

The Kaimakan ordered Ibrahim to bring his slave thither forthwith.

Worthy Valentine was horrified when he saw his poor Simplex in such a condition.

"Poor Simplex! in what misfortune have you not been plunged on my account! I am much better off, for I have a mild sort of master who lets no one beat me but himself, and uses not a stick but a thong of hippopotamus leather."

"But why do you endure it? Why don't you write to your mother to ransom you?"

"I have written to her and prayed her to send the ransom for us both, nor had I long to wait for an answer. She says she is quite ready to pay down the ransom, but only on condition that I henceforth become her slave, do everything she commands, go nowhither without her knowledge and consent, never consort with you again, and utterly forget her whom I love most of all in the world, otherwise she'll leave me in the hands of the Turks."

"And what answer did you make?"

"I wrote to her: 'God bless you, my dear mother, but I prefer to remain where I am, for I'll never forget my beloved, even in death, nor deny my faithful comrade, whom I have sworn to stand by as long as I live.'"

"Bravo, Valentine!" cried Simplex; then snapping his fingers at the Kaimakan, "your servant, Pasha! Now I'll go back to prison again. When the soles of my feet are healed, you can begin the examination over again, if you like!"

So Simplex was carried back to his dungeon, and there he had leisure to learn to make Turkish lace at an asper an ell, and reflect what an absurd sort of destiny it is when a man is beaten on the soles of his feet because his friend is enamored of a woman who can never be his.

Meanwhile the wounds on the soles of his feet began to heal, but that was no consolation to him, for he had been told beforehand that as soon as he was able to stand upright he would again be cross-examined. There were many among the prisoners who had been tortured in this way three or four times. The Turks called it "negotiating." He who offered little, got much.

At last the day arrived when he had again to go before the Kaimakan. He knew it twenty-four hours in advance, for the prisoners who were to be examined got nothing to eat the day before. Bamboo is less injurious when taken on an empty stomach.

Simplex was all of a tremble when he entered the antechamber. The Kaimakan was sitting on his carpet, and on a low table before him steamed a dish of pilaf, that is, sheep's flesh mixed with rice; beside him lay two bamboo canes.

"Ah! Come hither, my son, and choose," said the Kaimakan to the trembling wretch, "which you will have: this dish of pilaf or a hundred strokes on the soles of your feet with these two bamboos? Don't tremble, but choose whichever you like. Here are paper, ink, and pens, write me out a receipt. If you want pilaf, write that you have received pilaf; but if you choose stripes, acknowledge that you've had stripes."

Simplex did not understand it at all. He could not see the point of the Kaimakan's joke. But he did not want the bastinado again, and the pilaf pleasantly tickled his nostrils. So he did not take long to make up his mind, but sat down and consumed the pilaf to the very last morsel. It pleases the Turks when one does not despise their favorite dishes. Simplex knew that.

"Now, my son," said the Kaimakan, when Simplex had finished, "now write that I have this day regaled you with pilaf instead of bamboo, and address your letter to your dear comrade, the honorable, noble, and valiant Valentine Kalondai, that accursed, unbelieving dog who has not only freed himself from captivity without a ransom, but has taken his master, the sheep butcher, along with him to Onod, and now he offers him in exchange for you, and threatens to requite his prisoner good or evil, according as you are treated here."

So Simplex had to testify in writing that the Turks had shown him all possible kindness. Then the fetter was taken off one foot and fastened to his girdle as a sign that he was half free; but he had to go about with the chain on the other foot till his good friend came to take it off.